My mother-in-law recently brought us a huge bag of incredibly delicious and perfectly crisp apples she handpicked from an apple orchard in North Carolina. Consequently, I have been making a lot of healthy apple recipes this past week. I emphasize the word “healthy” because if you do a Google search for “apple recipes” you’ll pretty much end up with a collection of sugar-laden desserts—recipes for apple pie, apple muffins (I consider most apple muffins to be dessert because most recipes call for a lot of sugar), apple bread (again, because of the sugar most apple bread recipes are also basically just dessert), apple dumplings (more sugar), apple cake, etc. Of course there are a few salad recipes using apples too, but really, the vast majority of standard apple recipes are for dessert.
This is such a shame because when you have perfect fall apples they taste so sweet and so delicious that you simply do not need to add sugar at all—or at least not much anyway. And you don’t always have to make dessert with apples either.
Below are a few of my favorite healthy apple recipes for fall, only one of which is a dessert:
- Hot Cinnamon Apple Smoothie (Click HERE for the recipe)
- No-Sugar Added Homemade Applesauce (Click HERE for the recipe)
- Apple-Cranberry Crumble (Click HERE for the recipe)
- Slow Cooked Apple-Pumpkin & Black Bean Chili (Click HERE for the recipe)
- Carrot-Apple Soup (Click HERE for the recipe)
My New Favorite Healthy Apple Recipe…
My newest apple recipe is a Superfood Apple Crisp Breakfast made with chia seeds, oats and dried mulberries (or raisins). It tastes like dessert but has zero added sugar. If you aren’t familiar with mulberries, they are an incredible and naturally sweet “super food” loaded with vitamin C, iron and resveratrol. You can read more about mulberries HERE. You can purchase dried mulberries online or from a natural foods store. If you can’t find dried mulberries you can always substitute white or black raisins.
The best thing about the Superfood Apple Crisp Breakfast is that you can make it in advance and have breakfast ready for several days in a row (it keeps stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.)
Here is the recipe…
Superfood Apple Crisp Breakfast
Serves: 6
- 3 cups finely chopped apples (any kind of apples will work, but please keep the skins on!)
- 1 cup dried mulberries (such as Navitas Naturals brand) or white or black raisins
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
- 3 tablespoons barley flour (or white whole wheat flour)
- 3 tablespoons chia seeds
- ¼ teaspoon unrefined salt
- 3 tablespoons organic extra virgin coconut oil, melted
- Heat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Lightly oil the bottom and sides of an 8 x 8-inch casserole dish. Add the apples, dried mulberries (or raisins), cinnamon and nutmeg to the casserole dish and toss ingredients together. Set dish aside.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl add the oats, barley flour, chia seeds and salt. Use your clean hands to mix ingredients together. Add the oil and crumble the mixture between your fingertips. Crumble the mixture on top of the apples.
- Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool before eating. Serve warm.
