Korean Banana Milk

Yes, we all love chocolate milk. Some of us love strawberry milk. But growing up, I feel like banana milk was always the least favored of all the flavored milks. Not so in South Korea, however, where the Binggrae brand churns out an impressive amount of super-popular banana flavored milk that's retailed both nationally and internationally.

What is banana milk?

The taste of Korean banana milk is best described as delicately sweet, a gentle blend of banana and vanilla aromas carrying the flavor of cream with the lightness of milk. It smells—and tastes—almost exactly like a stick of Juicy Fruit gum steeped in milk. This might sound strange and off-putting at first, but if you give it a chance—sit down with your banana milk and really spend some quality time with it—you just might find yourself falling in love with it.

The essence of commercially produced flavors is quite difficult to capture—it is, after all, a multi-billion dollar industry—but we've given it our best shot at replicating this entrancing drink. Below are a few tips for making your own version of Korean banana milk at home.

Keep it cold

"Best served chilled" is what my juice box of banana milk says, and I agree—the flavor becomes much more seductively mellow when it's been pulled straight from the fridge. You can either use ice-cold water like we do below, or you can use a frozen banana to make sure that final blended drink is really, really cold. Just make sure you have a high-powered blender that can handle breaking down the frozen banana into a smooth drink—no chunks allowed here!

Alternatively, you can also serve the milk over a couple of ice cubes to chill it down post-blend.

The perfect viscosity

Banana milk has a distinctive texture: silky and rich in taste but thin and watery in mouthfeel. It's not as thick and creamy as, say, a banana smoothie. Even though it uses pretty much the same ingredients as a banana smoothie—milk, banana, a touch of sweetener—the ratio of liquid to banana plays an important role in achieving the proper viscosity. 

A 2:3 ratio of water to milk here dilutes the thick creaminess to that sweet spot when using a small banana, but of course, depending on the exact size of your banana, a little adjustment might be necessary. Add a touch more water or milk to taste, until you hit your personal sweet spot. To keep it super rich and creamy and more like a smoothie, skip the water and use only milk for the liquid portion.

A touch of sweetness

Both maple syrup and honey do really well as sweeteners here: both have a secondary flavor aside from sweetness, which helps develop that mildly ethereal "essence of banana" vibe we're aiming to achieve. Use maple syrup for a woodsy perfume, or honey for a floral note. Depending on the ripeness of your banana (we recommend a just-barely freckled one for that Juicy Fruit banana taste), you can adjust the sweetness to your taste, keeping in mind that the same volume of honey is a little sweeter than maple syrup in taste.

Sweetened condensed milk adds a hit of dairy that heightens the natural sweetness present in the milk and banana. If you don't have it on hand, a little more honey or maple syrup will do just fine.

Juicy Fruit essence

Surprisingly, to nail that pleasantly artificial banana flavor, you need to use pure vanilla extract for this recipe—imitation vanilla extract just doesn't quite hit the target here. If you have banana extract or banana liqueur on hand, adding in a tiny dash will get you that much closer to the real thing.

If you've made this recipe, leave us a rating and let us know in the comments down below how you liked it!