Healthy Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
What is Rhubarb?
Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp is one of those things that reminds me of my grandma. With a scoop of coconut vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream melting into the warm fruit filling, and the crisp topping lending a nice crunch, it’s just the perfect old-fashioned dessert to make you feel like home.
Rhubarb isn’t the most well-known piece of produce in the market, but it has a lot to offer. For one, it’s actually a vegetable. It’s low in calories, adds a bright tang to savory and sweet dishes alike, and has plenty of fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals.
Eaten raw or plain, it is mouth-puckeringly sour, so most rhubarb dishes have quite a lot of sugar in them. I’ve found that I don’t actually need to load a recipe full of sugar to get a delicious dessert if I pair it with the right ingredients. My trick in this healthier strawberry rhubarb crisp is to use in-season strawberries that are naturally ripe and sweet, and a little honey (or, you can use agave or pure maple syrup). A little vanilla extract in the filling and a bit of cinnamon in the crisp topping make this an excellent balance of sweet and tangy flavors.
How to Make a Crisp Topping
As for the topping, I’ve been a big fan of nut flours since we went gluten free a few years ago for my daughter. Rather than substituting a starchy gluten free flour blend in place of traditional flour for a crisp topping, I instead use whole grain rolled oats and almond flour. The texture is still crisp and almost buttery (even if you’re using coconut oil) and it’s a great complement to the fruit filling. We just add a little tapioca flour to make the texture amazing!
Tips for Making a Dessert Crisp
If you’re dairy free, you can absolutely use coconut oil here. Likewise, if you don’t care for coconut, you can use butter in this recipe. Ghee and vegan butters also work.
If you’re vegan, agave or apple honey work very well in this filling. You can sub pure maple syrup if you prefer, I just find that I can taste it a bit more than honey or agave, and I like to let the strawberries shine through.
Have nut allergies? You can substitute white flour (or an all-purpose gluten free baking mix) in its place. Do NOT try to substitute coconut flour, or your topping will be a dry, crumbly mess.
You can make your own almond flour if you’d rather not buy some. You could also experiment by grinding up other nuts (like hazelnuts or pecans) and using those in place of almond flour.
If you don’t have or care to use tapioca flour, you can use 1/4 cup cornstarch in place of the 2 Tbsp tapioca flour.
Emily writes over at One Lovely Life, where she shares fresh, colorful recipes ideas and inspiration for living a healthy, happy life.
Healthy Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Ingredients
For the filling
- 4 cups diced strawberries
- 2 cups diced rhubarb
- 2 tbsp orange juice
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp tapioca flour sometimes called tapioca starch
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
For the crisp topping
- 3/4 cup rolled or quick-cooking oats
- 3/4 cup almond flour
- 3 tbsp coconut oil or butter
- 3 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- Make the filling by combing strawberries, rhubarb, juice, honey, tapioca starch, and vanilla. Stir to combine and pour into an 8×8″ (or 2 quart) baking dish.
- Make the topping by combining oats, almond flour, coconut oil, syrup, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Mix with two forks or a pastry blender until well combined. If after a few minutes your mixture is still a bit dry, you can add a little bit more coconut oil OR syrup.
- Crumble the topping over the fruit filling.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Let cool before serving.
Nutrition
www.superhealthykids.com
Natalie Monson
I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.
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Hi! Your Print Recipe button is not working for this recipe…just thought I’d let you know.
Thanks for letting us know Alyssa! I’ll look into it.
How am I the first to comment on this? This dessert is amazing, hands down. Got some rhubarb in my CSA and wanted to do a healthy dessert. This is perfection. So healthy, and even with no sugar or refined carbs this recipe is to die for. I didn’t even need to add ice cream!!
Just put mine in oven , excited to have with coffee in the am.
This is a great recipe without any refined sugar, I just made it today! Like Julie, we had received rhubarb and strawberries in our CSA food box. I googled “healthy strawberry rhubarb recipes” and found this. I doubled the recipe and made a couple of changes according to what we had:
– frozen cranberries to top up our rhubarb to the full amount
– and for the topping, steel cut quick cooking oats (has a different texture), butter, maple syrup and half the amount of salt but using sea salt.
I added 5 minutes to the total baking time because I doubled the recipe and it turned out just right!
I would like to try making it again without cranberries replacing part of the rhubarb amount. Very versatile and not too sweet! Thanks for sharing!
We are so glad you liked it and thanks for sharing your changes!
Some of your ingredients are missing from ingredients list, mostly for the crumble.
Hi Kate, sorry for the confusion! We made some big updates to the site recently and it caused some glitches in a few of our recipes. Our team is working hard to fix it, and the recipe should look complete again soon. Thanks for your patience!
Going to make tomorrow with frozen cherries instead of strawberries. They are sweet and need to use up. Will post how it turns out.
Do you happen to have the nutritional info for this recipe?
Hi Taylor! We don’t calculate nutrition facts for these recipes on the site, BUT they are all calculated automatically in the connected cooking app, Prepear. Every one of our recipes is already in the app, and it’s free to use. You can sign up here: https://www.prepear.com/
This was so yummy! Just right as I did not want too much sugar and it had such good flavor!
Is the nutrition information for the whole dish?
Hi Hannah, the nutrition info listed should be for one serving, and the entire recipe makes 8 servings.
I do not have tapioca flour/starch. Can something else be used?
Yep! You can just use regular cornstarch and it will work just fine.
Hi! I’m assuming you store leftovers in the fridge after making?
Thanks!
Yes! We store them in the fridge and warm up leftovers before serving. 🙂
This is an amazing recipe!! Increased the amount of rhubarb and added two apples. Perfect amount of sweetness. Used coconut oil for the crumble and as I didn’t have almond meal, blended some raw almonds – the topping was beautiful and had the consistency of a traditional crumble but much healthier. Huge hit with the family. Will definitely be making again with rhubarb being in season. Thanks for the recipe
So happy you enjoyed this recipe so much! Thanks for sharing your feedback. 🙂
Making tonite for my grand boys. Hope they like it! It looks like a good recipe,
Thank you!
556 calories and 112g of carbs per serving? Is the nutrition information for the entire recipe? Otherwise I really don’t understand how this recipe can be considered “healthy”?
You responded to a previous comment that the nutrition information for this recipe as listed is per serving. I think you may want to look again. How can 556 calories and 112 grams of carbs for one serving be considered “healthy”?
Can I substitute coconut flour for the almond flour?
Yes! That should work just fine. Enjoy!