How to Make Apple Crisp (with less carbs)

Last updated on September 17th, 2025

Apple crisp gets a low-carb twist in this recipe by mixing jicama with apples and using a nutty, grain-free crumble topping. Enjoy all the comforting flavours of Fall without added sugar, oats, or grains, perfect for a potluck dessert to serve a health-conscious community!

Apple Crisp (with less carbs)

Imagine sinking your teeth into a warm, satisfying apple crisp. Tart apple bits burst on your tongue, complemented by a sweet, nutty crumble topping with delightful crunch.

Yet, this isn’t your standard apple dessert; this low-carb version is every bit as delicious and satisfying. It uses jicama (hee-kah-mah), also called Mexican turnip, as part of the filling, along with the apples.

What’s more, the crispy topping features almond flour and nuts in place of oats, making it wonderfully versatile to add as a topping for Greek yogurt or this easy Instant Keto Oatmeal Mix recipe.

What does this Apple Crisp taste like?

When apple-picking season arrives, I crave desserts like apple crisp and streusel. Although apples are high in natural sugar, they provide an authentic flavour that extracts can’t always match. This recipe offers all the fabulous fall flavours, while keeping carbs in check. Serve it at your next gathering to delight both traditional and health-focused dessert lovers.

Flavour Highlights

• Tart apples, lemon, cinnamon, and jicama blend to create sweet, tangy, and comforting notes.
• The topping, made with pecans, cashews, almond flour, sweetener, and butter, recalls the taste of classic apple crumble, NO oats required.
• A crispy, sugary, cinnamon and buttery streusel-like topping crowns the baked apples and jicama filling

Why You Will Love Low Carb Apple Crisp

Uses jicama

Jicama offers numerous health benefits, making it an excellent way to add a nutritious boost to apple desserts, which are often high in sugar and carbohydrates.

Its high water content helps with hydration, while its substantial fibre may aid in lowering cholesterol levels. Plus, jicama is a low-carb vegetable that can easily replace potatoes, apples, or pears in various recipes.

Tastes like apple crisp

This recipe is a clever way to reduce carbs without compromising the delicious taste of apples, a quintessential fall flavour. The carb count is lowered significantly by replacing half of the apples in the filling with jicama. Furthermore, this makes the dessert hearty and tricks your mind into thinking it’s ALL apples.

Bakes like apple crisp

Jicama has a crisp texture and neutral flavour, making it an ideal canvas for absorbing the bright and warm flavours of lemon and cinnamon. Once the jicama is cooked and added to the apple filling, bake it just like you would with a regular apple crisp.

Grain-free & Gluten-free

For the crispy top, I use almond flour instead of all-purpose flour, and it does not contain oats. Plus, every ingredient, the jicama, apples, nuts, sweetener, cinnamon, butter, and arrowroot powder, is naturally gluten-free.

I drew inspiration for this recipe from several sources that use jicama as a filling for apple pie. You can find these sources listed below the recipe card.

About Jicama

• Jicama is a root vegetable with slightly sweet and watery flesh and brown skin. Its texture is similar to that of a radish, potato, apple, or pear. However, it contains much less starch than most root vegetables.
• Jicama is low in carbs and keto-friendly since it contains more fibre and fewer carbohydrates than other root vegetables.
• It can be a versatile substitute for potatoes, with only 5g net carbs per cup, making it a great addition to replace other vegetables higher in carbs.
• Jicama contains inulin, a prebiotic fibre that promotes gut health, relieving constipation since it is also high in water content.
• The neutral flavour of jicama allows it to absorb the taste of other ingredients in any dish. It’s also high in fibre, making it an excellent substitute for root vegetables. You can make fries, latkes, and even grate it raw for salads.
• Its low-calorie content makes it an excellent choice for those watching their weight.

Why Jicama works

• When cooked, jicama’s texture closely resembles that of an apple.
• It bulks up the filling while reducing total carbs.
• Once baked with apples, jicama absorbs their flavour and has the cohesive taste and texture of a classic apple dessert.

If you’d like to learn more about this root vegetable, I have listed some helpful resources under the recipe card.

One Thing to Know about Cooking Jicama

While jicama is a fantastic substitute for some of the apples in this recipe, it takes a much longer time for jicama to soften than it does for apples, so adding it straight away to the apple filling will result in what will taste like an uncooked filling even after baking.

The Solution

Boil or pressure cook the jicama first before making the filling. Taking the time to cook the Jicama ahead will undoubtedly result in fork-tender and softly cooked jicama pieces that blend perfectly with the apples. Ultimately, the goal is to cook the jicama to a soft texture resembling cooked apples.

Carbs and Servings in this Apple Crisp

Over the years, I’ve made significant adjustments to my apple crisp recipe. The original topping was loaded with oats, flour, and sugar, which meant each serving had roughly 58g of net carbs, which is typical of classic apple crisp recipes.

In comparison, this low-carb recipe yields about five small servings, which is perfect for two to three people. Even with apples included, each serving has around 12g of net carbs.

under 15g net carbs per serving

• 26.3g of carbohydrates
• 14.2g of fibre
• 12.1g of net carbs

Furthermore, I have discovered that choosing low-carb substitutes, such as jicama, doesn’t mean sacrificing deliciousness, no matter if it’s a little unconventional.

EXPERT TIP: Double the jicama and make a keto-friendly recipe by omitting the apples.

Ingredient Notes

Jicama and Apple Filling

• Jicama (hee-kah-mah) – an excellent substitute for apples in recipes. It’s a starchy root vegetable with a similar texture to apples when cooked, making it an ideal replacement for half the apples in a recipe. To ensure even cooking and seamless blending with the apples, it’s best to cube the jicama into small pieces.
• Apples – such as Granny Smith and Honeycrisp are great for apple crisp since they are crisp and tart.
• Cinnamon – goes well with lemon juice, enhancing the flavour of Fall.
• Sweetener – replaces white sugar to balance the tartness of apples. I use a blend of monk fruit and Erythritol by the brand Volupta.
• Lemon Juice – adds tartness to the jicama and helps make it resemble the taste of an apple.
• Arrowroot – helps to thicken the moisture in the filling during baking.

Crisp Topping

• Almond flour – adds texture to apple crisp topping as a great alternative to all-purpose flour.
• Cashews – a wholesome and raw addition that creates a delightful texture and a satisfying chewy crunch to the topping.
• Pecans – provide a crisp texture while retaining the flavour of Fall.
• Sweetener – replaces white sugar to balance the tartness of apples. I use a low-carb sweetener by Volupta.
• Salt – enhances the sweetness in recipes, but only a little is needed here.
• Cinnamon – essential for this recipe as it is a common ingredient in traditional apple crisps.
• Butter – for a crisp topping, keep the butter cold.

Step by Step: How to make Apple Crisp (with less carbs)

Cook the Jicama

1. To prepare the jicama for this recipe, peel it and dice it into small cubes. Place the jicama in a saucepan and add enough water to cover it. Bring the water to a boil and simmer the jicama over medium heat for about 50 minutes. Alternatively, use an Instant Pot to pressure cook diced jicama with one cup of water for 15 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally for approximately 40 minutes.

EXPERT TIP: Dice the Jicama into 1/2-inch cubes or smaller to soften faster.

2. Once the jicama has softened, turn off the heat and let it sit in the hot water for another 10 minutes. This will allow the jicama to soak up more water and become even softer. Meanwhile, make the crisp topping.

Prepare the Crisp Topping

3. Place the nuts inside a food processor and pulse a few times to chop them into small pieces roughly. Next, add butter and pulse the mixture until it becomes lumpy.

4. Add the almond flour, sweetener, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt in the food processor and pulse the mixture again until it becomes grainy, with a few butter lumps dispersed throughout. Keep this mixture aside, or store it in the fridge until ready to assemble the apple crisp.

Prepare the Apples

5. Peel and dice the Granny Smith apples slightly larger than the jicama cubes as they will shrink during baking. Place the apples in a 6 x 8-inch baking dish.

Combine the Diced Jicama and Apples

6. Remove about two tablespoons of water from the pot and set it aside in a small bowl. Leave the remaining water in the pot with the jicama, as this will help further soften the jicama during baking and thicken the filling.
7. Mix the arrowroot with the jicama water until dissolved, then add it to the jicama cubes. Stir in cinnamon, sweetener, butter and lemon juice.

8. Mix the jicama and apples until evenly distributed. The jicama may appear slightly softer than the apples, but that’s okay, as the apples will cook during baking. (The image below on the left shows the difference in appearance of the jicama and apples before mixing.)
9. Sprinkle the topping mixture over the filling until most of it is covered. It’s okay if a few apple or jicama pieces peek through.

Bake

10. Preheat the oven to 325°F, and place the baking dish in the middle rack, then bake for 20 minutes.
11. After 20 minutes, cover the apple crisp with foil and bake for 40 minutes or until the topping is golden and the filling is bubbling along the edges. Allow the crisp to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

EXPERT TIP: Allow the apple crisp to cool for 10 minutes before serving to give the nutty layer a chance to become crisp.

Tips for making Low-Carb Apple Crisp

• Dice the Jicama into 1/2-inch cubes or smaller to soften faster.
• Use an Instant Pot to pressure cook diced jicama if you are short on time.
• Cold Butter works best to keep the topping crisp.
• Combine the nut mixture in a food processor to achieve an even, grain-like consistency.
• Cover the baking dish with foil halfway through the baking process to prevent the nutty topping from burning.
• Add cinnamon and lemon juice to the apples as well as the jicam for a delicious fall flavour.
• Dice the apples slightly larger than the jicama, as they will shrink during baking.
• Allow the apple crisp to cool for 10 minutes before serving to give the nutty layer a chance to become crisp.

Plated Focus Thoughts on this Apple Crisp Recipe

Still uses apples

• I love that this low-carb recipe still includes apples, so you don’t have to give up that classic apple flavour in your favourite dessert. Honestly, the jicama can be a bit tough to slice as it’s not the easiest thing to cut through! But once you get past that, it’s a breeze to cube up and mix into the recipe. The extra effort is totally worth it for the texture and flavour it adds.

Small jicama may work better

• I’ve made this a few times now, and it always turns out a little differently, depending on the size of the jicama I use. Personally, I find that using a smaller jicama works much better, as it softens up more easily in the oven. I think it is even sweeter than the larger variety, which I’ll explore in future.

The crunchy bits

• Personally, I don’t mind if there’s a little crunch left in the jicama; sometimes it’s actually a nice contrast with the apples! It really comes down to what you enjoy. I find that the firmer jicama balances the tartness of Granny Smiths quite nicely. In the batch you see in my photos, I cut the jicama a bit bigger than I intended, so next time I’ll try either cutting it into smaller cubes or slice it thinly. I may even try grating it, to see how that changes the texture.

Looks like apple crisp

• What I really like is that the whole crisp doesn’t collapse into a mush. The apples cook just right and hold their shape, giving the perfect bite every time.

No need for oats or flour

• I love that this recipe works without the oats and flour typically used for most apple crisp toppings. I don’t miss it at all, and I don’t need them to whip up a delicious, crunchy yet chewy top layer for this apple crisp.

Skipping the jicama

• Sometimes, when jicama is not available, I add two extra Granny Smith apples and skip the jicama entirely. It bumps up the carbs for sure, but I make sure I’m watching my carb intake throughout the day.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any thoughts, questions, or your own tips for making low-carb apple crisp, please share them in the comments below. Your feedback helps make this community even sweeter!

Serving, Reheating and Storing Tips

• Serve warm with low-carb ice cream or whipped cream as a dessert, or enjoy it for breakfast with a glass of almond milk.
• Reheat in 30-second microwave bursts or in the oven at 325°F for 10 minutes.
• Store covered in the fridge up to 2 days for the best texture, before the crisp topping becomes soggy.

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Plated Focus Sources and Inspiration

• Nutritional info for traditional apple crisp obtained from Nutritionix
• Nutritional info for this low-carb recipe was created in Lose it app
  
• Recipe inspiration and additional reading:
  
  • Jicama Apple Filling for Pastry – Low Carb Yum
  • Low Carb Faux Apple Crumble – Step Away from the Carbs
  • Benefits of Jicama – Healthline