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Oh, jello … the sugar (or chemical) laden mystery food of hospitals and cafeterias. I went to public school and got my fair share of this stuff back then, so I have never made this for my kids … until now.
The “Jell-o” gelatin you can buy in stores is packed with sugar or chemical sugar substitutes, along with gelatin from conventional animals fed a poor diet. I certainly wasn’t going to make that for my kids!
Then I found out about how healthy gelatin from grass fed animals can be a good protein source and can improve skin and hair quality and help the digestive system. I’d been drinking unflavored gelatin in my tea and in smoothies, but it dawned on me that I could use the healthy kind of gelatin with natural fruits and fresh juices to make a jello that my kids would like and that I would be ok with them eating.
Homemade Jello Recipe
While this isn’t an everyday snack, it is made from fresh fruit and juices with quality gelatin, so it can be a healthy treat that kids of all ages will enjoy! Just make sure that you are using gelatin, not collagen peptides. Gelatin from healthy grass-fed sources is especially beneficial and will “gel” when chilled, while collagen peptides will not.
Healthy Homemade Jello Recipe
Ingredients
- ¼ cup water (cool)
- 1 TBSP pasture-raised gelatin (green lid)
- ¼ cup water (very hot)
- 1½ cups fruit juice
- 1-2 cups fresh fruit (optional)
Instructions
- Pour the cool water in a medium size mixing bowl and add the gelatin powder.
- Stir briskly until mixed. It will start to thicken a lot.
- Add the ¼ cup of really hot water and stir to mix. It should be thinner now.
- Pour in the juice and mix well.
- Place fresh fruit in a layer on the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish if using.
- Pour the jello mixture over the fruit and stir slightly to make sure it has coated the fruit.
- Put in the refrigerator, covered, for at least 2-3 hours or overnight.
- Cut into cubes or scoop out with a melon baller to make cute shapes.
- Enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition
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Ever made jello? Like the chemical laden stuff at the grocery store? Want to try this healthy version? Share below!
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Hi, I am keen to try a healthy version of Jelly, using good quality gelatine, but I was told pineapple and kiwi fruits can interfere with the setting of the gelatine. Is that so?
Raw pineapple and kiwi can, though I haven’t personally had trouble with it, but you can leave out the pineapple and use any other fruit if you prefer.
Will cranberry juice also work? I’m wanting to tweak my grandmas *super delicious* cranberry jello salad to use the vital proteins gelatin instead of the store bought flavored stuff. Hopefully you see this before thanksgiving! ?? happy thanksgiving everyone!
Cranberry juice works wonderfully with gelatin. You would just have to use the juice instead of water and the gelatin powder, and use WM’s recipe (2 c. liquid : 1tbsp. gelatin). If it is unsweetened cranberry juice, I would also suggest a bit of sweetener. Otherwise, your end result might make everyone pucker! I would love it if you would post the recipe. It sounds really yummy!
Does anyone have any suggestions to make blue jelly? I am having a Frozen party for my girls and would love to have blue jelly, however I cant for the life of me think of a way to get flavoured white or clear jelly. I have an all natural blue food colour, so making it blue per say wont be hard. However plain water jelly is so far the only thing I can think of that would allow the blue colour to actually work.
TIA
How about coconut milk or water blended with blueberries.
I hadn’t thought of coconut water, I might give that a try. I thought that the blueberries would turn purple as opposed to blue. And my personality wont handle if its purple ‘ice bricks’ that the jelly ends up, instead of blue lol
Adding baking soda to blueberries can turn them blue (or bluer). Perhaps you’ve already had the party, if not it’s something you can experiment with. It only takes a little and the reaction is not instantly complete. Have fun with it!
Just curious – have you ever been to a food pantry where people go to get food for their families when they are desperate? Food pantries do NOT have a line for all organic food. While I admire your quest for excellence in health, I do not appreciate your judgement on people with limited income, resources, and time. While you may have the time and money to invest, others may not and pushing your opinions only makes them feel worse about their situation.
I am not judging people over anything. I am recognizing the harm in non-organic food and giving an alternative. I do realize that some people simply cannot afford the alternatives, but I’d rather have them available to those who can do this, and I hope that for those people out there who are not able to do this now, that maybe they will see this as aspirational. I have not always have been able to buy organic, and I would never judge a mom who has to choose between putting *enough* food on the table and putting organic food on the table. By all means, feed your family!
Wait… Why is the “certainly not an everyday snack” ?!?! I’m so confused
It still has more sugar in it than I am really comfortable with giving my kids all the time.
Thanks for the recipe! How long does this last, unrefrigerated?
Not long! It needs to be refrigerated?
How long does it last refrigerated?
“Certainly, this still isn’t an everyday snack”. Why would you say that Katie? Everyday I consume fruit, juice, and beef gelatin powder in a smoothie. What’s the matter with that? Now I’m looking forward to making jello with the same healthy ingredients.
Fruit juice has a high sugar content that can throw you off. It’s best to eat the whole fruit and include the fiber, etc.
Why shouldn’t be an everyday snack if it’s made without sugar, using fresh organic fruits and gelatin from healthy, grass fed cows?
I wonder if Darren knows that the FDA considers sugar and fruit to be safe. There’s hypocrisy for you, if you’re looking for some to point fingers at. Anyone who asserts that synthetic “foods” are safe because the FDA says so, but simultaneously insists that natural foods that are also FDA approved are “bad” needs to reevaluate his thinking process. Whether I agree with him or not, he doesn’t agree with himself. Not to mention having a need to engage in a more productive hobby than visiting a website he knows he’s not going to agree with just to spend all day making a nuisance of himself for the dubious pleasure of being contrary.
But the primary reason I’m commenting here is to ask whether anyone knows of a good way to make homemade gelatin (made by cooking the bones myself) work in a sweet jello recipe. I’d hate to cook the bones directly in the fruit juice (because who wants to cook the juice at all, much less for hours and hours?). I don’t know if mixing it 50% warm bone gelatin and 50% fruit juice would work, either to set the jello or to have a finished product that didn’t taste like fruity meat. Has anyone tried this? I’m having no success googling for this info. :/ But while the gelatin powder is very expensive, bone gelatin is practically free and easy to make, so I’d rather use that if it’s feasible.
Love this! My daughter has FPIES (a severe food allergy GI disorder) so she’s on a very limited diet. She only has 6 safe foods right now, so we used porcine gelatin and blueberry juice. It, of course, wasn’t as sweet as packaged Jell-O, but she didn’t mind! (I could add sugar, but she’s fine without it)
Can you use the Gelatin in the green canister from this company for jello and gummies or is that one strictly for liquids?
The green one will not gel but it blends in liquid.