Plantain
Musa paradisiaca · Tropical fruit
Top 10 pairings
The plantain is the large, firm, starchy cooking banana — a group of Musa cultivars that are eaten cooked at every stage of ripeness rather than out of hand. Bigger, thicker-skinned and far less sweet than a dessert banana, it behaves more like a vegetable: starchy and potato-like when green (tostones, chips, fufu, mofongo) and sweetening to a rich, caramelised softness when fried black-ripe (maduros). It is a foundational carbohydrate staple across West and Central Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Picking a good onedrag
Green and rock hardBlack-ripe, then over
Turning yellowFirm and lightly sweetStill firm enough to hold its shape: boil, bake or fry in thick slices. Sweeter than green, and still cooked - raw it is chalky rather than harmful.
SkinGreen going yellow, a brown fleck or two
SqueezeFirm, the faintest give at the tips
SmellFaintly sweet under the green
Cut endCut end dry and corky, nothing weeping
Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — updates with it.
What you get from one
50%
Edible part
Half a green one is peel · thick and tight, cut and pried off rather than stripped
Keeping ittap a temperature
AH-66 puts chilling injury for banana and plantain below about 13 C, but holds green plantains at 9-12 C. Ripe ones stay out; a supermarket chiller is already too cold.
90-95%
Humidity
Cool and airy, not sealed
Airflow