Easy Peach Crisp Recipe With Oatmeal

An easy peach crisp recipe with oatmeal and walnut streusel topping and juicy fresh peaches. A great recipe and the perfect summer dessert to use your summer peaches.

A visit to the farmers market or grocery store will display all that summer bounty. If you’re lucky you might have your own peach tree.

This is a very simple peach crisp recipe with oatmeal streusel topping. The peaches are sprinkled in sugar so the peach juice is released, then tossed in a little flour and spice to thicken it up in the oven.

The sliced peaches are baked until soft, which is a perfect combination with a crispy oat topping.

There’s not too much sugar in this recipe, so it can even make a delicious breakfast!

Is a peach crisp the same as a peach crumble?

Fruit crumbles and fruit crisps are very similar. Both are baked fruit desserts with a sweet crunchy topping. The difference is that a crisp topping contains oats while a crumble topping does not. The best peach crisp has a deliciously crunchy topping to offset the soft peach. Crisps can use all sorts of fillings, like apple crisp, cherry crisp, strawberry, and rhubarb crisp.

A peach cobbler is a third type that’s a little similar. It also features baked fruit, but instead of a crumble, it’s topped with a cake or biscuit-style topping, or sometimes pie crust.

The oatmeal topping

Oatmeal is a pretty broad term for a few different cuts of oats. You can use rolled oats, old-fashioned oats, quick oats, or even instant oatmeal. Oats aren’t so interchangeable in an oatmeal cookie, but you can use any of the listed oat varieties for the crisp topping.

The oats are combined with flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. The dry ingredients are tossed together, then cold butter is rubbed into the mixture using your fingers, a pastry cutter, or a food processor. It’s the butter that will crisp up the crisp topping in the oven.

The addition of walnuts (or other nuts) helps to bring extra crunch and perfect texture to the brown sugar oat topping.

Peaches

Depending on the time of year and what varieties are in season, peaches can differ in ripeness and sweetness. You may have a favorite peach to use, but if you’re unfamiliar with varieties, then choose a yellow-fleshed one.

They hold their shape better when baked than white flesh varieties and have the best flavor when baked.

Ingredients

Here is the list of ingredients for this delicious peach crisp. The full amounts are in the recipe card below.

Peach filling

• Ripe peaches – If they’re ripe, they’ll be juicy peaches and this creates almost like a peach sauce in the crisp. Cut them fairly thick, about half an inch, so that they keep their shape when baked. You can leave the peach skin on or use a vegetable peeler to remove it.
• Granulated sugar – This is sprinkled over the peaches first, and the peaches will sit and macerate in the sugar. This is when the sugar helps to draw out the fruit juices. If your peaches are super juicy (some varieties are), you can hold back some of this juice to avoid too much liquid in the crisp.
• Lemon juice and lemon zest – This balances out the sweetness.
• All-purpose flour – Helps to thicken the peach juice. You can use corn starch for this too.
• Vanilla – a good quality paste or extract.
• Salt – A flavor enhancer.

The topping

• Oats – rolled oats, quick oats, old-fashioned oats, or even instant oatmeal.
• Soft brown sugar – This brings the best flavor, though you can substitute it with granulated sugar or coconut sugar if you like.
• All-purpose flour.
• Cinnamon and nutmeg – just a little bit, for flavor.
• Salt.
• Walnuts (or other nuts or seeds of your choice.)
• Cold butter – To crisp up the topping.

Equipment

You’ll need a 9x9inch or 7x12inch baking dish, or something similar sized.

Do you have to peel peaches?

No, you do not. If you like the skin on or are a fan of easy recipes leave it on and save a step!. When it’s baked it takes on a candied texture. If you do want to peel the peaches there are a few ways to do it.

You can peel peaches with a sharp potato peeler or vegetable peeler, or blanch them.

Peeling peaches with a hot water bath (blanching peaches)

Boil a large pot of water that’s deep enough to submerge a peach. Prepare a large bowl of cold water and ice cubes.

Score an X on the bottom of the peaches with a sharp knife. Submerge one peach at a time, for around 15 seconds until the skin peels away from the peach flesh where you marked the X.

Once this happens, use a slotted spoon to remove the peach and drop the peach into the ice bath to cool down. Continue with the remaining peaches. Once they are cold, peel the skin off the peach. If they don’t peel, they may need to dip back into the boiling water.

The method

Macerating peaches

One of the first things to do is to macerate the peaches. If you have a very juicy type, you’ll want to hold back some of the liquid that is released to avoid the crisp being too soupy.

Slice the peaches into 1/2 an inch (1.3cm) slices and add them to a large bowl. Pour over the granulated sugar and toss to coat. Let the peaches sit in the sugar at room temperature for around 30-40 minutes.

Oatmeal crisp

While the peaches are macerating, begin the crisp topping. In a bowl, whisk flour, brown sugar, spices, and salt together. Add in the cold butter cubes and use your fingers or a pastry cutter to rub it in until you achieve pea-sized pieces. There will be a few dry bits but that’s fine.

You can also use a food processor for this.

Stir the oats and the chopped walnuts into the butter-flour mixture. Set it aside in the refrigerator.

Layering the crisp

When the peaches have sat, drain them and reserve the juice. You’ll need around 1/4 cup of juice. If there is more than that, discard it (or use it in a cocktail perhaps!)

Add the peaches back to a bowl and pour over the juice, flour, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and vanilla, Toss it all together, then layer the peaches into a baking dish.

Crumble over the topping, so that all the peaches are covered.

Bake for around 45 minutes until the top is a deep golden brown and the peach juice is bubbling at the edges.

Serving and storing

Let it cool for around 15 minutes before serving to allow the juices to thicken up. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Peach crisp is great served warm, at room temperature, or cold.

Leftover crisp can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Bear in mind that storing it in the fridge will lose the crispiness of the topping. If you like it crispy, it’s best eaten warm out of the oven.

Additions and substitutions

• The peaches can be substituted for nectarines (which are a hybrid of a peach anyway!), or fruit of your choice. Apples, pears, and berries make great crisp fillings, as does rhubarb. Apples and pears will need to be sliced thinner than the peaches to ensure they cook through.
• The walnuts can be substituted with pecans or almonds. For a nut-free version, you could use sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds.
• For a gluten-free peach crisp, substitute the all-purpose flour for your favorite gluten-free blend and use quinoa flakes instead of oats.

Other sweet treats