Easy Dried Fruit Balls

These easy dried fruit balls are a fun and healthy homemade gift you can give for the holidays. They only take a few minutes to make and there are a lot of combinations to try with all the healthy ingredients.

You might also like these 3 ingredients brownie bites.

I’ve been making variations of these healthy dried fruit balls for years. They make an easy and healthy snack and some people call them energy balls. However today I made some with the thought to give them as a healthy homemade holiday gift.

When I first wrote this post many years ago I used colorful ingredients such as goji berries and matcha green tea powder which are also considered superfoods. However I had trouble finding some of the ingredients so I’m redoing this post with more common ingredients.

Even if you could care less about the healthy aspect of this recipe, you will still love these dried fruit bites especially if you have a sweet tooth. And as a bonus they only take a few ingredients and little time to make. Plus you can make a million flavor combinations.

Healthy recipe ingredients I used.

Today’s fruit and nut balls were made from dried apricots, dates, cranberries, pistachios, walnuts, unsweetened coconut, cocoa powder and dark chocolate.

You can really use any fruit and nut combination you want. Below you can see most of the ingredients I used.

I used Guittard cocoa powder because it’s better quality and it has a cool reddish color to it. Also I used the Lindt dark chocolate bar as it is a bit healthier than regular chocolate.

How to make dried fruit balls.

The basic ratio is 1:1 nuts to dried fruit. My go to recipe is usually for dates and walnuts. I like walnuts because they breakdown better than other nuts and dates are just very sweet. But here is the fruit and nut recipe in basic terms. Just substitute with whatever dried fruits and nuts you wish.

Step 1: You will be rolling the fruit and nut balls into a coating so if you are using different ingredients to roll the dough in, get those ready by placing chopped ingredients into small separate bowls.

By the way you make the chocolate shavings coating just by using a vegetable peeler and scraping the chocolate bar with it. You can see these coatings I used below. They are dark chocolate, chopped pistachios, shredded coconut and Guittard’s rouge cocoa powder.

Step 2: Add nuts to a food processor and pulse until it breaks down into a coarse mixture and gets sticky. You don’t want to process too much or it will turn into a nut butter.

Step 3: Place the dried fruit in the food processor along with the nut mixture and process until it becomes a dough. If the fruit you are using is too dried you can try pouring hot water over them first for a few minutes and then drain them before processing. You can also just add a teaspoon or two of water to the food processor so that it will come together more easily.

Below you can see the combinations I made which were: walnuts, dates and cocoa powder – pistachio and apricot – walnuts and coconut – cranberries and walnuts.

Step 4: Once you have the fruit and nut dough, roll them into 1- inch balls and then roll them around in the coatings. Place them on a baking sheet until you have done them all.

Step 5: Store the dried fruit bites in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer for a week or two. Please scroll down to view and print the recipe card which has the recipes for my 4 combinations but you can really use any nut and fruit combination that you like. 

Recipe Tips & Notes

• While these are sweet, they are not overly sweet. I would taste each dough and add a bit of sweetener if you like. For instance you can add a bit of liquid vanilla stevia to the coconut ones as both the coconut and walnut do not have a sweet taste to them.
• I mentioned that originally I used goji berries which were beautiful and interesting tasting but I could not find them so I used more common fruits like apricot and cranberries. That being said you can use any type of dried fruit you want.
• Remember if you dried fruit are too hard you can soak them for a few minutes in hot water and drain before processing. This will soften them and make the processing smoother.
• Process the nuts first. You want the consistency to be sticky and crumbly. If you go too far it will liquify and turn to a nut butter. 

Below are the four of my favorite flavor combinations that I made today.

• Red – cranberries and walnuts in the middle and covered in the Guittard rouge cocoa powder.
• Green – crushed pistachios and dried apricots in the middle and covered in chopped pistachios
• White – crushed walnuts and coconut in the middle and covered in shredded coconut
• Brown – cocoa powder, walnuts and dates in the middle and the covered in dark chocolate shavings

A list of healthy ingredients to use for these energy balls.

Here is a good list of all the different ingredients you can try to make these energy balls.

• nuts – walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, pistachios, hazelnuts
• seeds – sesame seed, pepitas, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds
• dry fruits – dates, figs, cranberries, apricots, prunes raisons, peaches, mango, pineapple, cherries, açaí berries, goji berries
• misc ingredients – coconut flakes, unsweetened cocoa powder, cacao nibs, cacao powder, coconut sugar, dark chocolate, matcha green tea, coffee, protein powders, nut butters, stevia, flavor extracts, mini chocolate chips (low sugar)

Well I hope this gives you a little inspiration to make these tasty dried fruit energy balls. I usually keep mine in the freezer for a quick snack but they would also make a pretty and easy homemade gift. Enjoy!