These oven baked sweet plantains are a healthier alternative to frying! Baked with just enough oil, and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar if you’d like, these maduros are easy to enjoy guilt-free.
Although originally wrote this post to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month , we don’t need an excuse to enjoy some Cuban food!
In fact, I happen to know for a fact that I could serve up lechon asado and rice with plantains or black beans 5 nights a week and they’d be eaten enthusiastically. The menu has been suggested to me!
Even though we do cook a lot of Cuban comfort food, we’ve recently been trying to cut back on the amount of things we fry. A few weeks ago, I shared how to make baked green plantain chips (mariquitas), so today I’m showing you how to make oven baked sweet plantains that are roasted instead of fried in oil.
These baked platanos maduros are perfect for people who are watching their fat intake or who just aren’t use to eating a lot of fat.
You know what else is totally cool? Plantains are Paleo-friendly and make a fantastic Paleo dessert or breakfast idea. Of course, they’re also a delicious side dish for pretty much any meal.
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When you want to make platanos maduros, you need really ripe plantains.
If they’re black, that’s totally okay as long as the inside isn’t super mushy or moldy. They should look more like this than that little patch of green plantain you can see in the background:
Honestly, they could even be a bit riper than that and the finished sweet plantains would be even tastier.
It’s the super-ripe plantains that make beautiful, caramelized platanos maduros.
How to cut a sweet plantain for maduros
In case you’ve never done it before – you don’t peel a plantain like a banana. Instead, you cut the ends off:
Then you make a slit down the peel from end to end and just unwrap the plantain. This leaves the plantain ripe and ready for cutting on the diagonal into lozenge-shaped pieces.
Cutting the plantains on a diagonal is very important when you’re making platanos maduros. It maximizes the surface area available for delicious caramelization! Make each slice about 1/2″ thick.
As a side dish, one plantain is never enough for both of us, but two usually feels like a little too many. Two plantains usually fit quite nicely on a normal baking sheet without overcrowding the pieces, so this recipe calls for two plantains.
You can always cook more, but I don’t recommend crowding the slices too much because they won’t caramelize as nicely.
When I’m making sweet plantains (at least a once a week occurrence around here), I always use my Cook’s Illustrated recommended baking sheet and my Silpat mat.
They help ensure even cooking and caramelization, and using the mat makes cleaning the pan super simple.
They’re pretty affordable and they’re totally worth it. I use these two items several times every week.
Ready to make some ripe baked plantains? Here we go!
Ripe baked plantains recipe
You can print the recipe card below for easy offline access, or check out the recipe right here!
How to make oven “fried” sweet plantatins
Ingredients
- 2 very ripe plantains
- 2 tablespoons of oil (vegetable oil, coconut oil, etc.)
Method
- Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat your oven to 400º Fahrenheit.
- Cut your plantains on the diagonal, as shown above, into slices about 1/2″ thick.
- Place the plantain slices in a bowl, add the oil, and toss them gently to coat. Ripe plantains can be very soft, so take care.
- Arrange the plantain slices on a baking sheet and place in the preheated oven.
- Cook for 15 minutes.
- Carefully flip the plantains with a pair of tongs or spatula.
- Cook for an additional 10 minutes, or until you’re happy with the level of caramelization on both sides.
- For super delicious plantains, turn on the broiler when the plantains have about 5 more minutes of baking left. Keep a careful eye on them and remove them from the oven when the tops are looking nice and caramelized, even if the 5 minutes isn’t quite up.
- Enjoy fresh and hot!
To make your baked sweet plantains even more delicious:
- Sprinkle your platanos maduros with cinnamon.
- Sprinkle the sweet plantain slices with an unrefined sugar (like raw coconut sugar) before baking.
- Drizzle a little honey over the baked plantains.
Oven Baked Sweet Plantains - Healthier Platanos Maduros (Paleo-Friendly!)
These oven baked sweet plantains are a healthier way to enjoy platanos maduros!
Ingredients
- 2 very ripe plantains
- 2 tablespoons of oil (vegetable oil, coconut oil, etc.)
Instructions
Virtually everything we make at home is at least influenced by Cuban food, and many of the recipes I share have a Cuban flair. My husband is a huge plantain addict, so we bake with plantains a lot!
More plantain recipes
These cookies are like banana nut bread, only they’re delicious, fluffy pecan cookies made with sweet plantain!
There’s no need to buy oily mariquitas. Baked green plantain chips are incredibly easy to make!
After you see how easy it is to make your own green plantain chips, you’ll want to try these amazingly delicious lechon asado plantain chip nachos!
How do you prefer to enjoy your plantains? Sweet? Green? Tostones? mariquitas? Let me know if any of your favorite plantain recipes are missing and I’ll be happy to healthy them up!
Alicia
How could I bake these to make a jibarito. I love jibaritos but can’t handle all the oil when the plantain is double fried!
Natasha
I hear you! I adore tostones, but really can’t handle the oil.
So you just need to make baked tostones for your jibarito. The process is pretty similar, only of course you need a green plantain.
Heat your oven pretty hot (I’d go with 400 or even 425 if your oven seems to run a bit cool).
Peel and slice your plantain straight across to make thick rounds, not on the diagonal like with these sweet plantains.
Use nonstick cooking spray (not my favorite, but it will do) or a bit of oil to coat your plantains and bake until they’re soft enough to smash, about 10 minutes.
Carefully smash the plantains. I know there’s a special tostone press, but this Cuban household just uses a cutting board on the bottom and a clean metal cooking pot on top.
Recoat with oil (carefully! They’re more fragile now that they’re smooshed) and bake again, 10-15 minutes or until they’re crunchy.
I hope that’s helpful! Maybe I should write up a baked green plantain/tostone recipe sometime…I’m craving them now!
Irene
They are delicious! I kept it in the oven a bit longer, probably half an hour. Just forgot to flip them and when I remembered, they were perfectly caramelized and were ready to eat.
Oh, and I added cinnamon and cardamon powders prior to cooking them. Came out super good!
Excellent easy recipe! Thank you!!!
Natasha
So glad you enjoyed! Ovens and pans to vary, so following what your food is doing instead of just the clock is always a good idea. I’ve never thought to add cardamom – it sounds tasty!