Banana Pudding Cheesecake has a Vanilla Wafer crust and a creamy banana filling flavored with fresh bananas and brown sugar. Makes a showstopper dessert.
This creamy dessert flavored with fresh banana is a combination of two of my favorite desserts- cheesecake and banana pudding. I’m a huge fan of banana pudding anything and everything. In the past I’ve made Banana Pudding Pancakes, Banana Pudding Bars, Banana Pudding Cupcakes, Banana Pudding Cake, Twinkie Banana Pudding and Banana Pudding Ice Cream.
Banana Pudding Cheesecake starts off with a vanilla wafer crust – because it’s not banana pudding without nilla wafers 🙂 . Just to make sure there’s enough Nilla Wafer goodness a ring of whole vanilla wafers is placed along the circumference of the springform pan. If you wanted even more vanilla wafers in your Banana Pudding Cheesecake, you could also do a layer of them in the middle of the filling.
Tips for making Banana Pudding Cheesecake:
The original recipe, which came from Southern Living, called for baking the crust before the filling is added, but I skipped this step and it turned out fine. No need to do extra work :). Plus I find crusts made out of vanilla wafers can get a little hard to cut through if they are precooked.
It’s best to use ripe, but not overripe bananas for this cheesecake.
The filling is creamy and rich with just the right amount of banana flavor. Top the cheesecake off with whipped cream and vanilla wafers and you have a showstopper southern dessert that would be perfect to serve for Easter.
Try These Other Banana Pudding Recipes:
Never miss a recipe. Follow Spicy Southern Kitchen on Pinterest and Facebook.
Watch the short video below to see how easy it is to make this cheesecake.
Banana Pudding Cheesecake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups finely crushed vanilla wafers
- 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
- 1/4 cup butter , melted
- 17 vanilla wafers
- 2 ripe bananas, diced
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2-3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese , softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- whipped cream and vanilla wafers for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, stir together crushed vanilla wafers, chopped pecans, and melted butter. Press into bottom of a greased 9-inch springform pan.
- Stand 17 vanilla wafers around edge of pan with rounded sides facing outward. Press them gently into the crust.
- In a small saucepan, combine bananas (both diced and mashed) and lemon juice. Stir in brown sugar, using 2 tablespoons if your bananas are super ripe and 3 tablespoons if they are medium ripe. Cook over medium heat until brown sugar dissolves, about 1 minute. Remove from heat.
- Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.
- Gradually add granulated sugar.
- Add eggs, one at a time and stopping to scrape down sides of bowl after each addition. Do not over beat. Only beat until most of yellow disappears before adding next egg.
- Beat in vanilla extract.
- Stir banana mixture in until evenly mixed. Pour batter into springform pan on top of crust.
- Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until center is almost set. Jiggle the pan to check.
- Turn oven off, open door about 6 inches and leave cheesecake in oven to cool for about 1 hour.
- Remove cheesecake to counter to cool for another 30 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hours before serving.
- Garnish with whipped cream and vanilla wafers.
Notes
Nutrition
Want to Save This Recipe?
Recipe Source: adapted from Southern Living
 More Cheesecake Recipes
Pecan Pie Cheesecake
Amaretto Cheesecake
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
I had a request from a friend to make them a banana cheesecake. This was a challenging request for me since I do not eat bananas myself. After looking through several recipes, I settled on this one because of the good reviews and the use of fresh bananas instead of pudding mix. I roasted the bananas in the oven to concentrate the flavor a bit more. My friend and her husband loved it! This recipe will be a keeper for me since it was easy to follow and a crowd pleaser.
Im going to try this tonight with Chessmen cookies instead of vanilla wafers! I think it will come out great
This cheesecake is AMAZING! It’s my favorite recipe for dessert, and everyone loves it. It’s now my most requested dessert for any party or event I go to.
I tweak the recipe just a tad. I do half the sugar. I also don’t use brown sugar. In place of the brown sugar, I do use just a bit of molasses (probably about 1/2 tablespoon). I use three very ripe bananas (I don’t dice any, all mashed). I also do not use the pecans, as some people in my family can’t tolerate them.
For the crust, I will add just a pinch of salt to bring out the sweetness of the cookies.
Thanks so much for this delicious recipe!
OH boy this is going to happen this weekend!
Got a question… my mama always made banana pudding with a meringue top… You think I could make that work with this?
Maybe very carefully adding the meringue in the last 10 minutes?
Made as directed, however I used a water bath. The taste wasn’t terrible, but the chunks of banana really didn’t work (for any of the 8-10 people who tried it)
I did hesitate with the chunks but decided to follow the recipe.
I think it would have been alot better without the chunks, but think I’ll stick to keeping banana pudding just as a pudding
Made this for my son’s birthday on Sunday. He loves banana pudding and cheesecake, so this recipe sounded like a perfect combo. We all loved this cheesecake! The consistency and banana flavor were spot on. I did use 3 very ripe bananas per other reviewers comments and the flavor came through. I received a request from my son to make this for all his future birthdays. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
This is such a great cheesecake!
I think I had too much filling. Should you only fill to just below the top of the vanilla cookies?
I’m a huge vanilla wafer fan. Would adding a cup of roughly chopped wafers, into the batter, complicate things?
I just made this and put about half a cup of chopped wafers in the cheesecake mixture and it turned out great.
I made this as a tester for a baking competition and it turned out great! I always make banana pudding from scratch and I’m happy that this cheesecake use those exact ingredients without the use of instant pudding (which I am strongly against). I Could not believe how easy it was to make and decorate. It’s also very inexpensive. I wish I could upload the picture of it. I followed the recipe exactly as above. The only emphasis I would make (and I think this was covered in the recipe actually) is use VERY ripe bananas for more banana flavor. Great Job on this recipe! All my testers loved it!
Glad the recipe turned out well and everyone enjoyed it! I agrre this cheesecake recipe does a great job of capturing that great banana pudding flavor!
Can this be made with strawberries?
I think that would work. Let us know how it turns out if you try it!
I made this for Thanksgiving and it was delicious. The only complaint that I have is the cheesecake didn’t taste like Banana pudding but more like Banana nut bread ( due to the pecans being added to the crust). I am definitely gonna make this again, I’ll just omit the pecans from the crust and add vanilla wafers to the cheesecake filling.
I made this for thanksgiving last year and I’m looking it up again because I’ve been getting requests to make it again this year. I really want to try something new but it was such a hit last year, how could I disappoint? Thank you for this recipe, it’s clearly become a staple in our thanksgiving, for, I’m assuming, years to come.
I absolutely LOVE bananas! My father in law’s favorite dessert is banana cream pie, and I bet he would just LOVE this cheesecake. I can’t wait to make it for him.
Hope he loves it Christine!! 🙂
Do you bake this in a water bath?
I do not use a water bath Sonya.
I just baked this and was about to put it in a water bath until I saw the response that the author did not use one. I HIGHLY recommend a water bath if you’re concerned with your presentation. I decided against the water bath (for once) and regretted it as soon as I opened the oven and saw the massive gouge in the center of my cheesecake. Luckily, I just made this for fun so I’m not terribly worried about presentation. But in the future, I’d definitely use a water bath to avoid cracking 🙂
I’m very happy that i found this recipe, and made it for the first time. I had everyone to tried it and went crazy.
Thank you for this recipe I made it with my girlfriend and it was our first ever and it came out delicious! We haven’t even finished the one we made and we already going to make another one. I have a question how do I make it more of a cheesier? Can I just add another cream cheese block? Oh and can I make my bananas more rip by putting heat to them? Thanks again
I’ve never had to chill cheesecake for 8 hours prior to eating – i’ve always just baked until set and then let cool. Is there a reason for the chill time in the fridge? Or just for cleaner slicing?
Can substitute Greek yogurt for the eggs… I would typically replace three eggs with a quarter cup of Greek yogurt in a cake. Thanks! Would love to try this one if I can do it without the eggs. Sounds delish.
I was wondering if this could be made in cupcake pans using liners to make personal sized cheesecakes?
Yes, you can definitely do that. However I don’t have much experience making mini cheesecakes, so I really can’t advise on cooking time.
I just made this, waiting for it to finish baking. I added one cream cheese, banana flavor and came out with 12 cupcakes and the whole cake. It only took about 20 min for the cupcakes to cook so watch carefully!
I also made these into mini-cheesecakes. Unfortunately, I incorrectly assumed that the standard recipe would only yield 12 to 18 cakes, so I doubled the batch. 36 cupcake sized and 18 mini (2″ diameter) cheesecakes later I finally ran out of batter. I also topped my with a banana cream mousse.
I agree with Wanda, they should only take about 20 minutes to bake.
Great recipe!! Thank you for posting!