Healthy Apple Pie Recipes

Here's a healthy--and adorable--twist on deep-dish apple pie. This mini apple pie recipe will give you just a bit of something sweet and the melted wedge of Cheddar on top is a nod to the New England tradition of serving cheese with apple pie.

This reduced-sugar classic developed by food blogger April Athena of CookWithApril has 53% less sugar than the regular sugar-sweetened.

Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Winesap, and York Imperial are all great choices for the apples in this party-special tart.

This galette, or rustic tart, adds a touch of thyme flavor to apples and pomegranate seeds.

Using a combo of green- and red-skin apples gives the filling in this apple-sweet potato tart a pleasing touch of color. Look for Granny Smith, Newtown Pippin and Golden Delicious, as well as McIntosh, Empire and Braeburn varieties.

Apple butter adds to the mellow fruitiness of this pie. Dried cranberries add a burst of color and flavor.

Pureed low-fat cottage cheese and reduced-fat cream cheese turns into a rich-tasting--but low-fat--custard in this fall favorite.

The filling for this apple pie is on the tart side--experiment with less lemon juice or sweeter apples for a balance that's right for you. Most pie crusts use butter, shortening or lard to get a flaky texture--this one uses heart-healthy canola oil. We found that when we simply substitute oil for butter the texture suffers. The trick is to freeze the oil and a bit of flour together before incorporating it into the dough. The result is a flaky crust without all the saturated fat.

With a traditional high-fat pie dough, it's easy to go wrong because the dough must be chilled and rolled out while the butter or shortening is still cold--a relatively small window of time (especially for beginners). Nuts and nut oil replace most of the butter in this pie crust, so the timing is less particular. The dough doesn't need to be refrigerated, which cuts down on preparation time, and because it is rolled out between sheets of plastic wrap, it won't stick to the countertop and it can be easily lifted.

Apples, Anjou pears, and apricots are the As that make this apple pie a knockout.

“Galette” is just a French name for a rustic tart; apples star in this version. It is easy to make and forgiving to those who don't bake often. We've substituted tangy nonfat yogurt for some of the butter in this dough recipe from San Francisco pastry chef Janet Dalton.