Healthy Homemade Gummy Bears — Strawberry Flavored (Sugar Free)
These Healthy Homemade Gummy Bears are super chewy, sweet and addictive, just like the storebought stuff! These naturally fruity Gummy Bears are fat free, refined sugar free, and low carb… no corn syrup or artificial flavorings whatsoever! But don’t worry, you’d never know these are actually good for you, shhh!
After making my Healthy Homemade Fruit Snacks I knew I needed to make Gummy Bears.
Storebought Fruit Snacks and Gummy Bears are totally (and sadly) addictive… 100% sugary, syrupy, unhealthy deliciousness. That’s why I knew I had to make a DIY version. These DIY Strawberry Gummy Bears are naturally flavored and made with real fruit puree, not artificial flavorings or fruit juice concentrate.
Healthy Homemade Strawberry Gummy Bears
Ingredients
- 470g (2 cups) Strawberry Puree (see Instructions**)
- ⅓ cup Lemon Juice (freshly squeezed)
- 1 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
- Natural Red Food Coloring (I used 15 drops of India Tree's food coloring)
- 60g (6 tbs) Unflavored Gelatin
Instructions
- **Wash your strawberries, slice the greens off and puree in a blender. Measure 2 cups of the puree and place in a medium-sized bowl.
- Stir in the lemon juice, stevia and food coloring.
- It helps to have another person help you here. Have one person spread open a nut milk bag over a large bowl while you pour the strawberry mixture inside. Tie the bag closed and squeeze the bag to get as much liquid out as you can. You should get 1¾ cup (or 334g) of the mixture after straining.
- Pour the mixture into a nonstick saucepan, sprinkle the gelatin overtop and let it sit for 5 minutes. Stir it together and smush any big clumps of gelatin, don't worry about the small ones, they'll dissolve.
- Place the pan over medium-high heat and stir occasionally, until it comes to a light boil. Stir constantly when the mixture boils harder. When you can't stir the bubbles away, keep it on the heat for ~30 seconds and then remove from the heat. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes so the foam/bubbles have a chance to go away, then carefully scoop the mixture into gummy bear molds.
- Let the molds cool on the counter for about an hour, then place them in the fridge. Refrigerate until firm. To store, place gummy bears in an airtight container and refrigerate.
Have you tried my other gummy bear flavors? Check out the Orange Gummy Bears, Green Apple Gummy Bears, Blueberry Fruit Snacks, and Peach Mango Fruit Snacks!
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I’m about to tear this guy’s head CLEAN off! Chompity chomp chomp.
Life is good with a handful of these Healthy Homemade Gummy Bears!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
So happy to find this, my boys are addicted to gummy bears and these are such a great, healthy alternative!
Honestly amazing! Never thought you could “healthify” gummy bears! Definitely giving this a try 🙂
I knew these were pretty easy to make with few ingredients; I’ve just yet to make them! Thanks for sharing this recipe and the cute photos! They look gummy and yummy!
hey Jessica! Congrats! I’ve nominated you for the Liebster Award here!!
Sooo cute! Lovely gummy bears, and I love the fact that they’re healthy!
Love this recipe…actually love all of your recipes that I’ve tried. My kids love “squishies” and they love these. My son helped me make them. Thanks for the recipe.
Kim-
Awww thanks Kim!
Glad you and your kids like the recipe 🙂
And I’m glad your son got to help!
Thanks for making the gummy bears 🙂
-Jess
Hello! Do you think I could use agar agar instead of gellatin?
Julia-
I haven’t tried using agar agar instead of the gelatin but I’m sure it would work out just fine! It might have a slightly different texture but not by too much 🙂
I hope you like the recipe!
-Jess
Love your site! Great ideas. I wish Stevia was an option for me- I am highly intolerant- makes me sick for days! I will have to adapt some of your recipes with honey–
Michelle @ Vitamin Sunshine-
Thanks so much Michelle!
Sorry about the stevia, I’ve never heard of anyone having such a bad reaction to it before 🙁
I haven’t tried using honey in this recipe, but I’m sure it’ll work out just fine!
In baked good recipes, however, you need to be really careful because the doughs/batters might get too liquidy and not bake properly. Feel free to ask what recipes you want to try and I’ll find out if honey can work instead of the stevia 🙂
-Jess
They should make liquid erythritol
These look amazing! Can’t wait to try.
Hi. This looks fun and I think easy. Can you tell me how many molds you needed for a batch of these gummies? Thanks. Great site. I’m glad I found it.
Thanks so much! The recipe makes 18 gummy bears so you’ll need 3 trays… but if you want a range of shapes, you can use other molds too. Hope you like the recipe!
-Jess
Hi, after you strain the mixture, I’m assuming you use the liquid, not the puree, right? Also, if I am going to use granulated sugar instead of the Stevia, do you have any thoughts on how much I may want to use? Thank you!
Brittany W-
Yes, sorry for the confusion! You use the juice, not the leftover puree. To replace the stevia, you’ll need about 3/4-1 cup of sugar… preferably evaporated cane juice or a less processed sugar rather than white sugar 🙂
I hope you like the recipe!
-Jess
Can you do a fruit/veggie puree? I know a lot of fruit snacks “are” for and veggie.
Kelly-
I haven’t tried adding veggies in this particular recipe, but I made an Orange-Carrot version as well as a Green Apple-Spinach version (don’t worry, you don’t taste any greens whatsoever)! 🙂
-Jess
I love this recipe! Where oh where did you get your glass holders in the pictures that look like sandwich bags?
I want to know to where I can buy this glass holders, they are adorable!
Amazon! Fred & Friend unzipped hand blown glass bowl
Great recipe! I tried this yesterday but got the quantities wrong and ended up with a strawberry gelly instead! Retrying today with applesauce flavour – hopefully I get it right this time around!
Yes Jess – they were still delicious even tough much softer. I’m looking forward to doing the next batch. The applesauce was lovely and came out well – I used homemade sauce, natural green flavouring and did them fruit roll up style. Went down a treat!
Thank you for the recipe! I love that you made them completely homemade and will defiantly have to give this a try!
These turned out fantastic! Love your website!
So can these be made with other fruits to create other flavors?
I want to make these in different shapes as a gift and I’d love to have some variety. But the person I’m making them for can’t have all the sugar of regular candy so I love this idea!
Betania-
I have 2 other flavor variations on the blog: Orange and Green Apple Popeye!
I hope you and your gift recipient like the recipes 😀
-Jess
It’s been a while since I wrote my comment but I will be making these soon!
I was curious though. If I did cherry, raspberry, lemon, and grape flavors would the preparation still be similar to the flavors you have already posted about on your blog? And when do you suggest adding flavoring to the mixture? Is stevia the only thing you use to sweeten?
Thank you so much again!
Sorry for the delayed response Betania!
I haven’t tried making those flavors before so I can’t be sure if they’ll work the same. I’m sure raspberries will work just fine, same as cherries. Just make sure to put the cherries first.
I made gummy bears using grapes to make Blueberry Fruit Snacks 😀
I would add flavoring to the recipes because the cooking process removes some flavor, and you definitely don’t want to taste the gelatin. To sweeten, I rely on stevia and the natural fruit in the recipe. Hope this helps!
-Jess
Hi,
Wonderful recipe and beautiful looking bears. Very cute. One small query – how long do these last?
I’m not sure how long these last, I ate them pretty quickly 😉
I’d say these keep for a max of 1 week as long as they’re stored in a tightly sealed container in the fridge 😀
-Jess
Knox says 1pkg gelatin for 2 C liquid – is it important to use more gelatin to get the right “gummy bear” texture? I’ve tried these on my own and not been able to achieve the texture, now I’m thinking I didn’t use enough gelatin. Will be trying your recipe this week!
I think the Knox instructions on the box are for making soft/jiggly jello, not firm and chewy gummy bears. You need lots of gelatin to get a firm gummy bear-like texture 😀
Hope you like my recipe!!
-Jess
Hi Jessica! Thanks so much for this great recipe! A few questions.. Is the stirring in the pan part conpulsory? What would happen if you didnt do that? Why didnt you use the juice extractor with the strawberries as well like in the apple recipe? And it wouldnt taste like strawberry without adding the artificial flavouring? Sorry for so many questions.. I hope you dont mind them 🙂
Yes, you’ll need to stir the mixture in the pan. Otherwise, the gelatin will clump up and not get distributed.
I didn’t use the juicer in this recipe because I didn’t have a juicer at that time, but that would work just fine instead of straining it!
There’s no added strawberry flavoring in the recipe, but if you wanted to add some more you can use some. I wouldn’t use artificial flavoring though, I’d use natural flavoring. My favorite strawberry flavor is by Bakto Flavors. Hope this helps Maria! 😀
-Jess
Thanks so much for your speedy reply Jess!! 🙂 you are right there is no added flavour in this recipe but there is in the orange and apple.. why is that? is it because the strawberry has a stronger flavour? and also any ideas as to adding the colour with any vegetable like in the other 2 recipes?
I feel like strawberry flavor is enhanced with cooking (similar to jams and jellies), whereas orange and apple flavor can cook out. You can try adding beets to the recipe for color and nutrition. You can probably replace ~1/4 cup of the strawberry puree with beet puree (I like using roasted beet puree, but you can use canned beets if you don’t want to roast your own beets) 🙂
-Jess
These looked so yummy but turned out SO sour and the texture was very unappealing. I had 3 children and 3 adults try them and we all agreed this recipe needs some alterations! I am an avid baker and cook and would suggest more sugar or less lemon. Something’s gotta give, and I am not a fan of health food that doesn’t satisfy or taste yummy!
I’m not sure how the gummies can be so sour with only 1/3 cup of lemon juice to 2 cups of strawberry puree… did you make any ingredient substitutions? Did you omit the stevia or were your strawberries not sweet at all?
I’ve made this recipe multiple times without any problem with them being sour, so I’m not sure what have gone wrong :/
I tried this today and they came out delicious! I noticed that it being out of season for strawberries and all, the strawberries I bought from the store weren’t very sweet so I added a little more sweetener and reduced the lemon juice. I bet making these with late July farmers market strawberries are going to be out of control!
I am SO SO glad you got a chance to make the recipe Melissa! Yeah, strawberries aren’t the best right now — learned that the hard way too 🙁 — but once strawberries are nice and sweet the gummy bears will be PERFECT 😀
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Can you use frozen strawberries? That’s all I have at home and I really want to make these because they look SO appealing and delicious.
Absolutely! Just thaw the strawberries completely before blending 🙂
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Oh. I L O V E U … Thank you Sooo Much!!!
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How many gummies does this recipe make?
This recipe makes 18 large gummy bears using this mold: http://amzn.to/2kt2Srf 🙂
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How long will these last in the fridge? We made them and the kids LOVE them!
So glad your kids love the gummy bears!! These should last about 4-5 days in the fridge 🙂
Does it melt easily after taken out from the fridge? I tried recepi using gelatin before but it wouldn’t last in a minute after I took out from the fridge. It’s like I have to dump it in my mouth if not keeping in fridge or it will melt and become liquid.
These gummy bears don’t melt at room temperature, they hold their shape. At room temperature they get softer but they’re still gummy bears! 🙂
“SUGAR FREE!” because strawberries don’t contain carbohydrates (fructose) at all of course lol nice one.
Yes, I know that fruits like strawberries contain natural sugars 😉
In the baking/blogging world, “sugar-free” means free of ADDED sugars, such as white sugar, HFCS, brown sugar, evaporated cane juice, sucanat, etc. Some bloggers say recipes with honey and maple syrup or “sugar-free” because it’s not white sugar, but on this blog, I group liquid sweeteners into the “added sugar” category.
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Hello! This looks like an amazing snack to add to my kids lunches for school! I don’t have a nut milk bag and am anxious to try them now! Do you think they’d still be ok with the seeds? We don’t mind seeds here. Also, do you think I could make a few batches at once and freeze them to add to my boys lunches each week? I’m trying to prep for the start of the school year in as many ways as I can to make things easier!
Hi Katie! I’ve made these without a nut milk bag before and honestly just really hated the seeds haha 😉
But if the seeds don’t bother you, feel free to try out the recipe without straining! I haven’t tried freezing these before… I wonder if they would thaw out okay? Crossing my fingers they do, because I’m sure your boys would love ’em! 🙂
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MMM! I made these! I halved the recipe, though, and added a couple blueberries. They are so yummy!
* Orange Strawberry Purée— what’s the * for? I’ll keep searching to find the raw quantities
Hi excited to try your recipe. I wanted to ask you if it would work the same if frozen strawberries instead of fresh. Thanks!
Cheryl
Yep! Just make sure to thaw them before blending 🙂
Yum! Can’t wait to try this!
~Natalie
How many grams of carbohydrates per serving?
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Can I use honey instead stevia?
I haven’t tried it but I don’t see why not! You’ll probably need ~½ cup or so, but it depends on your taste 🙂
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