Refreshing Fruit Salsa And Homemade Cinnamon Sugar Chips

This fruit salsa is a refreshing take on traditional tomato-based salsas made using fresh fruit and homemade cinnamon sugar chips for scooping. It’s one of our favorite summertime side dishes that you don’t really have to feel guilty indulging in!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love some fresh homemade salsa made using chopped-up garden tomatoes, peppers, onion, and all the seasonings! However, Sometimes I need a fruit fix.

When the need for refreshing fruit arises, we like to whip up a batch of fruit salsa with homemade cinnamon sugar chips. It’s a great way to get my kids involved in the kitchen since there’s a lot of cutting and coating that they can easily help with.

The combination of the homemade sweet tortilla chips with the tangy and fresh flavors of the fruit is a perfect match. We use raspberries, strawberries, kiwis, and pineapple for a mix of slightly sweet and sour flavors. However, you can mix things up by using whatever fruit your family enjoys best or what’s in season.

To help make the salsa the right consistency, simply add a bit of fruit preserves in a matching flavor and a little secret ingredient. The chips round things off by being the perfect sweet edible vessel to get the fruit salsa from the bowl to your mouth! What’s not to love?!

How To Make Refreshing Fruit Salsa And Cinnamon Sugar Chips

*Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the full recipe, including exact measurements and amounts. You can also print out the instructions. I go into a bit more detail about the recipe here first, just in case you need it.

Ingredients  

The base of the salsa recipe is the fruit. We like to use a combination of pineapple, raspberries, strawberries, and kiwis. It’s the same fruit that we use for our Simple Summertime Fruit Salad Recipe. The main difference is the way you cut up the fruit and the addition of the fruit preserves.

With the fruit salad, the fruit pieces need to be larger. However, with the fruit salsa, you want to cut them up a lot smaller so you can get a little bit of all the fruit on your chip at the same time.

Of course, you can use any type of fruit you want or substitute one item for a different one. This is just the flavor combination that we really enjoy and it seems to have a great balance of sweet and sour.

Refreshing Fruit Salsa Ingredients

• Raspberries – We’ve used both fresh and frozen raspberries for this recipe and both work well. I prefer to use fresh but we don’t always have access to good, non-moldy raspberries around here!
• Kiwi – We usually use around 6 to 7 kiwis but feel free to adjust this to your liking. I made a quick YouTube short on how to easily cup up a kiwi if you want to check that out.
• Strawberries – It’s best to use fresh strawberries if you have access to them. Frozen ones will end up pretty mushy after they thaw out.
• Pineapple – You will use one whole pineapple for this recipe. If you need help figuring out how to cut up a pineapple (because it can be intimidating if you’ve never tried), check out my article, “How To Easily Cut Up A Pineapple In 4 Simple Steps”.
• Fruit Preserves – It’s best to choose a fruit preserve that matches one of the fruits in your salsa. We typically use raspberry, but you can use whatever you have in your pantry.
• Vanilla Pudding Mix – This is the “secret ingredient” in both my fruit salad and this salsa. It helps to meld the fruit flavors together and gives the fruit a hint of sweetness. Some fruit can be very acidic and this helps cut that back.

Cinnamon Sugar Chips

• Flour Tortillas – Choose either the fajita or soft taco-size tortillas (i.e., ones that are around 6 to 8″ in diameter). Going much larger is fine, but you will end up with pretty long chips after cutting!
• Granulated Sugar – The sugar is the main base of the cinnamon sugar coating.
• Cinnamon – The cinnamon helps to add that warmth to the coating mixture without being too overwhelming or spicy.
• Cooking Spray or Melted Butter – Here’s where you can play around a little bit. I’ve used both cooking spray and melted butter to moisten the tortilla chips. The spray works the best because it bakes easily and allows the chips to really crispen up fast. However, I’m not a huge fan of using cooking sprays if I can avoid it.
  
  Melted butter also works, but you have to be careful not to use too much. Otherwise, you wind up soaking the chips and they will take forever to bake. You can even try using water to lightly mist the tortilla chips if you prefer, but it’s not something we’ve tried personally.

Instructions For Refreshing Fruit Salsa And Cinnamon Sugar Chips

Making The Fruit Salsa

First, you want to prepare your fruit. You can do this in any order that works for you. However, I usually start by washing the raspberries and strawberries and drying them well.

If your raspberries are on the larger size, cut them in half. Otherwise, you can just toss them into a large bowl whole. I use a large, 4.5-quart bowl to hold all the fruit ingredients. (This is the glass bowl set I use DAILY and love – Product Link: Luminarc Stackable Bowl 10-Piece Set.)

Remove the stem from the strawberries and cut them into small pieces. Add them to your bowl with the raspberries. (I use this simple tool to quickly and easily remove the strawberry stems – Product Link: Strawberry Huller.)

Next, remove the peel of the kiwis. (You can find a video I linked above in the Ingredients if you want to see how I go about doing this.) Cut the kiwi into small pieces and add them to the bowl with the rest of the fruit.

Lastly, peel and core the pineapple. (I have an article walking you through how to do that also linked above in the Instructions.) Cut the pineapple up into small pieces and add them to the bowl.

Now it’s time to turn the fruit into “salsa”! Add the fruit preserves as well as the vanilla pudding mix right on top of the fruit pile. Stir everything up well until the preserves and pudding powder is evenly distributed and the fruit is all combined.

Cover the bowl and chill until you are ready for serving.

Mixing The Cinnamon & Sugar And Cutting The Chips

First, preheat your oven to 350º Fahrenheit. While that is preheating, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. You will probably need to make a few batches of these chips, so prepare additional pans if you have them.

In a shallow bowl or a dish with raised edges, whisk together the sugar and cinnamon. Set this aside as well. (I have an old set of Pampered Chef batter containers that are perfect for this step.)

Now it’s time to cut up your tortillas into triangles to make the chips. How many chips you get per tortilla will depend on the size you start with and the size you want your chips to be. For fajita or taco size, we usually get 4 or 6 chips per tortilla.

To make the cutting process simple, just use a pizza cutter and a cutting board. I stack up about three tortillas in a pile and cut them all at once to make the process go quicker.

Coating & Baking The Chips

Lightly spray the cut tortillas with cooking spray on both sides. If you are using melted butter, apply a thin coating to both sides of the chips. Work in batches so they don’t dry out.

(Side Note: I’ve done this spraying and coating process both before and after cutting the tortillas into triangles. Both options are equally messy, and I don’t have a preference one way or another. You do you!)

Bring out your cinnamon and sugar mixture. Take each triangle and coat the chips in the sugar. Set them on the prepared baking sheet. Be sure to spread the chips out a little so they aren’t overlapping.

Bake the chips for 8 to 10 minutes. Flip the chips halfway through. Please Note: The baking time will depend on how heavily you sprayed the chips and your preferred crispness.

The chips will harden slightly once cooled, so test one after 8 to 10 minutes and adjust accordingly. Sometimes, I’ve had the melted butter ones take around 15 minutes before they are ready. It just depended on how heavily I (or one of my kiddos) applied the butter.

Allow the cinnamon sugar chips to cool completely before using or storing them. You can then use them to scoop out your fruit salsa just like you would with traditional chips and salsa. Store any leftover chips in a sealed zip-lock bag and the fruit salsa covered in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!
– Chelsea

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