Delicious sugar-free apple crumble with oat crumble topping! Highly customizable and easy to make, this low-calorie gluten-free treat is perfect during fall and can even be frozen. Nutrient-rich, fragrant and crowd-pleasing!
Make use of fragrant fall produce by baking this easy sugar-free apple crumble! It’s naturally vegan and gluten-free, requires simple ingredients to make, and is so easy to put together.
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Whether you want to enjoy your vegan crumble for breakfast or as a dessert with a good scoop of vegan ice cream, this recipe works for so many occasions!
It’s lower in calories, full of cozy spices, and sweet gooey apple banana filling.
Try more date-sweetened desserts like raspberry flapjacks, banana bread, or blueberry muffins! You’ll also love these vegan apple recipes.
Recipe overview
- Completely whole food plant-based
- Easy to make with little equipment
- Makes your kitchen smell fantastic
- No added sugar, dairy or oil
- Great for weight loss & meal prep
- Customizable according to seasonal produce
This sugar-free crumble features a thick oat crumble topping and fragrant fruity filling! You can make it all year with berries, peaches, or rhubarb.
Ingredients needed
- Apples — the main ingredient for our vegan crumble.
- Banana — the unexpected add-in for some natural sweetening and lovely texture.
- Dates — our favorite whole food sugar replacement!
- Spices — from cinnamon to nutmeg, vanilla, and a spritz of lemon juice, everything’s possible.
- Rolled Oats — feel free to blend some of them into flour for an even crumblier crumble topping!
- Applesauce — great low-fat and low-calorie butter or oil replacement for your crumble topping.
- Walnuts — essential fats, lovely taste & added crunch!
In terms of kitchen equipment, you’ll need a baking dish, cutting board, a knife, and a bowl to make this sugar-free crumble.
How to make sugar-free apple crumble
- Preheat your oven and get a small to medium-sized baking dish.
- Wash and chop your apples, then add them with the sliced banana and chopped dates to a bowl.
- Top with spices, then mix until well-coated with a spoon.
- Transfer to the prepared baking dish and bake for 10 minutes, just until the apples turn soft.
- Meanwhile, make the oat crumble topping: combine rolled oats, walnuts, vanilla extract, applesauce and salt in a bowl.
- Get the baking dish from the oven and top with the oat crumble.
- Place it back to bake for 15-20 minutes or until the crumble has become slightly golden and crispy!
- Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before serving warm.
Storage & prep
You can make this sugar-free apple crumble ahead of time and just pop it in the oven to bake right before serving!
Any baked crumble can be covered with foil once cooled and then stored in the fridge for up to 5 days — it’ll be good in the freezer for 3 months or even longer.
You can just let it thaw and reheat in the oven or microwave on low heat for a warm and fragrant vegan crumble!
Serving suggestions
Enjoy it on its own or with custard, vegan ice cream, aquafaba whipped cream, date caramel sauce or almond yogurt.
We personally also love it with some hot cocoa, matcha latte, or almond milk latte!
Tips & adjustments
- Use certified gluten-free oats if needed.
- Add desiccated coconut to the crumble topping if you like!
- Try the hands-off crumble version: add the oat topping to the unbaked apple filling and bake for 40 minutes total.
- Make your crumble sweeter by adding some brown sugar or maple syrup to the oat topping!
- You can omit the walnuts in the topping if wanted.
- Add some flour to the crumble topping for a slightly different texture.
Fruits you can use
If apples are not in season, use about 2.5 cups of the following fruit instead.
- Blueberry
- Blackberry
- Cherries
- Red currant
- Strawberry
- Rhubarb
- Plum
- Pear
- Peach
Adding one sliced banana to the mixture is our little trick for healthy and natural sweetening, but it’s not a must.
The combination of baked cinnamon apple and chopped dates tastes lovely, too!
More healthy vegan recipes
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Ingredients
- 1 banana thinly sliced
- 2 apples somewhat finely chopped
- 2 dates chopped
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch of ginger & nutmeg
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Oat Crumble Topping
- 1 ½ cup rolled oats 135 g
- 1 oz walnuts crushed (30 g)
- 5 tbsp applesauce
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
Make the Filling
- Preheat your oven to 375° F (190° C) and get a small baking dish.
- Prepare the fruity filling by placing the sliced banana, apples and dates into a medium-sized bowl. Add the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and lemon juice, then toss until everything is nicely coated with the spices.
- Transfer into your prepared baking dish and bake for 8-10 minutes, just until the fruit starts to bubble.
Make the Oat Topping
- While the first layer is baking, combine the rolled oats with the applesauce, crushed walnuts, vanilla extract and salt using the same bowl as before. Mix well with a spoon.
- If you want your crumble topping to be sweeter, just add 2 tbsp of maple syrup or brown sugar at this stage.
Assemble the Apple Crumble
- Once the apple and banana mixture becomes soft and fragrant, take it out of the oven and top evenly with the oat crumble topping.
- Return the dish to the oven and bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until the oats are slightly golden and crisp.
- Let your apple crumble cool for 5-10 minutes before serving warm on its own or topped with vegan ice cream.
Notes
- Any leftovers can be cooled and stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Simply warm in the oven or microwave before serving.
- Freeze for up to 3 months!
- This vegan crumble can be made with berries, peaches or other fruit instead of apples.
- Feel free to replace some of the rolled oats with any flour of your choice for a slightly different texture.
Easy to put together – rather than bake the filling then adding topping, I just baked it all at once, for 30 minutes. Perfect. It smelled delicious baking, like Christmas in the oven – then paced the kitchen because we had to let it cool a tad to have a bowlful. I know my eyes got big, and my husband just stood like a deer in the headlights at the first bite. We stared at each other. WOW. Then dug in, savoring every warm, crunchy, apple-y, spicy, happy bite. Got a second bowlful. Repeat. This will now be my number 1 Apple Crumble go-to, forEVER!! Spicy, but not overmuch. Sweet, but not overmuch. Warm and comforting. Like a hug from Grandma!!! LOVE THIS RECIPE!! Thanks so much for sharing, I’m passing it on to friends and family ;-) And will definitely be having more for BREAKFAST! (If I don’t sleepwalk and raid the pan…)
wow, thank you so much for this stellar feedback! you’re right, I might as well change the instructions to “bake the whole crumble at once” instead of the filling first. Really happy to know that you like it that much, thanks for making my day ♡
This is now our go-to Apple Crumble recipe – it tastes like a warm hug from Grandma!!
This is the easiest, tastiest apple crumble and we had it again for Christmas morning breakfast. This is my “go to” recipe for apple crumble! So nice to have! Would be perfect for guests when I want something special. Love your website!
thank you so much for the lovely feedback!
How would i replace the banana?
any kind of fruit you think tastes great with apples and is sweet! dates or raising would be my first choice :)
I ended up using two small/medium apples, a medium carrot (grated), a large handful of frozen blackberries and a small handful of raisins instead of apples and banana. A really tasty and easy way to get in some different fruit and vegetables at breakfast. Thanks for the recipe, will be using again.
I was just coming here to ask that same question! :)
Would you sub the walnuts for tree nut allergy, or just do without?
Hi Diana, you can use any nut of your choice for your crumble or just omit them completely :)
Enjoy your treat!
I tried the recipe, but was a little disappointed with the results..the oats were kind of hard and chewy, even after following all the instructions carefully. I am not a professional, just learning how to bake, so I am unable to understand what went wrong.
it’s hard to tell from far away what might have happened – you could mix some nut butter or neutral oil into the oat topping to create a different texture if you like! or blend them into a coarse flour which won’t be as chewy. hope this helps!
I love the look of this recipe, I can’t wait to try it! I find it incredibly hard to find recipes which match my dietary preferences, but this is near perfect!
My only question is that is the temperatures given for the oven for a gas or fan oven?
I’m quite new to this baking stuff and while I’m maybe overthinking it I would like to leave as little room for error as possible.
Many thanks :)
this recipe was made in a regular fan oven! I’m not familiar with gas ovens but there are conversion tables on the internet :) you cannot really mess up this crumble recipe, unless you burn it… so start with a lower heat and bake until crispy on top!
I’m looking forward to trying this recipe! It doesn’t say how much nutmeg or ginger to add? Is it equal parts to the cinnamon?
Thank you 😊
Hi Stacy, thanks for letting me know about this issue! I’d add a pinch of each, it’d be too much if you used as much nutmeg and ginger powder as cinnamon :) These two spices are much more potent. Let us know how you like the crumble!
This was delightful! I added some almond butter to the crumble topping to get nice clumpy clusters, and pressed a layer on the bottom of the dish before adding in the fruit mixture. I baked it 10min (without top crumble layer) so that the bottom would be crunchy. Then spread the remaining crumble on top and baked until golden. Perfectly sweet and juicy; the oat crumble also turned into a great chewy-crispy granola!
Thanks a lot for this delicious recipe.
Look forward to trying your other recipes, they all look amazing :)
oh yummy, that sounds so good! thanks for sharing :)