Homemade Fruit Snacks Recipe
If your kids love fruit snacks like mine do, this is one recipe you’ll definitely want to try! This easy homemade Fruit Snacks recipe offers a healthier alternative to the store-bought version by using 100% real fruit and only ingredients you can pronounce!
I’ve experimented with several different recipes using juice, pureed fruit, and powdered gelatin. The ratio of fruit, liquid, and gelatin below yielded the best results for me resulting in a sweet, fruity, and chewy snack. I used berries but you can use your own desired variety of fruit (note that I’ve read that pineapple does not set as well!).
Homemade Fruit Snacks
yield: 6 SERVINGS
prep time: 10 MINUTES
cook time: 2 HOURS
total time: 2 HOURS 10 MINUTES
Make this easy recipe for homemade fruit snacks! A yummy treat made with real fruit puree.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups pureed fruit (I used 1/2 lb strawberries, 6oz. blueberries, and 6oz. raspberries)
- 5 packets or 1/4 cup of unflavored gelatin powder
- 2 Tablespoons honey
- 3 Tablespoons fruit juice (I used orange juice)
Directions
1
Puree fruit in a food processor or blender.
2
Pour it into a medium sized saucepan on medium heat.
3
Whisk in juice and honey. Heat until it starts to bubble and slowly add the gelatin powder whisking continually until combined.
4
Pour into an 8×8 baking dish, or small silicone candy molds if you desire specific shapes like stars, dinosaurs, hearts, Lego men, etc.
5
Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
6
After the mixture sets, cut around the sides of the pan with a knife and slide a spatula underneath and place on a cutting board.
7
Cut snacks into small pieces to serve.
Note: You can store fruit snacks in the fridge for up to a week.
These fruit snacks were popular in my house and make a great addition to school lunches. My kids loved them and I hope yours do too. It’s a great way to use up fruit that may be going bad and will be even less expensive with summer berries!
Can’t wait to try these! Thank you for the recipe!
You’re welcome, enjoy!
What a GREAT idea Love your posts! 🙂
Thanks Meg!!
These look sooo yummy! ☀️
this.looks.awesome!
Hi Lina, do you think frozen fruit would work as well??
Yes! Sorry forgot to mention that 🙂
Perfect thank you so much!!
LOVE this!
Thank you for this great healthy recipe … my kids will surely love them =)
You’re welcome, enjoy!
I will be trying this for sure! Thank you. My kids love fruit snacks but I would feel so much better offering them these.
You’re welcome!
We ordered dinosaur, heart, & animal silicone molds for just this use! We are using them to promote gut health and got the great lakes brand gelatin. good stuff and healthy!
Awesome!
Since I spend way too much money on sugary fruit snacks, I am excited to try this recipe. Lina, thank you for sharing recipes that are both healthy and kid-friendly!
I wish I were related to Lina and she lived right next door so I could benefit from all her expertise (and taste test even her “failures,” as I’m thinking they are still pretty exceptional)!
Oh ha thanks! I definitely have my share of recipe and project fails! 🙂
I was just wishing the same thing Jennifer B!!!
c:
Cool!!!! Looks great!
These look great! Do they last longer this way? Berries spoil so quick, this would be a great way to prolong their life!
Do you think these would freeze well?
My favorite blend is to use bananas with lemon juice. I’ve done Strawberries, strawberries with peaches and strawberries with mixed berries too (using all frozen fruit). I’ve also used homemade Starbucks Passion Tea with lemonade to turn these into even healthier snacks.
With my “Starbucks” batch, there’s not any fruit so they are super low-cal and filled with good-for-you gelatin.
Is there any alternative to gelatin?
I second that- these look great but is there a way to make them without gelatin? I know my kids would love them.
Agar-agar is a seaweed product vegetarians use in place of gelatin. I also wonder if chia seeds would work as I have made jam with just chia and fruit.
Would LOVE to have that jam/chia/fruit recipe…
daltonjsmom@gmail.com 🙂 assuming it’s vegetarian? she asked hopefully?
I’d also love the chia fruit jam recipe,sounds delicious!
https://hip2save.com/2015/06/24/easy-chia-seed-berry-jam-just-three-ingredients-ready-in-only-15-minutes/
I’ve seen recipes for homemade fruit snacks before, but never tried them. I think I will now because my middlest son LOVES fruit snacks (I don’t buy them anymore because they’re horrible nutritionally). The only real fruit he will eat is apples and grapes. This will get him eating more real fruit–yay! Thank you, Lina 🙂
Lina, do you have any veggie snacks for really picky toddlers? Thank you!
You could always experiment with hiding some sweet potatoes or carrots in this recipe.
Oh this is great after all that Easter candy we have had lately. Excited to try this one! Thanks Lina!
Zosia, have u ever tried kale chips? Or I alway grind up a bunch of spinach and ” hide” it in my spaghetti sauce.
Havent tried kale chips… How do you make it?
And hiding in the pasta usually works perfect with one of them. The girl doesnt miss the trick 🙁
This is brilliant!! I’ve got a picky 13 year old that has very little on his list of “will eat.” Do you have a pop tart recipe you could let us in on? I hate him eating processed food – would rather make a scratch version 😉
Heavenly Homemaker has a pop tart recipes on her website. I haven’t tried it, but I like some of her other recipes.
Easy way to do the homemade pop tart dough is to use the pie crust in the cooler at the grocery store.
I make fruit snacks with fruit juice and gelatin for my kids’ lunches, but this looks yummy! I am going to try this one! I love making stuff from scratch for the kiddos.
This is great. Did you know that Fruit Snacks — ounce per ounce — have THREE TIMES more sugar than the same amount of regular soda! These seem better!
No! That’s crazy.
My husband and I are just little kids in adult bodies and LOVE fruit snacks, but I hate all the ‘sugar snacks’ companies try to pass as snacks made from fruit. Did the honey do anything to the texture? I’m allergic to honey, so I was wondering if I could use stevia instead.
Yes I just used it to sweeten so I think that’d work too!
Awesome, thanks for these amazing posts 🙂
Lina you are the best! I can’t wait to make! I made your slow cooker meals last night. The Chkn teriyaki was a hit. Thank you so much for taking the time to create and post these great recipes!
Yeah! Great news 🙂 thanks for telling us!
These look great! Can’t wait to try it out!
I like this recipe, I just made them this morning and after trying them they were a little tart, it could have been due to the fact that by berries were not super juicy and sweet so i did add some sugar and extra honey, at least there is some fruit servings in with the sugar, next time i might try peaches for a more sweeter gummy. 🙂
These we’re not at all what I imagined 🙁 Thank you for the easy recipe, but I attempted 2 batches (thinking I maybe botched the first one somehow or used too much gelatin-I think 5 packets is too much. The last batch I used less gelatin (3 packets only) and it came out better, but still a little weird and too jello like for me. I think I will attempt just dried fruit roll ups next time. My son ate a few of these, but did not ask for more and declined when I offered them up again.
Yeah I would say these are more like fruit jellies than fruit snack texture wise. I used 4 packets and thought maybe I used too little because it wasn’t as firm as I thought it would be.
Just wondering if you could freeze these after they are made?
Would i be able to use vegetable juice instead of fruit juice if i wanted? I have lots of beat juice..
Thanks for the recipe, It had a big hit at my son’s school today. Kids enjoyed it so much. I shared the recipe with other parents. Thanks again!
Oh that’s so great! Thanks for sharing Caroline ❤️
Is it one and a half a cup of fruit That I will then puree or one and a half of PUREED fruit? Thx