Healthy Homemade Gummy Bears — Green Apple Popeye Flavored
Healthy Homemade Green Apple Gummy Bears — yes, they’re green, but they don’t taste “green” at all. They taste just like the storebought kinds — soft, chewy, sweet and bursting with apple flavor. You’d never know they’re fat free, refined sugar free and all natural. YUP, that means NO high-fructose corn syrup, artificial food flavorings, synthetic food dyes, or preservatives whatsoever!
These Green Apple Gummy Bears were inspired by one of my favorite childhood movie theatre candies, Apple O’s.
Except these are actually good for you. Seriously. And just like my Homemade Orange Gummy Bears, these DIY Green Apple Gummy Bears are made with a secret ingredient. I’ll give you a couple hints:
- It’s green
- Popeye ate it… like, a lot.
Secret Ingredient = Spinach
DON’T RUN AWAY!!
Yes, these Gummy Bears might have spinach in them, but you’d don’t taste it, I promise you. I kinda hate the bitter taste of spinach (and its gritty texture) and I literally ate 16 of these Gummy Bears in a row… hehehe. They taste like apples in the form of Gummy Bears. They taste like those Apple O’s too! And you get some veggies in. Hmmm, I think I’ll take 16 more 😉
I’m clearly enjoying my KitchenAid® Juicer Attachment. I nearly finished using up the ~25 pounds (!!!) of organic fruits and veggies I got last week — from organic spinach to kale to carrots to strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples, oranges and lemons. Definitely got my fill of fruits and veg. My body tooootally loves me right now.
After “breathing in” those Orange Gummy Bears in like, half a day (no lie) I needed to make another batch. I was out of oranges so I needed to whip up a new flavor. I had some apples and a pound of untouched spinach and BAM — Green Apple Popyeye Gummy Bears came to mind. I edited the recipe to use apples instead of oranges, and to add vibrant green color (without using any food coloring) I added some spinach.
I’m completely obsessed with the results. I walk to the fridge every twenty minutes to grab a few gummies (they make good study snacks, btw). I know I’ll be making this recipe again and again and again. It’s so easy!
So grab some apples and spinach and whip out that juicer 🙂
GO GO GO!
Healthy Green Apple Popeye Gummy Bears
Ingredients
- 7 Apples (I used Gala, but Granny Smith would be good too!)
- 3-4 oz Baby Spinach
- 3 tbs Lemon Juice (freshly squeezed)
- 2 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
- 2 tsp Natural Apple Flavor
- 100g (½ cup + 2 tbs) Unflavored Gelatin
Instructions
- Wash the apples and then core them. Chop them into quarters so they can fit into the juicer chute.
- Rinse the spinach and drain the excess water. Lightly chop the spinach (I used kitchen shears) so it's easier to shove into the chute once you're juicing (when the leaves are whole, they tend to stick).
- Attach the KitchenAid Juicer Attachment to your stand mixer with the high pulp filter, then place a tall container underneath the juice opening and another container underneath what I call the "poop shoot."
- Turn the stand mixer on high speed and start juicing! Juice the apples and spinach at the same time, alternating some sliced apples and a mini handful of spinach into the chute, until you get 3¾ cups** worth of juice.
- In a nonstick saucepan, stir together the apple/spinach juice, lemon juice, stevia extract and apple flavor with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle the gelatin on top, stir lightly, then let it sit for 5 minutes.
- Place the pan over medium/medium-high heat and smush the big clumps of gelatin, but you don't need to worry, they'll dissolve.
- Stir constantly until the mixture begins to bubble. When you can't stir the bubbles away, keep it on the heat for 30 more seconds and then remove from the heat.
- Place your gummy bear molds on a cookie sheet, and then fill the molds with the green apple gummy bear mixture. Let cool on the counter for about an hour, then place them in the fridge. Refrigerate until firm (I leave them overnight). Refrigerate to store. Keeps for ~3 days.
Recipe Notes
6-ingredient Healthy Homemade Green Apple Popeye Gummy Bears!
Enjoy!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
So… my husband LOVES gummies and I am so excited to try this recipe out for myself! Now I just need that cute gummy mold!
The Blonde Chef-
YAY how perfect!! I hope you and your hubby like the recipe 🙂
-Jess
Haha, I won’t run from these! These sound fabulous! I have tried spinach in many different sweet recipes and the crazy thing is that you really can’t taste it all! These little bears are so cute! Once I find a good mold I am totally making these!
Annie @ Natural Sweet Recipes-
Oh good, phew! You’re definitely one of the few who will probably actually attempt this recipe since there is spinach in here… even though you can’t taste it!
I hope you like the recipe 🙂
-Jess
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I don’t have a juicer and prefer to have the whole fruit/veggie. Is this recipe ok if I use my ninja and make everything really fine? Or can I adapt it? Either way, they look yum!
Amira Karmous-
I tried making another flavor of these gummies (blueberry) using blended fruit instead of juice and it worked out just “okay.” They ended up more like chewy fruit snacks rather than gummy bears. But if that’s okay with you feel free to try it here!
Hope you like the recipe 🙂
-Jess
love your ideas. And I can’t wait to try this!
Two question:
1) I also don’t have a juicer. I wonder if I could just use a good Apple Juice? (I’ll just use spinach that’s been through the processor)
2) I think your link is for Gummy Bear Ice Cube Trays, so they look a lot bigger. Is that what you use? Would giant ones like that work?
Thanks! very glad to have come across your website
I haven’t tried these without the juicer, but I’m sure it’ll work just fine! Since spinach is pretty difficult to blend, maybe add a splash of the apple juice to help it puree. Just make sure at the end you have 3+3/4 cups worth of juice/puree.
Also, these gummy bears are pretty big. No one sells small gummy bear molds, probably due to a patent or something. The gummy bears are 2×1″ big.
I hope you like the recipe Erika!
-Jess
Amazon has the small gummy bears molds and you get 4 and 2 droppers for about $10
These look amazing! Any idea what is in the Apple Flavor? Not sure what that really is
Cynthia-
Ingredients: Propylene Glycol, Alcohol, Natural Flavors
It’s basically like vanilla extract, just apple! 😀
-Jess
Any chance there’s a vegan substitute for gelatin that could be swapped in?
Sam-
I haven’t tried using a replacement for the gelatin, but I suppose you can try using agar agar powder instead! I’m crossing my fingers it works for you 😀
-Jess
hi, how can i substitute the apple flavor? my dad doesn’t want to buy it
I’m afraid there’s no good sub for the apple flavor. Sorry!
-Jess
Owww, that is bad because i really want to make this….. but what about apple sauce?
Applesauce just won’t give these enough apple flavor, sadly 🙁
Thank you so much for this recipe I made a lot of my foods from scratch and I’m soo excited about this recipe because my kids are allergic to dyes (Tarzatine etc) which makes it hard and sometimes expensive to find candies and treats that are free from dyes! So I’m gonna try this soon!
This is a great idea thanks!
Question: How long do these gummies keep? (I’m planning a party and thinking about making them ahead of time, but wouldn’t want them to go bad.)
TIA!
I think these gummies will keep for around 4-5 days (depending on how fresh your fruits/veggies are when you make this)! Make sure to keep them in an airtight container in the fridge. I usually finish these off in 2-3 days 🙂
Have a fun party Jamie!!
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I have made those yesterday and they taste so good! Thank you for the recipe. However, mine seem to separate into different layers, the rest fibre sinks to the bottom of the old and the top is clear. Your seem to be even, what am I doing wrong?
Greetings from Portugal
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I tried this recipe last night and it was yummy! However, the gelatin or overall gummy didn’t have the same texture as a typical gummy bear. What am I doing wrong? Is it the amount of time I had it on the stovetop? Approx how long should it be on the stovetop before it bubbles? Thanks! It was tasty though!
It’s hard to say what went wrong because I don’t know what the texture actually turned out like. Was it too soft or too hard? The only purpose of the mixture coming to a bubble on the stove is to make sure the gelatin is completely dissolved.
Wow! What a great way to sneak in veggies! I won’t tell anyone if you don’t!
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Is there any way to make fruit dummies last longer? Fruit leathers, for instance, last very long.
My grandkids come visit twice a week, but I’m sure they’d like a “doggie back” in between, and especially to have a healthy snack on trips etc.
I’m sorry I’m not sure… you can try freezing maybe?
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Hi Ya Jess, thanks so much for your recipe for the gummy bears, just wondering if I could replace the stevia with some Xylatol instead…. Anyway I will just have to give it a try and see how it works.
Take Care
Cheers Jo from Australia 🇦🇺
I haven’t tried using xylitol here so I can’t be sure if it’ll work or not. You’d need about 1 cup (maybe more) to replace the stevia, and I’m afraid that after chilling in the fridge, the xylitol might “re-crystallize” and make the bears gritty? I would recommend using stevia as stated in the recipe, but if you want to try a substitution, I’ll cross my fingers that it works for you! 🙂
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Hi
I was wondering if honey could be used instead of stevia.
Thanks Erica
You’d need a lot of honey to replace the stevia and that might throw off the ratio of ingredients and overall flavor. The gummies might also not solidify.
I plan on making these for my toddler but in dinosour molds, I’m sure he’ll love them. Thanks for the recipe.
hey can you maybe share the nutritional content?