If you love apple crisp, whether you eat grain-free or not, you'll love these easy apple crisp recipes!
I've included a grain-free apple crisp recipe and traditional apple crisp recipe…
It seems like so many of our meals are still grain-based, so more and more I'm trying to find good grain-free recipes. This is not only because we have friends who eat grain-free (and we cook for them now and then), but just to change things up around here and teach my kids how good food can be, no matter what you may or may not be able to eat.
These days there's an amazing amount of support out there to eat paleo, grain-free, gluten-free, or whatever you call it.
By the way, have you seen these resources for help with that?
- There are these Interactive Meal Plans — no matter your way of eating: Traditional/Paleo/Vegetarian
- And Cara's grain-free meal plan
- Also, here's my post with loads of grain-free/low-carb ideas
So as the experimenting continues, I'll post the recipes that I'm able to pull off, and recently I made a delicious grain-free apple crisp!
Now this was really good, but I have to be honest, I do still like the ‘regular' apple crisp better. It's lighter and crispier. (In case you're one who doesn't mind including flour in your recipes, I'll add the variation below plus another one I haven't tried yet.) But the kids all loved this and don't know any different, so that's a hit in my book!
Grain-free Apple Crisp Recipe
Ingredients for the apples:
- 8 medium apples, peeled and thinly sliced, preferably organic as apples are #1 on the dirty dozen list!
- Juice from 1/2 lemon (drizzle over the top to keep apples from turning brown as you're cutting them all up)
- 1 Tablespoon Arrowroot Flour
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
- 1/3 cup maple syrup (click for where to buy)
Ingredients for crumb topping:
- 1 cup Arrowroot Flour
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup crispy pecans (click the link for where to buy)
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup palm or coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small-ish pieces, pastured butter is best
Instructions:
Toss together the apples, lemon juice, arrowroot flour, cinnamon, and syrup. Spoon into a buttered 9×13 baking dish, bake 35 minutes at 350*. This part can be done ahead and then you can add the next ingredients later for the final bake so you can wow everyone with your warm apple crisp whenever you're ready to serve it!
Mix together the ingredients for the crumb topping: arrowroot flour, pecans, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, sugar, and butter.
Crumble on top of the apples and bake at 350* for another 30 minutes or until a little crispy.
Get even more ‘oohs' and ‘aahs' if you serve this with:
Here's a traditional apple crisp recipe:
Ingredients for the apples:
- About 8 organic apples, peeled and chopped
- 1/4 cup palm or coconut sugar (or maple sugar)
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
Ingredients for the topping:
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup palm or maple sugar
- 1/4 cup chopped crispy nuts
- 8 Tablespoon melted butter
- 1 cup flour (I always used part sprouted flour and part unbleached white)
Instructions:
Toss apples with sugar and cinnamon and spoon into a buttered 9×13 glass baking dish. Bake 30 minutes.
In the meantime, mix together salt, cinnamon, palm or maple sugar, crispy nuts, melted butter, and flour. Sprinkle onto top of the apples.
Now either cover and wait to finish baking ‘til just before you serve it, or bake another 20-30 minutes until apples are soft and the top is crispy.
One more for Fruit Crisp:
Here's another apple crisp/fruit crisp recipe someone gave me after I raved about it at a graduation open house. I'll show you her original recipe and then tell you the way I would adapt it if I made it, which I haven't…
- Butter a cookie sheet and spread around the following:
- 1 can cherry pie filling (use organic pie filling or instead use 1 batch of homemade cherry pie filling to avoid the high fructose corn syrup)
- 1 small can crushed pineapple undrained (use the kind in its own juice)
- Sprinkle a white cake mix all over the top (Try an organic white cake mix to avoid the trans fats, or come up with your own dried mix)
- Drizzle 1 1/2 sticks of melted oleo over the top (No, don’t do it, use real butter!)
- Bake at 350* for 50 minutes or so, until bubbly.
Let me know if you try these and what you think!
- Here are more dessert ideas (including quite a few that are grain-free!)
Looks yummy, especially since there is delicious butter in the recipe. My 10 year old son just asked me ” mom, what is margarine”? I’m so proud. ?
That IS a proud Mom moment!! The other day our 14 year old asked, “What’s a Big Mac?” I was SO happy. 🙂
Kelly
*Oops meant to say softer crust!
Thanks for the recipe! It’s a good one.
As for the softer I substituted almond flour for arrowroot powder on the topping (keeping 2 T of the arrowroot power for some binding/chewiness). I can’t say enough about almond flour. In combo with arrowroot powder they are a powerful duo!
I’ve been trying to go wheat free as well, this looks great, thanks!
Kelly, Where do you get your palm sugar? When I clicked through your links from this recipe, I ended up with Wilderness Family Naturals but they don’t have palm sugar. I use, and love, rapadura, but sometimes it’s a little too strong. Thanks for the help!
Jo
WFN has it, it’s just called coconut sugar there. 🙂 I’d better go fix that in the recipe, thanks for commenting!
Kelly
Thanks Kelly, looks yummy!! Ever since I read about Wheat Belly on your blog, I have made an effort to stop eating grains – boy, is it hard!!!! They are everywhere! I’ve been doing well for about two weeks until yesterday when I was in a hurry and made myself a PB&J. Yikes, big mistake! I felt terrible afterwards – lethargic, sleepy, listless. It was terrible! Who knew???
Thanks again!
Wow, just one serving, that’s wild. Do you feel better otherwise or notice anything different?
Hey Kelly!
I was stunned, could not believe how bad I felt! I do know that I don’t feel like I have as much energy in general, but I do think that this is probably just a transition and I need to work more good carbs into my diet to make up some of the difference. I also seem to be hungrier, wake up hungry, etc. Guess I didn’t realize what a filler bread, crackers, etc. really are…
My son and I have been taking fermented cod liver oil and krill oil for almost 30 days now and I definitely know that my body is adjusting to all the good coming in and flushing out the bad.
Will definitely keep you posted on this journey! 🙂
We’re sugar-free, including honey, maple syrup, palm sugar, sucanat, etc. Would stevia or xylitol work in this recipe?
Sorry I’ve never tried it so I don’t know. If you try it, please update us here! 🙂
Any suggestions for what I could use to substitute for palm sugar or maple sugar?
What sweetener do you normally use in recipes?
I usually use maple syrup or honey…would either of these work in place of the palm sugar?
It will make your topping more wet/less crumbly and a bit tricky to sprinkle around the top, but it will still taste great I’ll bet! I’d use maple syrup instead of honey.
Kel
I made it for supper! Yummy!! 🙂
That looks good, but see, here is my problem. My son is allergic to nuts. It makes it REALLY hard to eat grain free. 🙁
That looks fantastic, yum!