Easy Sugar Free Homemade Gummies (Vegan Option)

These sugar-free homemade gummies are an easy, naturally-sweetened alternative to store-bought gummy snacks. Made with simple ingredients like fruit juice and gelatin, they’re customizable, kid-friendly, and ready in minutes.

You can make them low-carb using lemon, lime, or cranberry, or use other juice concentrates for a naturally sweet version without corn syrup, refined sugar, or artificial ingredients.

I'm always looking for easy healthy snacks that I can make in a jiffy like these no-bake cookies, no-bake chocolate mint bars, kale chips, homemade “JELLO®”, and healthy chocolate truffles.

This recipe for Sugar-Free Homemade Gummy Candy fits the bill.

These gummies come together quickly and can be made completely sugar-free.

The low-carb version (lemon, lime, or cranberry [using sugar-free cranberry juice]) of these homemade gummy snacks is tangy and refreshing. For other flavors, I recommend using only no sugar added fruit juice concentrate.

The flavor will likely not be strong enough if using diluted fruit juices or pureed fruits, but feel free to play around and try adding more sweetener. Those options may just suit your tastes!

What You'll Need

• lemon or lime juice: or other juice concentrate. See Recipe Notes for alternatives
• grass-fed gelatin: I recommend Great Lakes gelatin. They use pasture-fed cows that are not treated with antibiotics or hormones and are free of many allergens as well as MSG.see vegan alternative above in notes)
• liquid stevia: to taste. You can also use powdered stevia extract.

Directions

• Whisk all ingredients in a small sauce pan.

• Heat over low heat until mixture loses its “applesauce” consistency and starts to liquify.

• Pour into molds. (Photo 5)
• Allow gummies to set. You can either do this by placing molds on a flat surface in the freezer, fridge or on the counter. The freezer is your quickest option and will take about 10-15 minutes to set. (Photo 6)
• Remove from molds and store in the fridge in an air tight container.

So Many Fun Molds for Gummies

Of course, homemade sugar-free gummy bears are one of the cutest things you can do. These are the gummy bear molds that I have:

Even though they look hard to make, they're not. You just have that one extra step of putting the liquid in the dropper (and cleaning it out, of course).

These silicone star molds are very close to the ones that I have and I LOVE them. I've used them to make my Homemade Jello® and Homemade Chocolate Chips into super fun shapes..yum!

Here's a photo of gummies made with those molds.

There are soooo many fun molds to try for all kinds of seasons and events!

How about:

• St. Patrick's Day Molds
• Fun Assorted Molds
• Easter Theme Molds
• Valentine's Day Molds
• Christmas Molds
• Flower Molds

These are all just too. Much. Fun.

Substitutions for Special Diets

• Sweetener Options: Some people have been asking how much stevia extract can be used instead of the liquid stevia. I'm working on figuring that out for you!
  If you would like to make your own liquid stevia, see Homemade Liquid Stevia. You can substitute other sweeteners as desired. Use 4-5 tablespoons honey, maple syrup, or sucanat (4-5 tablespoons) for AIP, or for a low-carb granulated sweetener, use either 4-5 tablespoons xylitol or allulose, or 5-7 tablespoons erythritol. I haven't tested all of these, but they should work.
• Flavor Options: You can make so many different flavor variations of these sugar-free gummies. Any of the following juice concentrates would be amazing: cherry concentrate, cranberry concentrate, pomegranate juice concentrate, or apple juice concentrate. However, some of these will add a lot of carbs to the recipe.
• Important Note: Make sure to avoid pineapple, kiwi, mango, ginger root, papaya, figs, and guava juice. They contain protease enzyme which will prevent gelatin from setting and you'll end up with seriously mushy gummies.
• Vegan Option: Vegans can use organic agar-agar powder instead of gelatin.

FAQ's

Are These Homemade Gummies Like Store-bought?

The gummies in this recipe are kind of a mix between gelatin snacks and gummy snacks. I hope to try a recipe using just pectin in the future to make them more like store-bought snacks. We do love them anyhow, however, and so do our friends.

How Should You Store These Gummies?

You can store these in the fridge, or even in the freezer.

Are These Stable At Room Temperature?

These Homemade Gummies taste great at room temperature, just out of the fridge, and they even taste GREAT out of the freezer! However, these do not do well in very hot weather–as in, they morph into a liquid gummy drink.

We once took them to a county fair when it was over 90 degrees, and ended up with a gummy puddle. We were super hungry so we drank the liquid homemade gummies anyhow, but just be forewarned.

You could, of course, get a small cooler pack like this so you can take your gummies with you even in warm weather!

The easiest way to make these is to pour the mixture into a square or rectangle pan and then cutting them after chilling, or be creative and make them into any kind of shape.

This single batch is a small batch. We legit make 12 (yes, that's TWELVE) batches of these every time that we make them. Feel free to just make one batch to see how you like them, or if you want to make a whole bunch of flavors. But make twelve if you want to have quite a few around for ongoing healthy snacking.

Whatever flavor of homemade gummy snacks you try, I so hope you enjoy them!

Please share your thoughts about these gummies after you make them!