(Picture: Laura Abernethy)

You might have heard banana peel is going to be the next big thing in vegan food.

Earlier this week, this recipe for banana skin pulled pork went viral – and people weren’t quite sure what to think.

At first, eating the bit of the banana we usually throw away does not sound appealing (sorry, couldn’t resist) but that might just be because we automatically think of it as something gross that needs to go in bin.

It’s perfectly edible, and in some Asian and South American countries, cooking with the peel is commonplace.


So, we decided to give this ‘pulled pork’ thing a go for ourselves – and it was actually quite good.



I’m not vegan or vegetarian – I eat meat most days but I am trying to cut down as I know the impact it has on the environment. I try to eat vegan/vegetarian at least once a week so I’m used to cooking plant-based recipes.

I was pretty sceptical about this one. When I have pulled pork, I go for slow cook chunks of pork with a rich BBQ marinade and this just didn’t sound like it was going to have anywhere near the same effect.

Often vegan recipes use jackfruit for pulled pork recipes, and although I’ve tried it, it’s harder to get hold of, quite expensive and difficult to prepare.

The recipe we tried This recipe is from The Stingy Vegan with a few adaptations 2 medium organic bananas firm and not quite ripe 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika ¾ teaspoon chili powder ¾ teaspoon dry mustard (I didn’t have any of this but just added a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard to the marinade) ¾ teaspoon garlic powder ¾ teaspoon onion powder (i didn’t have any and couldn’t find any in my nearest supermarket so I left it out. You could fry and onion in the pan before adding the skin if you want) ¼ teaspoon cumin A few splashes of water 2 tablespoons vegan barbecue sauce (I used Heinz, which the internet assures me is vegan) A pinch of salt Vegan coleslaw (I used the M&S Plant Kitchen one) 1 bun

Luckily, this recipe was straightforward and you probably have a lot of the ingredients already.

It’s a mix of spices, two bananas, BBQ sauce, coleslaw and a bun.

I already had most of the spices and the BBQ sauce so I just picked up a bunch of bananas (the recipe recommends organic bananas as the skin could have traces of pesticides. Make sure you wash your bananas well before you start), a packet of buns and a vegan coleslaw (FYI, the M&S Plant Kitchen coleslaw is great but you can also make your own with chopped veg and vegan mayo).

The coleslaw cost £1.50, four buns cost 70p and the organic bananas were £1.60. That would make enough for three-four people for less than £5.

Peeling the bananas (Picture: Laura Abernethy)

I started by peeling two bananas (two skins per person so use more if you are serving this up to more than just yourself) and using a spoon to scrape off all the white stringy bits from the inside.

Scraping the skins (Picture: Laura Abernethy)

Obviously try not to throw the banana away – slice it up and mix it with yoghurt and oats for overnight oats for breakfast, chop it up for a fruit salad for dessert, make it into banana bread or muffins or you can freeze it and mix it with milk in a blender to make a banana ice cream.

The ideal way for this to work would be to preserve the peel every time you eat a banana. I’m not sure how long they would last but according the the internet you can shred them, lay them between greaseproof paper and then freeze them for use later. I imagine they’d at least be fine for later in the day if you have a banana for breakfast or lunch.



Next, I shredded them into strands using a fork. This is probably the most time consuming bit of the whole process and I imagine it would take a bit of work for lots of people but the whole recipe took me half an hour so it’s not that bad.

Shredding them (see how they are already going brown) (Picture: Laura Abernethy)

The banana skins started to go brown quite quickly and I was worried about how unappetising the whole thing was, but I tried to keep an open mind.

I cut all the shreds in half and made up the marinade of spices, mixed with some olive oil.

I then tossed the banana skin in the marinade. The recipe says to leave it there while you make your coleslaw but I’d already bought that so I just left it for five minutes or so.

Marinating the skins (Picture: Laura Abernethy)

I set my pan to a medium heat and threw the marinated skin in there with a splash of water and just left it to cook.

Once it was in the pan, it started to look a little bit pulled pork-esque, if you ignored the little bits of yellow.

Cooking in water(Picture: Laura Abernethy)

The recipe recommends cooking for five to 10 minutes depending on how tough your skin is. Mine were fairly ripe bananas and after about five minutes they were already pretty soft. I knew I wanted a bit of a bite to it so I added in the BBQ sauce, cooked for another 30 seconds and took it off the heat.

After cooking with the BBQ sauce (Picture: Laura Abernethy)

At this point, I roped in my even more sceptical flatmate Elliot to try some with me without the bun and coleslaw. But amazingly we both agreed it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t have the texture of pulled pork – more like marinated vegetables but it was tasty and you would have no idea what it actually was.


I then piled the peel into a bun with the coleslaw and served it with some sweet potato chips. With all the accompaniments, it honestly tasted good. The contrast with the crunchy shredded vegetables in the coleslaw somehow made it feel less like crunchy vegetable.

Finished (Picture: Laura Abernethy)

It was tender and soft and just tasted like rich BBQ sauce – no taste of banana at all.

I finished the meal and declared I would probably make it again. It was quick, cheap, easy, filling and actually tasty.

If the vegan pulled pork isn’t for you, there are also recipes online for banana peel bacon, fishcakes or burgers. It’s tasteless but seemed to take on the flavour easily. It would be great replacement for meat for any dish with a strong flavour.

Basically, we’ve been throwing some delicious food away all this time and I would recommend giving it a try.

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