Healthy Vegan Apple Crisp

Vegan apple crisp is the quintessential fall dessert!  This easy vegan recipe is gluten free, oil free, and refined sugar free, but it's still loaded with lots of flavor. It's healthier than the average crisp, so you can eat more of it! I've even been known to eat it for breakfast.

Vegan Apple Crisp

Dennis and I usually kick off Autumn with a trip to Warwick, New York, for a day of apple picking, wine tasting, and farm stand hopping. I start looking forward to it probably around mid-July, and I start thinking of all of the fall treats I'm going to make with the bounty we bring home. Should I make caramel apples? There will definitely be apple oatmeal for breakfast!

Sadly, we're skipping our annual trip this year, but I'm still craving my usually fall apple treats. I mean, fall just doesn’t seem like fall until there’s an apple crisp baking in the oven and the house is full of the scent of the warm fruit mixed with cinnamon.

Sometimes a few apples may get banged up on the way home, with little bruises dotting their skins. Those are the apples I like to use in my crisps. I simply cut the bruised bits away, and use the rest of the apple.

The Difference Between a Crisp and a Crumble

I was recently looking for a vegan crumble recipe online, and all of the recipes that Google fetched for me were actually crisps. They have similar toppings, so I can understand where the confusion comes from, but there is a difference.

A crisp has an oat-based topping (that sometimes also contains nuts), which crisps up when you bake it. The topping on a crumble is a flour-based streusel, which is crumbly. Hence their names! Sometimes oats and nuts are added to crumble toppings, which adds to the confusion.

What You Need

• Apples 
• Cinnamon
• Dried cranberries
• Rolled oats
• Brown rice flour
• Pecans
• Cinnamon
• Maple syrup
• Almond butter

See the recipe card for exact amounts.

How to Make Vegan Apple Crisp

This recipe is super easy to make!

• You need a 9x12-inch baking dish at the ready, and you should preheat your oven to 350°
• First you peel, core, and chop your apples.
• Then you mix the apples with the rest of the filling ingredients and place it in your baking dish.
• Next you mix the rolled oats, flour, pecans, cinnamon, and maple syrup together and then mix in the almond butter. You can use the same bowl that you mixed the filling ingredients in—there's no need to wash it.
• Then you spread the topping mixture on top of the apple filling.
• Finally, you bake your crisp for 45 to 55 minutes, until the topping is crisp and the apples are tender.

My oven runs hot, so I only need to cook my crisp for 45 minutes.

Troubleshooting Tips

• I don't go crazy peeling my apples. If they have a little bit of skin left on here or there, it's okay.
• A few years ago I picked up a handy tool that both cores and slices apples at the same time, which makes preparing them for this crips easy. If you don't have one (and I doubt you do!), you can just slice the apple away from the core and then cut the slices into bigger chunks.
• If your almond butter has come straight out of the fridge, it might be firm and difficult to add to the topping. You can use a pastry blender, or mix it into the topping with your hands.

The Best Apples for Baking

The best apples for baking include:

• Jonagold
• Honeycrisp
• Fuji
• Granny smith
• Gala
• Breaburn
• Cortland
• Pink lady
• Mutsu
• Winesap

How to Customize Your Apple Crisp

You can easily make this recipe your own!

• Instead of apples, you can use 6 pears. Or you can use a mixture of apples and pears.
• You can use pretty much any flour instead of brown rice flour. Sometimes I'll use whole wheat, if that's all I have on hand. (I don't recommend coconut flour, though.)
• Instead of dried cranberries, you can use raisins or dried blueberries.
• You can use cashew butter in the place of almond butter. Sun butter can be used if you have an nut allergy.
• Chopped walnuts or almonds can be used in the place of pecans. To make it nut free, you can use pumpkin seeds.

Serving Your Apple Crisp

Of course, a crisp is excellent for dessert, but I've been known to have it for breakfast too, since it's made with fruit and oats.

Serve your crisp warm. I like to top mine with a scoop of nondairy vanilla ice cream or a dollop of vanilla cashew cream.

Apple Crisp

Dianne

Vegan apple crisp is the quintessential fall dessert! It makes a great breakfast, too!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 55 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8 servings

Calories 483 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

Filling

• 6 medium apples peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped (approximately 12 cups)
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ cup dried cranberries
• 1 tablespoon brown rice flour

Topping

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup brown rice flour
• ½ cup chopped pecans
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ½ cup almond butter

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350º.
• Place the apples in a large bowl and gently fold in the syrup, cinnamon, cranberries and flour. Spread the mixture out in a 9” x 12” casserole dish.
• To make the topping, mix together the oats, flour, pecans, cinnamon and syrup in the same bowl. Cut the nut butter into the mixture using a pastry blender or your hands.
• Carefully spread the topping over the apples
• Bake for 45 – 55 minutes, until the apples are fork tender. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Calories: 483kcal | Carbohydrates: 81g | Protein: 9g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 8g | Trans Fat: 0.03g | Sodium: 31mg | Potassium: 497mg | Fiber: 9g | Sugar: 40g | Vitamin A: 78IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 114mg | Iron: 2mg

Tried this recipe?Tag @diannewenz on Instagram!

More apple recipes you might enjoy include:

• Date Sweetened Caramel Apples
• Apple Pie Smoothie
• Vegan Cheese and Apple Tarts
• Cinnamon Oatmeal Baked Apples