This is one of our base recipes. Chef Lindsey LOVES a good fruit crisp, so she wanted to share her formula for making a crisp with ANY fruit! Juicy lightly sweetened fruit topped with a buttery oat & nut topping, our frozen fruit crisp base recipe is the ultimate feel good dessert you need!
Must-Know Cooking Skills to Level Up your Kitchen Game
To make this recipe even easier, check out these videos to master the basics:
Plus, we’ve got an awesome Knife Skills 101 course to help you slice and dice like a pro (for other recipes)!
Culinary Tips for Making the Best Frozen Fruit Crisp
When measuring brown sugar, be sure to pack it in the cup. Watch this video to learn how to measure brown sugar properly!
Frozen berries can be tart depending on the variety, so you might need to add 1-2 tablespoons more sugar to the fruit. Taste the fruit before you add sugar so you know! The crisp topping is sweet on its own, so it will also help balance any tartness.
Different fruits store different amounts of water. Frozen strawberries seem to need ¼ cup of cornstarch to thicken; they contain more water than a lot of other fruits. Other berries need 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and peaches, pears, pineapple, mangos, or apples require 2.
Base Recipe Ingredient Swaps & Substitutions
- Frozen Fruit: use any variety of fresh or frozen fruit. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, dark cherries, blackberries, apples, peaches, pears, mangos, or a combination of a few are all delicious options.
- Brown Sugar: Switch it up with coconut sugar, turbinado sugar, or cane sugar—but heads up, cane sugar won’t bring that same rich flavor. Honey or agave can also work—just drizzle it over the fruit after you’ve tossed it with cornstarch.
- Cornstarch: No cornstarch? No problem. Use ¼ cup of all-purpose flour instead—it’ll do the job just fine.
- Lemon Juice: Out of lemons? Orange juice works too. Feeling zesty? Toss in a teaspoon of lemon zest for extra brightness.
- Old Fashioned Oats: Quick oats will work in a pinch, but they don’t deliver that same hearty, golden crisp. Whatever you do, steer clear of steel-cut oats—they are too tough.
- All Purpose Flour: For a nutritional boost, try white whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, or spelt flour. Just know the crust might turn out a bit denser.
- Kosher Salt: We use Morton kosher salt. If using Diamond Crystal kosher salt, use ¾ teaspoon. If you use table salt, use slightly less than ½ teaspoon.
- Butter: You could try avocado or canola oil, but we weren’t wowed by the results. Coconut oil might be a better bet, but we didn’t get a chance to test it—so if you try it, let us know how it turns out!
Base Recipe Variations
Remember that this is a base recipe, so the goal is for you to customize to your taste!
Use these additional ingredients for an even more flavorful fruit crisp.
- Crystallized ginger: substitute ½ teaspoon freshly grated ginger or ¼ teaspoon dried ginger.
- Citrus zest: use lemon or orange zest.
- Flavor extract: use 1 teaspoon vanilla, ½ teaspoon almond extract, or both!
- Nuts: use sliced almonds, chopped pecans, or chopped walnuts. Raw nuts are best because they will toast up in the oven.
- Spices: use cinnamon, cardamom, apple pie spice, pumpkin spice, ginger, nutmeg, or cloves. For stronger spices, like cloves, use less.
To make a gluten-free berry crisp, substitute a gluten-free flour mix, such as King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Flour, in place of the all-purpose flour, and be sure to use certified gluten-free oats.
Want some fruit crisp recipe inspiration?
Use this base recipe as a guide, check out the variations we created, and then make your own signature fruit crisp! We can’t wait to hear what you cook up!
Frozen Peach Crisp with Crystallized Ginger
Frozen Berry Crisp
Frozen Strawberry Crisp
Equipment Recommendations
Make sure your kitchen is stocked with these tools for easy preparation!
- Nested mixing bowls – great for mixing, great for storing!
- Citrus juicer – for game changing real lemon juice.
- Measuring Spoons & Cups – precision makes a difference.
- 8×8 Glass or Ceramic Baking Dish – great for crisps and so much more!
If you choose to serve this frozen fruit crisp recipe with homemade whipped cream, you may also want an electric hand mixer or stand mixer. And the Kitchen Aid branded ones are so fun and colorful—Chef V has all pink in her kitchen. Whisking by hand is always an option too, just get ready for a good arm workout! There’s no chance we’d go for that—ha ha!
Check out our essential equipment guide to stock your kitchen with ALL the tools you need to prepare anything and everything!
Frozen Fruit Crisp Nutrition Tidbits
Although this is a dessert recipe, we still found a few ways to ensure you get some good nutrition in every bite. Fruit, old-fashioned oats, and less sugar than most desserts makes this a perfect recipe for those looking for a lighter dessert!
Frozen Fruit
Fruit is packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. Together, these nutrients promote heart health and may reduce inflammation.
Oats
Oats of any variety are a good source of fiber and complex carbohydrates. Fiber is important for digestion, satiety, stable blood sugar, good cholesterol, and healthy gut bacteria. Complex carbohydrates are important for steady energy and focus.
Less Sugar than Most Desserts
Although we expect to find sugar in most desserts, many recipes and pre-made desserts contain way more than necessary. In this frozen fruit crisp, we use lemon juice to enhance the natural sweetness of the fruit and nuts, then add some brown sugar to balance the flavors out. Each serving of frozen strawberry crisp contains 1 Tablespoon (12 grams) of added sugar – far less than you would find in any store bought dessert! Even most homemade fruit crisp recipes have almost twice the amount of sugar than is in this recipe!
Dive into our ingredient guide to discover the freshest, tastiest picks for all your recipes—because great ingredients make all the difference! 🌟🍎
Serving Suggestions
Serve frozen fruit crisp straight from the oven with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, banana nice cream, or a dollop of homemade whipped cream,
You can also make this recipe a day or two in advance. Allow to cool completely, then cover and place in the refrigerator until ready to eat. To reheat, preheat the oven to 350ºF and cook for 20 minutes, or until the strawberries are bubbling and mixture is heated through. Good luck keeping sneaky hands from sampling a taste if you leave it in the fridge for too long before serving!
Looking for a fun breakfast? Microwave a portion in the morning and top with a dollop of Greek yogurt for a sweet, but still nutritious option!
Learn how to build a healthy balanced meal with our Whole Life Plate, meal plan, and book!
Storage Recommendations
Cool completely, cover, and place in the refrigerator. The fruit crisp will keep its quality in the refrigerator for 3-5 days (but we doubt it will last that long!). The crispy topping may begin to get soggy, but we promise it will still taste good!
Want more nourishing dessert recipes? We got you covered!
Try out these favorites!
Dark Chocolate Covered Fruit Bites
Dark Chocolate Covered Walnuts
Quinoa Cookies with Chocolate Chips
Share the Love – Leave us a Review!
Unlike many other recipe blogs, we actually encourage you to tweak our recipes. Not because they’re in need of change, haha, but because we believe one of the secrets to success in the kitchen is cooking to YOUR taste. Make the recipe, leave us a review, and tell us if you made any changes! We love hearing how you’ve made it your own.
Frozen Fruit Crisp Base Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 pounds (~6 cups) frozen fruit pieces
- 2 Tablespoons + ½ cup packed brown sugar, divided
- 2-4 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup butter (1 stick)
Additions to YOUR taste
- 1-2 Tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
- 1 teaspoon citrus zest
- ½-1 teaspoon flavor extract
- ¼ cup chopped, sliced, or slivered nuts
- ½-1 teaspoon spice(s)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Place frozen fruit in an 8×8 baking dish. Add 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and optional ginger and/or flavor extract. Mix to combine.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together oats, flour, remaining brown sugar, salt, and optional nuts and spices.
- Cut butter into ½ inch cubes. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, work the butter into the dry ingredients until it makes a coarse crumbly mixture. Do not overmix. Sprinkle oat mixture on top of fruit in an even layer.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and the fruit mixture is bubbling around the edges of the pan. Cool slightly before serving. Enjoy!
This Post Has 12 Comments
Thank you
You’re so welcome! I hope you enjoyed it!
I love a fruit crisp. Any idea how many calories per serving? Could this be made in muffin tins?
Hi Donna! For the purpose of helping you out, we input the ingredients in a nutrient analyzer and calculated that each serving (1/9th of the recipe) contains approximately 280 calories, 13 grams of fat, 41 grams of carbohydrates (4 grams of fiber), and 4 grams of protein. Note that those are approximations based on generic ingredients.
That said, although that information may be helpful for some people who are trying to track their intake for weight or other health reasons, we intentionally don’t display that information on our website. Firstly, different ingredients can vary widely in their nutrient profiles, so recipe nutrition fact labels tend to be inaccurate. Secondly, as a company, we are more focused on promoting a whole food, plant-forward eating pattern and the skills that can sustain that eating pattern, rather than specific calorie counts, etc. We know from research that this lifestyle eating pattern naturally promotes satiety and can help with overall health and weight management. Hope that helps!
Also, we have not made it muffin tins before, but we would love to hear how it turns out if you try it!
Made this for a lunch event at work. It was a big hit! Everyone loved it.
That’s fantastic! Glad to hear that it was a hit. 🙂
It looks really good, I might of done something wrong, doesn’t seem settled, runny.
Hi Julie! What fruit did you use? And how much cornstarch? For fruits that have more water, like berries, you need more cornstarch. That might have been the problem! Let us know!
Made this with a mix of frozen blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Used four tablespoons of both cornstarch and brown sugar. Tired out fabulous❣️ Thanks for the tips ahead of time ????
That sounds like a delicious combination! Glad it turned out well for you! 🙂
I don’t know… I wanted to love this., but too runny even after adding an extra spoon of cornstarch and found it too sweet.
I will try again omitting sugar from fruit, I’ll add more cornstarch (how much is too much).
I also added chia and flaxseed to the crumble.
Hi Lauren – thanks for your comment! What frozen fruit did you use? We find that water content in different fruits can be highly variable! And sweetness preferences definitely differ from person to person, so certainly adjust to your taste in the future! Hopefully it turns out better next time. 🙂