Horn Plantains - Class 1 (All sizes)

Sending interstate? Choose Green. Green plantains ship by courier to QLD, NSW, the ACT and VIC. Half-Ripe and Half Green/Half Ripe are local delivery only (Brisbane & Wide Bay) — they're too ripe to survive the courier trip, so checkout won't offer shipping for them outside our delivery areas.

Class 1 Horn Plantains, Direct from North Queensland Farms

True horn plantains, hand-selected from the North Queensland farms we buy from, in 1kg, 3kg, 6kg and 12kg. Class 1 grade means consistent sizing and no field damage. These are the plantains for West African, Caribbean and Latin American cooking — not cooking bananas sold as a substitute.

Choose Your Size

• 1kg — roughly 2 to 3 plantains. Enough for a side of dodo or a batch of tostones.
• 3kg — roughly 6 to 8 plantains. A week of cooking for a small household.
• 6kg — roughly 12 to 16 plantains. The usual family box.
• 12kg — roughly 25 to 30 plantains. For large families, catering and market stalls.

Counts vary with the size of the fruit in that week's pick.

Choose Your Ripeness

• Green — firm and starchy, barely sweet. For tostones, patacones, plantain chips, fufu and savoury dishes. This is the only option that ships interstate.
• Half-Ripe — yellow with some give. Sweeter, and it caramelises when fried. For maduros and sweet dishes. Local delivery and pickup only.
• Half Green/Half Ripe — a mix in the one box, so you can cook savoury now and sweet in a few days. Local delivery and pickup only.

Green plantains ripen on the bench over about five to seven days, so ordering green and waiting is a perfectly good way to get ripe ones.

How to Cook Them

Fried: slice and fry for tostones, maduros or plantain chips
Boiled: peel, cut into chunks and boil until a knife goes through easily
Roasted: roast whole until the flesh is soft and caramelised
Mashed: boil and mash for mofongo, fufu or a side dish
Baked: slice lengthwise and bake with seasoning

Traditional Dishes:
• West African: alloco, kelewele, dodo, plantain fufu
• Caribbean: tostones, maduros, mofongo, plantain porridge
• Latin American: patacones, tajadas, plantain empanadas
• East African: matoke-style preparations, ndizi

What Is In Them

Plantains are a starchy staple rather than a snack fruit, which is why they are almost always eaten cooked. They are a source of potassium, vitamin B6 and dietary fibre, higher in fibre while still green, naturally gluten free, and have almost no fat in them until you fry them.

Where They Come From

Our horn plantains come from specialist farms in North Queensland, where the tropical climate suits a crop that will not grow this far south. We buy direct from the grower, which keeps the chain short — picked, graded and on the truck within days rather than weeks. Australian grown, never imported.

Storage & Handling

• Store at room temperature, out of direct sunlight
• Do not refrigerate green plantains — it blackens the skin without ripening the flesh
• To ripen faster, put them in a paper bag with an apple
• To slow them down, separate them and keep them somewhere cool and dry
• Once ripe (yellow to black) they can go in the fridge for another three or four days
• Plantains freeze well — peel first and wrap individually

Peeling a green plantain is easier with a knife than with your thumbs: top and tail it, run the blade down the ridges, then lever the skin off in strips.

Who Buys Them

• Brisbane families cooking the food they grew up with
• Restaurants and cafes serving African, Caribbean or Latin American menus
• Caterers and food service
• Market vendors and specialty retailers
• Anyone who has eaten plantain somewhere and wants to cook it at home

Delivery

Our own van runs every Wednesday across Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich and Moreton Bay. Order any day of the week and your delivery lands on the following Wednesday. Local delivery is $9.99, or $7.99 on orders over $50, and free on orders over $99. Outside those postcodes the Green option goes by courier to Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria at rates calculated at checkout — Half-Ripe and Half Green/Half Ripe are too far along to survive the trip, so they are local delivery or pickup only, same as our yellow plantains. See our delivery areas page for the full postcode list.

Recipes & Guides: New to horn plantains? Read Plantain Nutrition Facts, try our African-Style Fried Plantains (Dodo) recipe, or see How to Ripen Plantains Fast. Not sure which plantain you need? Horn plantain vs regular plantain vs banana explains the difference.

Goes well with: Carolina Reaper or Habanero chilli, for a spicy West African-style fried plantain (dodo).