Trying to maintain a healthy diet, but still love to snack on sweet things? Homemade Fruit Leather may be a great addition to your raw food diet. Not only are these delicious home-made 'roll-ups' a healthy alternative to commercial snack foods, but they taste fantastic! Perfect for a mid-afternoon snack to tackle those sugar cravings and the kid's lunch boxes. Plus, they're so quick and easy to make!

A fruit leather or fruit roll up is basically blended fruit which is poured out into a thin consistency and dried out. You can think of it like making a smoothie and drying it out! Fruit leathers generally consist of blended fruit however other ingredients can be added to enhance flavours and make unique combinations including yoghurt - to give the roll ups a creamy texture - or spices such as cinnamon work really well too.

The best tools to have when making fruit roll ups are a good quality blender and a food dehydrator. A blender will allow you to chop and blend the ingredients together in just a few moments and give you a beautiful smooth texture. Also, by having a blender there is no need to stew the fruits over a stove prior to straining or pureeing. You simply put the raw ingredients into a blender and the work is done for you. The fruits then retain their living enzymes and nutrients as they have not been exposed to heat and stewed for hours.

The food dehydrator will replace an oven in the fruit leather making process. A food dehydrator usually costs about 4 cents an hour to run compared to an oven which costs around 60 cents an hour to run! This adds up when the average time taken to make a fruit leather is 8 hours!

You can find our favourite blender and dehydrators for making fruit roll ups at the bottom of this page!

 

Our Best Fruit Leather Recipes

Blend together the following ingredients for the tastiest fruit leathers! Each recipe makes around 4 fruit leathers.

 

Strawberry & Yoghurt Roll-Up

• 1 punnet of strawberries
• 2 bananas
• 3 dollops of good-quality yoghurt
• 1/2 apple

This fruit leather tastes naughty but isn't! If you love strawberries, this one is for you and the touch of creaminess from the yoghurt makes it a more satisfying snack.

 

---

 

Kiwi Fruit & Mango Fruit Leather

• 5 kiwi fruits, peeled
• 2 large mangoes

This is the perfect summer fruit roll up! Super fresh and tangy, perfect if you like a bit of sourness!

 

---

 

Banana & Cinnamon Fruit Roll Up

• 4 bananas
• 3 dollops of good quality yoghurt
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

 

---

 

Apple & Ginger Fruit Leather

• 5 granny smith apples
• 2 teaspoons of grated ginger

This roll up has such a nice kick of flavour to it with the added ginger! This is one for the adults!

 

---

 

Apricot and Coconut Fruit Leather

• 1 tin of apricots or 4 fresh apricots
• 50g of dried/desiccated coconut

Once you have poured the apricot mixture out on the sheet, sprinkle the top with an additional 50g (or to your desire) of dried/desiccated coconut. This will give it a crunchy texture and looks great!

 

---

 

Protein Chia Roll Up

• 2 bananas
• 1 cup of blueberries
• 1/2 cup of chia seeds

The addition of chia seeds adds both fiber and protein meaning this roll up will keep you fuller for longer and is the perfect healthy snack to avoid cravings in the afternoon or mid-morning. If you are short on time, you can use store bought apple sauce as a substitute for the fresh apples, however to be sure to look out for hidden sugars.

 

---

 

Hidden Green's Fruit Leather

• 5 granny smith apples
• 1 cup of spinach (baby spinach if possible)
• 1/2 pear

This beautifully sweet fruit roll up is perfect for squeezing some extra veggies into your diet. Also great for giving the kids extra vitamins and minerals and they won't even know what's hidden in them!

 

---

 

Blueberry Swirl Roll Ups

• 1 cup of blueberries
• 3 dollops of good quality yoghurt

We like to set our blender on the 'pulse' function for this one, which allows the mixture to be only slightly mixed/blended through; that way when you pour out the mixture it makes a lovely swirl pattern.

 

---

 

Mango Passion Fruit Roll Up

• 4 mangoes

Blend or puree the mango, then add the pulp from 3 passion fruits and stir through the mango mixture. This adds texture and looks great!

 

---

 

Pineapple & Raspberry Fruit Leather

• 1 cup of raspberries (you can use strawberries too)
• 1/2 pineapple

The pineapple gives the raspberries a beautiful natural sweetness and is perfect as an after dinner sweetness.

 

Other combinations to try

• Bananas and pineapple with a sprinkle of cinnamon;
• Seasonal berries and peaches with a dash of honey;
• Mango with a small amount of fresh ginger;
• Apple and kiwifruit

 

Tips for Making Fruit Leathers

• Select ripe or slightly overripe produce. Slightly overripe or fruit which is about to spoil actually tastes better when dehydrated!
• Mix fruits - don't stick to just one type of fruit. Try your favourite fruits together; no doubt they will create a tasty combination!
• Wash and remove any blemishes, stems or pits and peel the produce if desired.
• Pour the blended mixture onto either a non-stick dehydrating sheet or onto baking paper, you want a thickness of about 3-4mm. A non-stick sheet will make peeling off the fruit leather very easy however baking paper works well too.
• Pour the mixture in a large circle, and smooth inwards towards the centre - this will ensure the edges are slightly thicker than middle for more even drying.
• Dehydrate or set your oven to 55 degrees Celsius and dehydrate for 8 hours. Alternatively, you can dehydrate on a lower temperature to maintain the raw food integrity of the produce at 40 degrees Celsius for 10 - 14 hours.
• When the fruit leather is ready and has dried, it will look a little shiny but it won't be sticky to touch.
• Allow the fruit leather to cool then peel it from the tray. Roll it up into a tight cylindrical shape and store in an airtight container.

 

THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB

Our favourite tools for making fruit roll ups:

[product id="1635"]
[product id="1516"]
[product id="1639"]