Easy Fried Sweet Plantains

Make the best fried sweet plantains at home in minutes with this simple 3-ingredient recipe! Once the sweet plantains are fried, they’re like little bites of heaven that are golden and crispy on the outside and warm and buttery soft on the inside. Serve them as a snack or a side dish!

If fried plantains are on a menu, I’m going to order them. When done well, they’re absolutely delicious.

And don’t be mistaken – plantains don’t taste like bananas so if you don’t like bananas, I still recommend trying plaints at least once.

We make them often as a side dish with our homemade taco meat, chicken tacos, or even sometimes if we’re up for it – with our white chicken enchiladas. And last year I added them to this fun Mexican charcuterie board for Cinco De Mayo and they were the first thing gone!

They’re so easy to make, with just three ingredients and two of them are butter and oil, and yet, the results are something truly special.

A staple side dish among Caribbean, Latin America (where they’re referred to as Maduros), and African countries, they’ve made their way into the hearts and homes of people worldwide, and for good reason.

If you’ve ever seen them at your local grocery store and hesitated to pick them up because you worried you wouldn’t know what to do with them, go back and get them and use this recipe for fried plantains!

They’re made by slicing up a ripe plantain and pan frying them until the starches turn to natural sugars leaving a beautiful golden brown caramelization on the outside while keeping the inside nice and tender. They’re delicious and have a fun flavor with a bit of sweetness and saltiness to them.

No matter how you slice it, these fried plantains are about to become your new favorite dish!

1. Plantains – not to be confused with a regular banana. They do look similar, however, plantains are larger and will often have a green peel, but once they start to ripen, the skin will turn yellow with brown spots (again, not bananas). They have tough, thicker skin that’s hard to peel, and plantains are starchy and rarely eaten raw. Make sure the ones you buy are super ripe – fried green plantains are a totally different (more savory) thing.
2. Coconut oil – I love the combination of coconut oil and butter for flavor, but you can certainly use your favorite neutral oil like avocado oil.
3. Salted butter – You can also use ghee, which is a clarified butter, instead.

The reason we make these so often is how simple they are to make! If you can use a skillet, you can make these! It’s as simple as heating the fats, adding the plantains, and letting them cook!

1 – Slice the Plantains

To start, you’ll need to slice and peel the plantains. There are two main ways that you can slice the plantains – either just rounds (like you’d typically slice a banana) or you can do larger slices by cutting the plantain on a bias for larger pieces of plantains.

Either one is great but cutting in rounds is a little easier if you’re not used to cutting on a bias. When you’re cutting, you want to cut slices that are even in thickness so they’ll cook evenly.

I recommend cutting them about 1/2 inch thick – it seems to be the best thickness for cooking the plantain all the way through without overcooking on the outsides.

2 – combine oil and butter

1. Heat two tablespoons of coconut oil in a large skillet or saute pan over medium heat.
2. Add the two tablespoons of butter once the coconut oil has melted or is heated through.
3. Once the butter is fully melted, stir the coconut oil and butter together until just combined. The best way to evenly coat the pan is to swirl the pan around to make sure it is covered with the oil and butter mixture.

3 – Fry the plantains

1. Add the plantain slices on top of the hot oil and butter. Cook the plantains for five to six minutes or until the cooked side has been browned.

2. Once the plantain has browned or caramelized on one side, flip the plantain and cook for another five to six minutes or until the other side has browned and caramelized.

4 – Finish and serve the Fried Sweet plantains

1. Remove the plantains from the pan using a slotted spoon and place them onto a paper towel to drain off any extra oil from the plantain.

The plantains taste the best when they are served hot so serve immediately. You can either serve them plain, sprinkle with salt, or sometimes I even sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar to really play up the sweetness!

If I have time, I also love to serve them with a little Mexican crema for dipping or if I want crema but feeling super lazy, a little Greek yogurt.

While fried plantains are best enjoyed warm, you can store leftovers in the refrigerator and enjoy leftovers within three days. They’re never as good as fresh but they have a good enough flavor the next few days that there’s no need to throw leftovers away.

I recommend reheating them on the stove in just a little bit of butter and coconut oil mixture or by placing them on a parchment lined baking sheet and placing in a cold oven. Preheat the oven and warm up the plantains with the oven.

Recipe FAQs

While plantains are a staple in our house, we can’t eat them for every meal! These are some of our favorite side dishes that we enjoy the rest of the time!

• Mexican street corn pasta salad – bringing together two classic dishes, Mexican street corn (elote) and pasta salad in a creamy salad perfect for dinner during the week or a fiesta on the weekend.
• Tropical fruit salad – beautiful, vibrant, and refreshing fruit salad made with a sweet and zesty dressing.
• Roasted root vegetables – you’ll love the way roasting brings out the sugars to form crispy edges and a beautiful caramelization.
• Smashed potatoes – a fun potato side dish that involves boiling little potatoes, smashing them, seasoning them, and then roasting until crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.
• Instant pot rice – a foolproof way to cook rice!