Iced Banana Bread Matcha {Starbucks Copycat}

Banana and matcha may sound like an unlikely combination, but one sip of Starbucks' Iced Banana Bread Matcha and it immediately makes total sense. With this easy copycat recipe, you can make the drink at home whenever a craving hits!

Jump to:

• 💚 Why this recipe works
• 🗒 Ingredients
• 🍵 Recipe tips
• 🎉 Recipe variations
• 🥤 More matcha recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Can we please just start putting banana cold foam on everything? Yes. But no matter what you put it on, I don't think it pairs with anything better than it does matcha.

Which is why so many people are loving the Starbucks Iced Banana Bread Matcha. It's creamy and a little earthy and the banana cold foam on top adds a little fruity sweetness.

But it's also very easy to make at home... And give it more banana flavor if you want!

The Starbucks' version uses freeze-dried banana powder in the cold foam, which works fine, but I've found that banana syrup gives you a more pronounced, true banana taste.

I'm sharing both options below so you can use whichever you have on hand... and if you want to make your own banana syrup, I even have a recipe for that.

💚 Why this recipe works

Matcha and banana pair really well together: the earthy, slightly bitter notes of matcha balance the sweetness of banana perfectly. If you think you don't like matcha, you may want to try it this way!

Uses simple, easy-to-find or make ingredients: there's nothing complicated about this drink. And while you may need to either make or purchase a couple of the ingredients (brown sugar syrup and banana syrup or freeze-dried bananas), they're all easy to whip up from scratch or find in stores or online.

Easy to customize: you can use any milk or non-dairy alternative you like, adjust the sweetness by adding or cutting back on the brown sugar syrup, and swap in banana syrup or banana powder depending on what you have on hand.

Components can be made ahead of time: the brown sugar syrup keeps in the fridge for weeks and the banana sweet cream can be made the night before, so when a craving hits, building the actual drink takes about two minutes.

🗒 Ingredients

Here's everything you need for each component of the Iced Banana Bread Matcha (be sure to view the recipe card at the bottom of this post for ingredient amounts and full recipe instructions):

• Unsweetened matcha powder
• 2% milk: or the dairy/non-dairy alternative of your choice.
• Brown sugar syrup: you can either make your own using my brown sugar syrup recipe (just like Starbucks!) or you can purchase a bottle of syrup.
• Ice
• Banana cream cold foam: I'll show you how to make this and share the ingredients needed below.
• Caramel crunch topping: you can either use toffee bits or caramel sprinkles.

For the Banana Cream Cold Foam, you'll need:

• Heavy cream
• 2% milk
• Banana syrup or freeze-dried banana powder and plain or vanilla syrup: if you use the powder, you'll need to add syrup for sweetness. You can purchase the syrups or make your own with my recipes for banana and/or vanilla. Alternatively, you can use Banana Nesquik and likely won't need to add syrup as Nesquik already has it built in.

If you're making your own brown sugar syrup, you'll need:

• Water
• Brown sugar: your choice of light or dark.

If you want to make your own banana syrup, you'll need:

• Water
• Granulated sugar
• Banana slices

🍵 Recipe tips

• If you're making your own syrups, you can do so in advance. Both will keep well in your fridge for about a month.

• You can make the banana sweet cream in advance and keep it in a mason jar or airtight container in your fridge. When you're ready for a matcha drink, whip the sweet cream into a cold foam.

• Cold foams froth up best with really cold ingredients, so make sure you use cream and milk right out of the fridge. And if you make the sweet cream in advance, keep it chilled until ready to use.

• As I mentioned Starbucks uses freeze-dried banana powder in their cold foam, but I actually like the flavor better when using banana syrup. You can use either! If you use powder, I recommend adding a little plain or vanilla syrup for sweetness as well.

• If you don't have a frother, you can make your cold foam in a blender or with a hand mixer. You can even just keep it in the mason jar and shake it vigorously. Your foam won't be quite as voluminous, but it will still give you a nice froth.

• I recommend dissolving your matcha in a small amount of milk first before adding the rest of the milk.

• If you only have sweetened matcha powder, you can use it and skip mixing in the simple syrup. Or taste and add the syrup as needed. The flavor profile of the drink will change a bit since the syrup added has brown sugar flavor.

• Once your matcha and syrup are mixed together, all you have to do is top the drink with the banana cold foam.

• And sprinkle on your sweet topping. Starbucks uses "caramel sugar topping" and I've never quite been able to replicate it. I like using toffee bits, but caramel sugar sprinkles are a fairly close dupe, too.

I love this drink! The brown sugar syrup and banana cold foam really mellow out the earthy flavor of the matcha by adding both creaminess and sweetness.

You may think you're not a "matcha person," but I think banana bread matcha could change your mind!

Even using a syrup instead of a powder, the banana flavor is still fairly mild and doesn't taste "artificial" like I often think banana drinks will.

🎉 Recipe variations

I always try to make my Starbucks copycat drinks as close to the originals as I can, but when you make your drinks at home, it's so easy to customize them however you want.

Here are some fun ideas:

• If you want more banana flavor in the drink, replace half (or even all) the brown sugar syrup with banana syrup.
• Use whatever kind of dairy or dairy alternative you want. Oat milk is especially good here, but coconut milk and almond milk also work well for a dairy-free drink. Bonus points for using banana milk!
• If you love the strawberry banana combo, put a layer of strawberry puree on the bottom of the cup or line the cup with it.
• As always, you can add more syrup for a sweeter drink or less for a less sweet drink.
• Add a chocolate drizzle over the top of the drink.
• Blend this drink with ice for a Frappuccino-like drink.
• Make it "dirty" by adding a shot of espresso to the base before pouring it over ice. The coffee adds a little bitterness that actually works really well with the banana sweetness.

There are SO many ways to make this drink perfect for you.

🥤 More matcha recipes

If you're a fan of Starbucks' matcha drinks, I have lots of Starbucks copycat recipes for you to make at home! Here are my favorites:

You know what would go perfectly with this drink? A nice warm slice of my cake mix banana bread!

I can't wait to see what else Starbucks does with their banana cold foam (when are they gonna introduce peanut butter for PB and banana??) and in the meantime, I'm drinking my share of Iced Banana Bread Matchas.

If you make this drink, I want to hear about it! Tag me on Instagram or leave a comment below. Be sure to let me know if you used banana powder or banana syrup in the cold foam!

📖 Recipe