This natural sugar strawberry rhubarb crisp is a great way to use fresh strawberries and rhubarb with natural maple syrup, instead of refined sugar.

This year I signed up for a local CSA program. In case you are not familiar, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically you pay a subscription fee to be a member, and receive a basket of local farm fresh produce on a regular basis throughout the growing season. 

Natural Sugar Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Just about a 20 minute drive from my house, Stone Church Acres, is the farm offering this wonderful program. In my case, I chose to receive a 1/2 order every other week. That will give me more than enough goodies to work with, considering in my house it’s mainly just me and my husband.

Here’s a look at our first basket. We received butter lettuce, bok choy, spinach, scallions, rhubarb, strawberries and freshly tapped maple syrup from a nearby producer. My goal for this program is to provide a few good easy recipes from the box I receive and share them on the blog. Hopefully they will inspire you with new ways to use produce you are growing at home, or are receiving through your own CSA program or local farmers market.

Today I’m sharing a strawberry rhubarb crisp. Pretty common really, but this difference here is I did no refined sugar. Instead I skipped sugar for the filling and substituted the maple syrup to sweeten and combine the crumble topping.

The filling was on the tart side, but you could add a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup if you want it to be a little sweeter.

This cute little pie pan was perfect for this small crisp recipe which makes enough for 2 large servings or 4 smaller servings. 

For the crumble topping instead of adding brown sugar, flour and butter, I only added the spices and maple syrup. It turned out great, and we really did not miss the extra carbs and fat. 

A tip I mentioned in the instructions is to pile up the topping in the middle. Once the crisp bakes it will naturally sink down and cover the entire dish.

I like a lot of oats on my crisp but you could easily cut the amount in half.

It was really fun using local maple syrup as the sweetener. It’s still sugar, but it hasn’t been stripped of its nutrients like refined sugar, and therefore just a little healthier.

I just might have to use it for all my summer pies and crisps. 

Here’s the Recipe:

Low Sugar Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

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Ingredients

• 1 cup fresh rhubarb stems, cleaned and chopped
• 1 1/4 cup fresh strawberries, cleaned and slices
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons quality maple syrup
• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

1. Combine chopped rhubarb, strawberries and lemon juice together in a mixing bowl.
2. Place in a buttered pie pan or baking pan
3. In a separate bowl combine the oats, vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup. Mix well
4. Pile oat mixture onto the fruit mixture in the middle, allowing it to fall down to the sides.
5. Bakes at 350 degrees for 30 mins.

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