Vegan Gluten-free Apple Cinnamon Pecan Crisp. So easy to make, so flavorful and healthy. Completely dairy-free and oil-free and a hit at parties!
This might just be better than chocolate. According to my husband anyway. This one just so happens to be his favorite fall dessert.
Apples are a beautiful, naturally sweet fruit….they don’t need lots of added sugar in desserts. A little bit to enhance it is plenty. Apple crisp is notoriously full of butter and sugar, but not this one. It’s so much healthier, Â yet to-die-for delicious. A gluten-free apple crisp as well!
This turned out so delicious and full of flavor, you’d think you would feel guilty eating it.
Served alongside my homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream…..mmmmm.
Let me know what you think of this amazing Vegan Gluten-free Apple Cinnamon Pecan Crisp! It will be a hit at your holiday table, guaranteed!
Vegan Gluten Free Apple Cinnamon Crisp
Ingredients
Filling
- 3 small honey crisp apples (You will need 1 lb about 5 cups, total combined of sliced apples
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon I love a strong cinnamon flavor, but feel free to use less if you don't
- 1/2 teaspoon allspice
- 1 tablespoon raw sugar the thick golden crystals-3 packets
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 cup chopped pecans you can leave out if you want, but I love the crunch and flavor they add
- 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
Topping
- 1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons almond butter
- 1 1/2 cups gluten free old fashioned oats not instant, separated
- 3/4 cup blanched almond flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- Optional: extra raw sugar for sprinkling on top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease the bottom of a 9 inch pie dish.
- Peel and slice the apples into wedges, about 1/4 inch thick. I chose to use honey crisp apples in this dish because of their natural sweetness, making the need for sugar very minimal. Add them to a large bowl and set aside.
- In a small cup, add the remaining "filling" ingredients and stir. Pour over the apples and stir and coat them very well. Spread the apples out into the greased pie dish.
- In a medium bowl, combine the syrup and almond butter (listed under "topping"). Set aside.
- In a food processor, add only 3/4 cup of the oats into a food processor and process until a fine flour forms. I let mine run about 2 minutes. Add the oat flour, remaining oats, almond flour and cinnamon (1 tsp) to the bowl with the syrup/almond butter mixture. Stir well.
- Pour the topping mix over the apples and spread out evenly. Sprinkle additional raw sugar on top, if desired. I sprinkled some to give it some more crunch and a nice sheen. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the apples are tender, when pierced with a fork and the top is very golden brown. Best served straight out of the oven and aside my Cinnamon ice cream!
Oh I love fruit crisps or crumbles. This looks great and can’t wait to see the recipe for the cinnamon ice cream.
Thank you!! It was so satisfying!
This and a homemade cinnamon ice cream recipe? I can’t wait!!!
Thanks Alice! 🙂
What a delicious crisp my friend got everything I love 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Me too Uru!
Looks heavenly! Yum!!!! 🙂 By the way, thank you for mentioning gluten free options 😉
Absolutely my dear!! I’m trying to have as many as I can and accommodate the requests for them. It’s important to me! Thank you so much! 🙂
Thank you so much 🙂 It seems that more and more people are having issues with gluten. Have a great weekend and thanks again for all your wonderful recipes 😉
I really enjoy crumbs and crisps; especially as the weather gets cooler. They are such a great comfort food. Your honey apple pecan crisp looks and sounds so delectable! I like the strong cinnamon too, and the raw sugar. Your topping ingredients are all perfect!
Thank you so much Judy!! I really appreciate the compliments!
Better than chocolate?!?! You have peaked my interest!! YUMM!!!
Haha! Might be, might. I pretty much ate the whole thing in one day. My friend made it and her and her husband ate the whole thing after dinner…so I guess I’m not the only one, lol! 🙂
Looks so good! I know what you mean about sugar-loaded desserts, I never want it to overpower my baking. Oh and I’m looking forward to your cinnamon ice cream too!
Thank you!! I agree…it’s done way too often. I like sweets, but I also want to taste the other ingredients! 🙂
I am not a dessert person but your photos made my mouth water.
Aww that was so sweet…you made my day, truly!! Thank you for the compliment! 🙂
I can’t wait for that cinnamon icecream recipe
I too love a strong cinnamon flavor 🙂 and I agree with you on the fact that sometimes the amount of sugar added to fruit desserts is scary
I know right…I can’t get enough cinnamon :). I need to make some more of the ice cream for a post….my husband ate it all before I could take enough photos, haha!
hehehe..My husband does that too!
YUM I so agree–apples are naturally so sweet, why do normal apple crisp/pie recipes have to add so much sugar and fat? This looks like the perfect recipe to highlight their natural sweetness…pinning to make later 🙂
Also, is there anything I can sub for the arrowroot powder if I don’t have it?
Thank you so much Erika!! I hope you love it as much as my friends and I have! Absolutely, cornstarch should work just fine too. 🙂 Let me know how it turns out. Seriously, honey crisp apples are amazing..adding buckets of sugar just ruins it and I even have seen people pour sugar on apple chips….another thing I don’t understand?? lol. I like sugar too, but its just not necessary in many instances. 🙂
That’s so true about the sugar in most recipes! I made a simple applesauce recently (British style, no spices) and I didn’t use ANY sugar! Greek apples are sweet, so no need for extra sweetness! I even used juice of half a lemon and it was still sweet enough 🙂
This looks gorgeous! Will be trying it!
Thank you so much! This is a favorite if mine and one of my friend’s too, it’s sooo delicious and healthy! The honey crisp apples are just to die for 🙂 Let me know if you try it! I really appreciate your comment.
This recipe looks incredible, one of the only ones I’ve that doesn’t have coconut oil. I’m going to be making this for a gathering at a friend’s house on Saturday. Would you recommend preparing it beforehand and then baking it there, bringing the topping and cut up fruit separate and assembling it and baking it there, etc.? Thank you!
Hi Melinda! Yes, I agree…they all seem to have oil or butter right?! Well, it certainly doesn’t need it, I promise, especially with the almond butter! I would definitely wait to get to your destination to bake it up, crisps are always best eaten straight out of the oven and fresh. The granola is best and crunchy that way and if it sits out too long, it becomes more chewy and less crispy. What I would do, to save time, is just mix the dry ingredients separately for both the topping and filling in containers and label them appropriately, so you don’t get confused! Then just add the apples and wet ingredients right before you bake it up. Hope that helps and let me know how it turns out! 🙂
Wanted to treat myself a little extra tonight after a busy day with the kids and I just love crumble pies! Great idea to spice up the apples a bit. I ran out of maple syrup so only used the half amount and added coconut oil instead for the other half so the crumble wouldn’t be too dry – the result was great, I don’t like it too sweet anyway. And peanut butter instead of almond butter worked fine too. I don’t have all-spice either but used some nutmeg, cardamum and clove instead. Thanks again!
Btw, absolutely better than chocolate! Especially if I had the time to make vanilla sauce (cashew+maple syrup+water+vanilla) but it was also yummy served with plain yoghurt!
I’m so happy to hear that Liv, thank you so much for letting me know! So glad it still worked with your slight changes. I actually have a cashew cream sauce on my blog too, btw 🙂
Sold. I’m making this for Thanksgiving. This is exactly what is was looking for!!! Looks incredible, Brandi! Can’t wait <3
Haha, awesome Mandy!! Thank you so much! Can’t wait to hear what you think! xo
This apple crisp was the best !! It was easy to make and smelled so wonderful in my kitchen while baking. And so pretty when you put the raw sugar on top. It sparkles ! This is definitely a favorite I will be making again !! Keep the recipies coming Brandi ! You Rock !!
I couldn’t believe how easy this was to make and our house smelled SO good while it was baking. We couldn’t get our hands on organic honeycrisp apples, so we used organic opal apples and it turned out amazing! So buttery with just the right amount of sweetness. Everyone loved this at Thanksgiving!
Made this for dessert w/ my New Years Eve dinner last night. It was delicious. Everyone thought it was great & could not believe that such delicious fare could be healthy. My apples did not make much juice as they cooked, & it was beginning to look a bit dry near the end of the cooking time. I just poured a little apple juice over the top & let it cook about another 5 minutes, which allowed the juice to warm up & moisten up the dish while the top got crispy.
Wonderful! I’m so glad to hear everybody loved it so much! Thank you so much for the feedback, I truly appreciate it 🙂
So I’m a little late to the party for this recipe but better late than never! This was fantastic! So easy and so much better tasting than anything else I ever made, even those with sugar and butter! Today my husband was talking to his daughter and told her what a delicious dessert I had made and asked me to email her the recipe! Thanks!
can you substitute coconut sugar for the raw sugar. I only have coconut sugar on hand and I want to make it today.
We love any kind of crisps.
Thanks, it sounds so good.
Hi Jande! Yes I think coconut sugar should work fine. Less of a crispy topping but the taste should still be delicious. Come back and let me know how it turned out. Thank you!
Looks delish! I don’t have almond flour… What can I use instead? Thank you! ????
Hi Sheri! You can just grind up some almonds yourself in a food processor into a flour. It won’t be as fine as the commercial kind, but since it’s just for the topping, it will be fine. Just make sure to measure the correct amount after processing. It should grind up into a flour in 15 seconds or so, you don’t want to overdo it or will start to turn into a paste/almond butter. Let me know how it turns out!
Could you sub the raw sugar with coconut sugar?
Thanks
Yes! Of course, just give them a good overall sprinkling, so they are sweet enough. Let me know what you think after you make them, thank you!
This was so awesome! I customized a bit since I didn’t have all of the ingredients, but I loved the crumbly top so much! I used walnuts instead of pecans and didn’t have almond butter. It was still delicious, which just proves how amazing you and your recipes are! Even without all of the ingredients, it’s still superb.
Made this for a dessert for a family dinner. It was a hit. Even my brother, who is NOT by any stretch of the imagination, a healthy eater loved it! I didn’t tell him it was a vegan & healthy version of apple crisp;) Looking forward to making the cinnamon “ice cream!”
Yay Sara! So awesome to hear that it was such a hit! Thank you so much for the wonderful review!
Loved it! We have friends with an orchard and we had apples galore to get “rid of”. I came here first because you don’t disappoint! I whipped it up after dinner, the house smelled amazing and it was loved by all, even the curmudgeonly omni grandfather. 🙂
Woohoo, so happy to hear you loved it so much Elyse and that it was loved by all! Thank you!
And too cute about your grandfather, haha!
My whole family loved this, including my 2 toddlers! It was quick and easy to throw together and was absolutely delicious!
So happy to hear that Sara, thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review!