Green Banana

About this crop

Before a banana turns yellow and sweet, it is a firm, starchy, and entirely savory vegetable. The green banana has a thick, stubborn skin that clings tightly to the dense, pale flesh inside. When cooked, it behaves much like a potato, offering a mild, earthy flavor and a satisfying, dense texture that absorbs the savory broths of complex stews.

Traditional uses

In Cape Verdean and Caribbean traditions, the green banana is a crucial, everyday carbohydrate. In Cape Verde, it is often boiled alongside yuca and sweet potatoes as part of the hearty root vegetable platters that accompany fish. In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, guineos verdes are boiled and served with escabeche (pickled onions and chicken gizzards) or mashed into the dough for pasteles.

This practice of treating the unripe banana as a savory staple is shared across the Atlantic. In East Africa, specific varieties of green bananas (matoke) are the foundational crop, steamed in their own leaves and mashed into a thick, comforting puree. In West Africa, they are boiled and eaten with spicy pepper soups.

This savory fruit connects the Cape Verdean families of Fox Point with the Dominican families of Broad Street and the East African communities of Providence. It challenges the North American assumption that a banana is only a sweet snack, revealing its true, global identity as a versatile, sustaining, and deeply comforting savory staple.

How to prepare

Peeling a green banana requires a different technique than peeling a ripe one, as the skin is stiff and secretes a sticky sap. Cut off both ends of the banana. Score the skin lengthwise in three or four places with a sharp knife. You can then pry the skin off with your thumbs, or, to make it easier, boil the bananas in their skins for ten minutes until the skins turn black and split open, then peel them.

For a simple, classic Caribbean preparation, boil the peeled green bananas in heavily salted water until they are tender and easily pierced with a fork, which takes about twenty minutes. Drain them and serve them hot, drizzled with olive oil and topped with pickled red onions.

In a Cape Verdean style, cut the peeled green bananas into large chunks and add them to a simmering fish or meat stew during the last twenty minutes of cooking. They will soak up the savory broth while maintaining their firm, satisfying texture.