Our recipe for gluten free blueberry crisp is made with simple ingredients and fresh blueberries and lemons for an incredible taste! The blueberry filling is also perfect for pies or topping ice cream or oatmeal.
We have a bit of nostalgia today as we revisit one of the first recipes I ever posted on my website back in 2011: gluten free blueberry crisp.
This post was originally the 6th recipe I ever made on our site, and since I’ve been loving all things blueberry lately, it seemed like the perfect time to remake this recipe and give it a new life for spring.
Our blueberry crisp uses simple ingredients and fresh blueberries, and even though it has several steps, it’s a great dessert for spring and summer, especially served with dairy free ice cream!
Food allergy notes:
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Egg free and vegan
- Peanut free
- Tree nut free (depending on the dairy free butter you choose)
Why you’ll love our blueberry crisp recipe
The ingredients for this fruit crisp recipe are simple and ones you likely already have in your kitchen. This recipe is a perfect way to use fresh blueberries and fresh lemons when they’re in season!
The filling also doubles as a blueberry pie filling for pie or cobbler, for topping oatmeal or ice cream, and more. You can get creative with the filling if you don’t want to make a crisp!
How to make dairy free and gluten free blueberry crisp
Like our strawberry rhubarb crisp recipe, this has 2 parts to the cooking: cooking the filling on the stovetop, and baking it all together in the oven. While this recipe isn’t fast, it is delicious, perfectly sweet and tart, and has a crisp and buttery topping.
Here are the steps for making this recipe (this is just an overview, the full recipe is at the end of the post):
- Rinse your blueberries and add them to a 2-quart saucepan along with the zest of 1 lemon, the lemon juice, sugar, and the water.
- Bring to a simmer over medium heat while stirring occasionally.
- Once it begins to simmer, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 8 to 10 minutes to release more juice from the blueberries, stirring regularly.
- Scoop out some of the hot blueberry juice (a few Tablespoons to 1/4 cup) and whisk in the cornstarch to the juice to make a slurry.
- Add the slurry to the simmering blueberries, stirring constantly, and continue cooking another 1-2 minutes until it thickens.
- Turn off the heat and allow it to cool and thicken some more for about 10-15 minutes. We do this to make sure that the filling is thick enough to hold the crisp ingredients on top of the filling rather than the crisp topping sinking into the filling.
- While the filling is cooling a bit, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix up the crisp topping by adding the dairy free butter to a medium bowl and melting it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, and stir in the remaining crisp ingredients (the quick oats, brown sugar, gluten free all purpose baking mix (I use the King Arthur one), and the vanilla.
- Add the blueberry filling to a glass 8×8-inch pan and crumble the crisp topping over it evenly.
- Bake for 30 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and the topping is crisp.
- Allow to cool about 15 to 20 minutes before serving warm.
- Cover any leftovers and store at room temperature for up to 2-3 days, or in the fridge (the topping won’t be crisp when reheated).
Can I use frozen blueberries in this recipe?
I haven’t tried making this particular recipe with frozen blueberries yet, but this recipe should work with frozen blueberries.
However, you’ll likely need to reduce or eliminate the water you add to the pan or use more cornstarch (maybe an additional teaspoon or 2) since frozen blueberries release more water during cooking than fresh blueberries.
Using frozen blueberries will also extend the stovetop cooking time a bit as well.
When you go to fill your baking dish before baking in the oven, you’ll want to make sure that your blueberry pie filling is thickened enough to hold the crisp topping on top of the filling and it won’t sink into the filling as it bakes.
If as it cools it isn’t thick enough to hold the crisp topping ingredients, it might need to be thickened a bit more.
Check out our allergy friendly blueberry recipe roundup!
Our post and recipe update
This post was first published on November 8, 2011, one of the first recipe posts we published on The Fit Cookie! I decided to update this post and recipe, including the photos.
The older photos are pretty scary looking, you can see one of them here if you like, but I decided not to add it to the post like I normally do since the photos are so bad!
The original recipe had cinnamon added to the crisp topping, but I left that out of this re-write. You can add a little bit of cinnamon to the topping if you like.
Gluten Free Blueberry Crisp with Fresh Blueberries (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
Blueberry filling
- 18 ounces fresh blueberries
- ½ cup unbleached cane sugar (I use Zulka)
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 2 Tablespoons water
- dash salt
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
Crisp topping
- ⅓ cup dairy free butter, melted (we used Country Crock plant butter sticks)
- ¾ cup gluten free quick oats
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ⅓ cup King Arthur gluten free all-purpose baking mix
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Add the blueberries, sugar, lemon juice, water, and lemon zest to a 2-quart saucepan and bring to a simmer over mediu heat, stirring occasionally.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 8-10 minutes until blueberries begin to break down and release more juice.
- At about 8 minutes of simmering, scoop out some of the juice (several tablespoons to 1/4 cup) into a small bowl and whisk in 1 Tablespoon cornstarch to make a slurry and return this to the bleuberry mixture, stirring constantly to prevent lumps as you pour it into the pan.
- Cook for an additional 1-2 minutes to thicken, stirring constantly.
- Allow to cool for about 15 minutes to thicken more while you prepare the crumb topping. This helps the crumb/crisp topping to sit on top of the filling as it cooks otherwise it can sink into the filling. You can also save this blueberry filling for later at this point as well.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, melt the dairy free butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds, and stir in the oats, brown sugar, gluten free baking mix, and vanilla.
- Add the blueberry filling to an 8×8-inch square glass baking dish and crumble the crisp topping on top evenly and bake at 350 F for 30 minutes until the filling is bubbly and the topping gets lightly browned.
- Allow to cool for about 20 minutes before serving warm, or cool completely. You can serve it with dairy free ice cream or dairy free whipped cream.
- Cover leftovers once cooled completely and store at room temperature for up to 2-3 days if you want to keep the topping crisp. Or store in the fridge for up to 3-4 days.
Nutrition
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Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.