Tess Rose Lampert is a New York City-based writer, beverage educator, and lover of savings. With over a decade in the alcoholic beverage industry, she strives to enhance consumers' everyday experiences with food and beverage through dynamic and interactive writings, educational seminars, and events.
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When it's dessert time, diabetics have to exercise caution since a spike in blood sugar can be problematic. But that doesn't mean dessert is something diabetics have to give up. All of these treats are tasty enough to serve to people with or without blood-sugar concerns. What's more, making your own diabetic-friendly desserts can be much cheaper than relying on store-bought options.
Related: Foods for Diabetics That Help Keep Blood Sugar Under Control
This tropical delight is given a boost of honey for a light sweetness. Extra flavor and natural sweetness come from the fresh fruit toppings. The coconut cream is made with low-fat cream cheese, making this cake recipe even healthier.
Recipe: EatingWell
Apples are so naturally sweet that a little boost from a sugar substitute is all that's needed. The apple juice concentrate also helps to add natural fruit sugars for a pop of flavor without relying on white, processed sugars.
Recipe: Taste of Home
Related: 25 Creative Ways to Enjoy Apples
Giving freshly sliced peaches, nectarines, and apricots a turn on the grill adds a caramelization that intensifies their natural sweet-tart flavor. With the heightened flavors there is no need for extra sugar of any kind, making this an easy and natural way to satisfy a sweet tooth (plus it's dairy free!). This diabetic-friendly dessert recipe uses peaches.
Recipe: The Kitchn
Chia pudding is actually a healthy dessert packed with superfoods, making even more of a case to include dessert into your daily routine. Just a touch of honey sweetens this protein-rich dessert that promotes steady blood sugar while incorporating a hefty dose of fiber, especially beneficial for those with diabetes.
Recipe: Allrecipes
Peanut butter and chocolate is a flavor match made in heaven, and it's also a boost of nutrition in desserts thanks to the added protein and sugar-stabilizing natural fats in peanut butter. This recipe also provides alternatives to wheat flour for those who want to take it a step further.
Recipe: EatingWell
These cookies use just a tiny amount of sugar and get an extra boost of protein and fat from almond butter for a balanced lineup of ingredients. Omitting the flour lowers the carb load and creates a dense and almost fudgy cookie that feels even more indulgent than traditional cookies.
Recipe: Martha Stewart
This ice-box cake adaptation uses sugar-free versions of classic treats like cookies and ice cream to make a classically flavored frozen dessert. You can customize the dish by substituting your favorite sugar-free flavored cookies and ice cream to mix and match.
Recipe: MyRecipes
These blondies feature a healthy, low-carb profile and are made using almond butter and quinoa flour. The flavor is enhanced with the unique ingredients, which offer a little more richness while preserving a dense and chewy texture.
Recipe: EatingWell
Berries are one of nature's best forms of sweetness and flavor for those with sugar sensitivities. In this recipe, strawberries get a little boost from different flavored liquids to highlight their flavors while remaining low in sugar.
Recipe: Add a Pinch
This simple cake gets a rich texture from the sour cream and stays low in sugar thanks to sugar-free sweeteners and ripe banana. This cake can be the base for other creations like layer cakes, cupcakes, or muffins.
Recipe: Just a Pinch
These ice-cream-like frozen treats are low in fat and carbs while remaining thick and creamy, thanks to Greek yogurt. This recipe calls for strawberries, but any low-glycemic fruit would work well.
Recipe: Diabetes Food Hub
This healthy recipe tastes like apple pie, without the heavy carb load. Super simple to make, these baked apples can be made in advance and eaten warm, cold, or at room temperature for dessert anytime, even for breakfast with a scoop of yogurt.
Recipe: Diabetes Food Hub
Fine chocolate shouldn't be an unattainable treat for those with diabetes, so making your own with a sugar substitute is a great way to have it on hand. Making your own also enables you to control the amount of sweetener to ensure a healthy balance.
Recipe: Low Carb Yum
Fruit salad is a light dessert that is satisfying after a large meal or in warm weather. Going heavy on the berries ensures that the overall carb load is low and minimizes the risk of blood-sugar spikes.
Recipe: Diabetes Self-Management
Cheesecake is a rich dessert that can hit the spot with just a small serving. Making a crustless version instantly cuts down on the sugar and overall carbs to make it even more diabetic-friendly.
Recipe: Diabetic Gourmet
When eaten in moderation, brownies are okay to include in your dessert routine. These super-gooey brownies are balanced with plenty of fat and tons of high-quality chocolate for lots of flavor that doesn't rely on sugar.
Recipe: The Healthy
These cupcakes are flavored for the winter holidays. The generous use of baking spices adds flavor without calories while the molasses and unsweetened apple sauce both help to create a soft texture and sweet profile without too much additional sugar.
Recipe: Everyday Diabetic Recipes
This baked custard has a soft and creamy texture. The flavor and sweetness mostly come from fruit, rather than added sugar. Customize this recipe by adding your favorite fresh fruits for an even lighter version.
Recipe: Diabetes Self-Management
This inventive dessert is fresh, light, and something out of the ordinary. Tahini is a sesame seed paste, and it's often used in desserts from the Middle East. This recipe gets a dose of sweetness from applesauce.
Recipe: Martha Stewart
This pretty looking cake is moist and sweet, even though it uses small amounts of sugar or sugar substitutes and whole-wheat pastry flour for half of the flour content. Mashed banana is always a go-to for great texture and flavor when trying to cut down on fat and sugar.
Recipe: EatingWell
Using high-quality chocolate is the key to getting a super-flavorful mousse without a ton of sugar. Good chocolate allows you to go even lighter on sugar or sugar substitutes while keeping a full body and rich flavor profile.
Recipe: Diabetes Meal Plans
This twist on a classic treat allows those with diabetes to enjoy s'mores just like everyone else. Using coconut and berries brings down the overall glycemic load of the dish, and substituting dark chocolate for classic milk chocolate cuts the sugar down significantly while also pairing better with the sweet and tart blackberries.
Recipe: Better Homes & Gardens
The holidays can be an especially hard time for those with sugar sensitivities, so it's always nice to include a diabetic-friendly recipe in the lineup. These classic and colorful cookies can be made with a sugar substitute of your choice to make them safe for everyone to enjoy.
Recipe: Diabetic Gourmet
These irresistible bites convey all of the best parts of traditional bakery items into one small package. Keeping the portion size small allows for a full on indulgence in moderation, which will help keep blood-sugar levels stable.
Recipe: Everyday Diabetic Recipes
The use of nuts and whole-wheat flour brings substance and nutrition to these cookies. The generous portion of cinnamon added into this recipe also helps boost sweetness without additional sugar or sugar substitute.
Recipe: Recipes.net
Rich and packed with flavor, a small portion of these lemon squares goes a long way toward satisfying a sweet tooth. The almond flour in the crust helps bring down the overall carb load while adding another layer of aroma to the finished dish.
Recipe: Diabetic Connect
This tropically flavored cake is ornate enough for any celebration. This recipe takes advantage of store-bought sugar-free mixes for an easy preparation of multiple parts that all come together to create one creamy, soft, dream of a cake.
Recipe: Rose Bakes
Carrot cake gets a lot of its flavor and moisture from grated carrots, already lightening the load for those watching their fat and sugar intake. This recipe takes it a step further by including protein- and fiber-rich flax meal that makes this dessert a healthy-ish option at the end of any festive meal.
Recipe: Amanda's Cookin'
Spice cake uses a variety of different seasonings like nutmeg, vanilla, and cinnamon and is easily customized. Using applesauce for sweetness and add-ins like raisins creates a treat that is light on sugar yet full on flavor.
Recipe: Sunrise Senior Living
These all-purpose chocolate cookies are versatile to enjoy on their own or use in other recipes. Using nuts and high-quality chocolate is key to creating the pleasant crumbly texture and a deep chocolate flavor that is just lightly sweetened.
Recipe: Cooks
Sometimes a light-hearted, kid-friendly dessert is in order, like chewy gummy worms. With the accent on the texture and fun colors, these sugar-free candies get just a touch of sweetness from sugar alternatives in pre-made gelatin and drink mixes.
Recipe: Everyday Diabetic Recipes
A wintertime staple, pumpkin pie can be turned into a diabetic-friendly recipe with two simple tweaks. Using a sugar substitute along with nixing the crust reduces the risk of any blood-sugar spikes while maintaining the creamy and deeply flavored pie interior, which is the best part anyway.
Recipe: Everyday Diabetic Recipes
These airy little cookies are based on wheat germ and eggs. The addition of almond extract gives them a boost of flavor without adding any extra carbs, calories, or sugar. You could play around with different extracts for different flavored cookies, like vanilla, orange, or even mint.
Recipe: TypeFreeDiabetes
This fruit compote is made using unsweetened dried fruit and orange juice. Simmering the fruit, juice, and spices together creates a deeply rich flavor without any added sugars. Topped with a small amount of frozen yogurt, it becomes a decadent dessert.
Recipe: Mayo Clinic
This cheesecake preserves the crust for those who simply cannot do without it. But to make it diabetic friendly, the crust is made from chopped nuts and almond flour, rather than cookies that are high in sugar and carbs. Using sugar-free sweeteners and chocolate chips is also an option to make the entire dish sugar free.
Recipe: SoFabFood