After all that heavy but delicious holiday food, I thought it would be nice to try something on the healthy side. Well, a quick search of my Pinterest boards for the word ‘healthy‘ brought me to this tasty treat. How good does a Healthy Gluten-Free Apple Crumble Breakfast Parfait sound? Frankly, it sounds like a dessert to me, but I’m not opposed to a treat in the morning once in a while. So let’s find out if this breakfast/dessert is as good as it sounds.
This gluten-free Apple Crumble Breakfast Parfait tastes like dessert for breakfast, but it’s a healthy option to start your day.
The Ingredients
Ah, simple recipes. I’m not gonna lie and tell you I’m all Martha Stewart 100% of the time. Not even close! Who has the time? No, simple recipes are the bulk of what I make, and this Healthy Gluten-Free Apple Crumble Breakfast Parfait only has five ingredients. Five!
I had the kosher salt (always, it’s a kitchen staple) and the coconut palm sugar. I originally bought a bag of coconut sugar to make Cardamom Cinnamon Turmeric Iced Tea, and I’m just about done with the bag as of this recipe. It’s not quite as sweet as granulated white sugar, but it does have a nice and unique flavor. If you don’t have it, good old-fashioned brown sugar will also work.
This recipe calls for butter or oil, so I opted for coconut oil. I had butter, but coconut oil seemed like a good choice since I was already using coconut palm sugar.
That left me to buy plain Greek yogurt (I chose fat-free), apple-cinnamon granola, and apples. All were stocked at my usual grocery store, so no special orders were needed. The apple-cinnamon granola even had chunks of freeze-dried apple in it!
I decided on Fuji apples because of their mellow taste and medium texture, but any type will do here. They are ultimately sauteed until they are soft, so they don’t need to be especially crisp like granny Smith apples (although I do love a nice granny Smith!).
The Process
I’m so not a morning person, sp my morning routine is very simple. Feed my bunny Louie, then feed me as I read the news with the TV in the background. I like to make myself smoothies for breakfast since they are very simple, and that’s all my sleep-deprived mind can handle.
Complicated breakfasts are saved for the rare days that I can get out of bed and go somewhere (and I mean rare!). That’s why this Healthy Gluten-Free Apple Crumble Breakfast Parfait was ideal for me.
The first step in this recipe is prepping and sauteeing the apples. I decided to peel mine, but peeling is optional. In fact, I’m not sure I needed to take the time and effort with the thin-skinned Fuji apples.
Then it was into a 12-inch skillet to sautee for 3 minutes. I liked that size because it had plenty of room to spread the apples into a single layer and stir them. After that, I added the coconut palm sugar, gave the apples a good toss or two to coat, and removed them from the heat. Tip: I put the apples on a gel ice pack to cool them quickly. I keep one in the freezer just for cooling food.
Now it was time to put my parfaits together. Talk about easy! I just scooped in 1/4 of the apples, granola, yogurt, and another 1/4 of the apples. Then I sprinkled on a little extra granola, and voila! Two beautiful apple crumble breakfast parfaits in cute Irish coffee mugs.
My total time was 10 minutes, exactly what was listed in the recipe. I ate one immediately and put the other into the refrigerator for the next day. I had to test the author’s claim that it would stay crispy overnight, and it did.
