Strawberry Banana Fruit Leather

Currently working my way through the pile of homemade fruit leather posts we’ve developed and photographed, and today we’re sharing the strawberry banana fruit leather recipe.

Making your own fruit leather is a super easy way to make a tasty snack - you just spread some fruit puree on to racks and pop it in the food dehydrator.

A few hours later, you can sample the final product: homemade fruit roll ups, made with whatever fruit - or combination of fruits! - you can think of!

Beyond the potential for all kinds of different flavors, there’s the matter of it being a healthy snack.

Not only do homemade fruit rollups avoid the corn syrup, preservatives, and other questionable ingredients in store-bought versions, you can make them with added sugar... or a little sweetener of your choice, if needed.

You can customize your homemade fruit roll-ups to personal preference, playing with different pureed fruit combinations, sweetness levels for those combinations, and even how you cut them.

Want to have a whole sheet of fruit roll up? Go for it. Cut it up into smaller fruit strips? Cool.

Anyway, strawberry banana is such a classic combination, we thought it would be a great idea to make it a fruit roll up flavour.

This recipe uses only 5 ingredients, and turns out richly flavoured, delicious strawberry banana fruit leather.

It’s a great snack to toss in school lunches, or just to have on hand when you’re wanting something sweet. Super convenient!

Anyway, let’s look at what you’ll need for your own batch of banana strawberry fruit leather.

Ingredients

This recipe uses only 5 simple ingredients, all of which can be found at any grocery store.

Fresh Fruit

This recipe uses two types of fruit - fresh strawberries and bananas. In both cases, it’s a good idea to use overripe fruits if at all possible - they’ll process down smoother.

The drying process concentrates the flavours of the fruit - sweet fruit will taste more sweet, and tart fruits usually taste even more sour.

Starting out with sweet, extra ripe fruit is a good idea - concentrate the good!

You can use thawed, previously frozen strawberries if needed. Overall, you’re aiming to have about 3 cups of cups of fruit puree.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice prevents the banana from making this fruit leather go brown, and also brightens up the flavour a bit.

If you don’t have lemon juice, using ¼ teaspoon Citric Acid is a good option to cover those bases.

Everything Else

Rounding out this recipe, you will need:

Lemon Juice
Honey
Salt

... I just don’t have anything to add, for those last few ingredients. Pretty straightforward!

Equipment

There are two specialized pieces of equipment that I use for making jerky, beyond basics like spoons, bowls, and measuring cups:

A Food Dehydrator

While you can apparently make homemade strawberry banana fruit leather in a regular home oven, I’m not a fan of running one for hours on end.

I’ve had food dehydrators before - the basic kinds with no time or temperature controls, and I’d always been too nervous to try making jerky in them. I need more control over - and knowledge of - the drying process, when meat is concerned.

I’ve since upgraded to a Cosori 6 Tray Food Dehydrator, and LOVE it.

It was only like $200 Canadian, and it’s paid for itself MANY times over, between all the Maple Cinnamon Apple Chips and jerkies I’ve been making!

Anyway, we’re using a dehydrator a LOT more, now that we have a nice one. Having the control over the temperature really opens up the possibilities.

Silicone Dehydrator Trays

You’ll need a couple Silicone Dehydrator Trays, with a bit of a rim.

The ones you’ll buy will depend on the size of your dehydrator. For our dehydrator, we use these Silicone Dehydrator Mats Compatible with Cosori CP267-FD.

How to Make Strawberry Banana Fruit Leather

The full recipe is in the printable recipe card at the end of this post, here is the visual walk through:

Measure all ingredients into a food processor or blender, blend until smooth.

Divide mixture between two silicone dehydrator trays.

Use an offset spatula to spread the mixture to an even thickness on each tray.

At 6 hours, check your fruit leather. It should pull up from the silicone relatively easily, and be soft without being sticky.

If it’s not dried yet, put it back in the food dehydrator until it is.

Allow to cool to room temperature. Use a pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut the strawberry banana fruit leather into strips, then store in an airtight container.

Condition the Banana Fruit Leather:

Keep an eye on the the fruit leather for the first 3 days or so.

If you see any evidence of residual moisture in that time frame - droplets on the bag, etc - return the banana leather to the dehydrator and let it dry a bit more.
If at any point you see any evidence of mold, throw the batch out.

Once you’re sure the strawberry banana leather is fully dry and moisture isn’t coming out, transfer them to an airtight container for longer term storage.

Other Dried Fruit Recipes

Looking for fruit leather and other dried fruit recipes? Here are a few to get started:

Bananas Foster Banana Chips
Bananas Foster Fruit Leather
Caramel Apple Fruit Leather
Cardamom Pear Chips
Mango Fruit Leather
Maple Cinnamon Apple Chips
Pumpkin Spice Chicken Jerky