Healthy “Fruit Roll Ups” Recipe

We’ve had our dehydrator for years and although I use it pretty frequently to make kale chips, dried fruit, and jerkey, we had yet to use it to make fruit “leather” or in other words, “fruit roll ups”.

Until this past week that is.

 

It did bring back childhood memories, ones that dated back all the way to grade school. My mom would pack my lunch and would make sure I always had a snack to enjoy afterwards. Sometimes it was dunkaroos (who remembers those?) and other times it was strawberry fruit roll ups–did they even have any other flavors??

Now that I’m older, wiser, and trying to stay trim and healthy, I wanted to make an alternative version with less sugar and processed junk. 

Although there are many versions of this recipe online, I did try a couple of versions and found that the consistency of this one was best. Not to mention, this one was kid approved AND husband approved; 2 feats which I am quite proud of.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4 small beets (or 2 large ones)
• 4 cups of fresh strawberries
• 2 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup OR honey. 
• Optional 1 tsp vanilla extract 

I have always had mixed feelings about beets. What I love is that they are chock-full of disease fighting vitamins and minerals and are known for their anti-inflammatory properties. 

I just like them because of their bright-red color and use them as a natural coloring most of the time. 

 

After peeling the beets, you’re going to want to cook them for a good 40 minutes or until they are tender. I usually test this by sticking a fork in a few of them. 

Meanwhile, wash and cut the stem off of each strawberry and divide each into 2 pieces for easier blending. We normally buy organic strawberries since they are on the dirty dozen list for containing the most amount of pesticides (yuck). 

But this time they didn’t have any organic strawberries at our local grocer so I was stuck with conventional. The taste is the same though! 

I then begin to juice my lemon. I like using one of these contraptions because It’s quick and gets me a lot of juice for my squeeze. We got ours from Walmart. 

This recipe calls for a sticky sweetener such as maple syrup or honey. You can omit this part all together if you want to limit the amount of sugar to add. 

I have also heard people use dates in this recipe although I have never tried it myself. This would probably be a pretty good option especially if the dates are watered down a bit. 

Once the beets are cooked, and the strawberries have been cut, begin loading all ingredients into the food processor. 

The mixture should be smooth with no clumps. You will then pour into a bowl or a pourable glass to begin loading into the dehydrator. 

It might be tempting to dip your finger in this mixture and truthfully, I was pretty tempted to drink it because it smelled divine. 

I used a ladle to scoop the mixture on my dehydrator. My dehydrator has a plastic attachment which allows liquid such as this to be poured in.

I usually set it to 145 degrees. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can also use an oven at around 150-170 degrees. 

I tapped the tray lightly on the table to allow the liquid to settle and remove any airpockets. 

keep in dehyrator for 2-4 hours or until the entire mixture is firm. You’re going to want to make sure that it does get too dry otherwise, you’ll have “chips” instead of leather! ha! 

Feel free to add to parchment paper to prevent sticking. Make them look pretty if you’d like!