Description

Cardaba Banana Plant – Philippine Plantain

The Cardaba banana is also known as Cardava and sometimes mistakenly called Saba. It is classified as a cooking banana and along with the saba is the most common cooking banana cultivar in the Philippines.

It is a beautiful plant with an unusual bluish-green colored fruit. The short and stubby fruit can get fairly large.

The flesh of the Cardaba Banana is creamy white and fine textured with a sweet banana flavor. Its flesh is technically edible when raw, but is at its best flavor when used in cooked preparations.

The Cardaba banana is used extensively in the production of banana based food products, main product being banana chips.

The Cardaba banana is used in many traditional Filipino foods such as banana ketchup, halo-halo, and a sweet stew known as binignit. It is also used to make a fried and sweetened banana on a stick known as banana cue, banana fritters or maruya, and fried banana spring rolls known as turon.

The Cardaba banana is native to the Philippines and along with Saba are the most common used cooking banana cultivars grown there today.