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Making applesauce at home is easier than you think: and it skips the extra sugars of the store bought kind! Here’s how to make applesauce.
Apple picking is synonymous with fall here in the Midwest. What’s October without a good trip to the apple orchard? Alex and I brought in a haul of apples from a local orchard with our son Larson the other day. Our family favorite applesauce recipe is so, so tasty and uses only natural sugars. So of course, we had to share this classic fall recipe. Ready to get started?
Got an Instant Pot? Try our Quick Instant Pot Applesauce instead!
Important: use your favorite apple variety!
A very important note before we start: use nothing but your favorite cooking apple variety in this applesauce! The flavor of homemade applesauce is 100% dependent on the type of apple you use. Alex and I love tart apples, so our favorite varieties are Macintosh, Jonathon, Ida Red, and Honeycrisp. Make sure that you’re using an apple variety where you like the flavor raw! This makes sure you’ll like the flavor of your applesauce.
How to make applesauce: a tutorial
What to do with pounds of apples? Make applesauce, of course! (And lots of other apple recipes.) I grew up making applesauce from the tree in our backyard. My family always set aside a few days to cook down mountains of apples and freeze the sauce for the winter. Maybe because it was such an involved affair, I didn’t think applesauce could be easy until I started making it as an adult. Not only is it simple to make, if you have the right apples, you need no extra ingredients (except water and salt)! Here’s how to make applesauce.
Or: If you have an Instant Pot, go to Instant Pot Applesauce!
Step 1: Core and chop the apples (no need to peel!).
Wash, core and chop 4 pounds of sweet cooking apples, leaving the skin on if you’d like (see below for pros and cons). Use your absolute favorite cooking apple variety! We recommend sweet tart varieties like Macintosh, Jonathon, Ida Red or Honeycrisp.
Should you leave the apple skin on for applesauce? We do! But it depends on your preferences of prep time, equipment, and applesauce color.
- Leave the apple skins on. Leaving the skins makes for fast prep, since you don’t have to spend time peeling them. Even better, cooking with the apple skins gives the applesauce a rosy color! The tradeoff is that you’ll have to food process (or blend) and then strain out the skins, or use a food mill. To us, this is worth it and we leave the skins on.
- Peel the apple skins. If you prefer, you can peel the apple skins. It takes more time upfront to peel the apples, but you won’t have to food process or strain at the end. You also don’t need special equipment: you can mash with a potato masher. Using this method, the applesauce will be more of a yellow-ish brown color.
Step 2: Add the apples to a pot with water and cook.
Place the apple pieces in a large pot or Dutch oven with ¾ cup water. Add a cinnamon stick and kosher salt. Cover and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and cook until the apples are soften, about 30 to 35 minutes. Check the pot several times, stirring and mashing down the apples. When the apples are cooked down, turn off the heat and remove the cinnamon stick.
Step 3: Blend or mash the applesauce (see below).
Once you get to the blending or mashing, there are a few options depending on whether you’ve chosen to leave on the skins and what your equipment is!
- Chunky applesauce: Mash down the apples with a potato masher. If you left the skins on, you can remove the apple skins with a fork. But it’s easiest to do a chunky applesauce if you peel the apples first, so that’s what we recommend.
- Smooth applesauce (shown in photos): Run the applesauce through a food processor (or blender) until it’s smooth but still has texture. Then pass it through a strainer to remove any pieces of the peel. Another option is to pass it through a food mill, which quickly removes the peel. (This is my family’s method, but not everyone has a food mill these days!)
Step 4: Taste.
We were surprised to find that the apples we used were so sweet that the sauce was perfect without any added sweetener! It all depends on the type of apple you use, so you can add a bit of maple syrup at the end to your liking. However, “au natural” was perfect for us (and it tasted nothing like the “natural” brands in the stores)!
More apple recipes we made? This tasty apple crumble or apple crisp, dried apples, and these apple streusel muffins (plus a vegan version).
Uses for applesauce: cake, cookies & more!
The best way to eat your homemade applesauce is straight out of a bowl. Warmed applesauce is even better. But if you get tired of the same old same old, there are so many ways to use applesauce! Here are a few of our favorites:
- Applesauce cake: Easy to make and beautifully moist. Go to Easy Applesauce Cake.
- Applesauce cookies: These are beautifully chewy and laced with icing. Go to Iced Applesauce Cookies.
- Applesauce bread: This beautifully spiced loaf is the best sweet treat! Try Spiced Applesauce Bread.
- Applesauce pancakes: Make up a stack of flapjacks! Go to Cozy Applesauce Pancakes.
- Applesauce muffins: These wholesome muffins are made with oats and spices! Go to Favorite Applesauce Muffins.
This applesauce recipe is…
Vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan, plant-based, and dairy-free.
How to Make Applesauce
Making applesauce at home is easier than you think: and it skips the extra sugars of the store bought kind! Here’s how to make applesauce.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 4 pounds sweet cooking apples (for example, Macintosh)
- ¾ cup water
- 1 cinnamon stick (or ground cinnamon to flavor at the end)
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- Maple syrup (optional — we don’t use it!)
Instructions
- Prep the apples: Core and dice the apples. Leave on the skins (for an applesauce with a rosy color), or if you’d like, peel the apples (it’s easier to make chunky applesauce this way; see Step 3).
- Cook the apples: Place the apple pieces in a large pot or Dutch oven with the water. Add the cinnamon stick and kosher salt. Cover and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and cook until the apples are soften, about 30 to 35 minutes. Check the pot several times, stirring and mashing down the apples. When the apples are cooked down, turn off the heat and remove the cinnamon stick.
- To make a chunky applesauce, mash down the apples with a potato masher. If you left the skins on, remove the apple skins with a fork (it’s easiest to do a chunky applesauce if you peel the apples first).
- To make a smooth applesauce, use one of the two methods: run the applesauce through a food processor (or blender) until it’s smooth but still has texture. Then pass it through a strainer to remove any pieces of the peel. Another option is to pass it through a food mill, which quickly removes the peel.
- Taste: depending on the type of apples, the apple sauce will likely be sweet enough as is. If not, add a drizzle of maple syrup. If you didn’t use a cinnamon stick, you also can add stir in a few pinches of ground cinnamon to taste.
Looking for more apple recipes?
If you’ve got lots of apples, we’re here to help! Here are the best apple recipes we’d recommend:
- Best Apple Pie Recipe
- Apple Gluten Free Muffins
- Granola Instant Pot Apple Crisp
- Apple Cinnamon Pressure Cooker Steel Cut Oats
- Cabbage Salad with Apples & Walnuts
- Roasted Apples & Cauliflower with Dill
- Apple Galette Recipe
- Green Apple Smoothie
- Apple Manchego Salad Recipe
- Beet and Apple Salad
- Skillet Apple Cobbler
- Cinnamon Apple Chips Recipe
- Mini Bourbon Apple Pies
- Apple Pear Salad with Curry Vinaigrette
- Apple Cranberry Appetizer
- Apple Oatmeal Pancakes
- Hearty Red Cabbage and Apples
Last updated: October 2019
Instead of water in the above recipe you can substitute APPLE CIDER. This helps cook the apples without watering down the flavor. You can leave the cores and stems in the apples if you run them through a Victorio Strainer.
I live in Ireland and really the only apples cheap enough to use are cooking apples, alsi known as crab apples here. They are so bitter I would have to sweeten and I only use honey. Is the apple sauce ok to freeze with the honey added or should I make the sauce without the honey and add it later to a thawed serving ?
Hi Lesley! Great question. I would think you could go ahead and freeze with the honey. We’ve never tried it, but I would’t think it would hurt. Give it a try and let us know how it turned out!
Freezing the apples sauce with honey added would have no effect on the honey. Frozen honey when thawed is still honey and its qualities are not at all diminished. I raise honey bees and my honey is stored in the freezer if I’m not able to extract it immediately and then thawed for extraction. If you think about honey in a bee hive over the winter, in northern climates, it freezes but is still used by the bees and they are able to survive winter.
I am a young mom and find my family caught up in a busy life. I wanted to start creating special memory’s and moments for our kids. We started visiting our local orchard and was surprised at how we all enjoyed the day. We now look forward to the start of Sept. and lucky for us we are close enough to make several trips a season. I am not really that great in kitchen but love experimenting with the kids. Came across your recipe and am so excited to give it a try. Sometimes the thought of homemade can be so intimidating, thank you so much for posting an easy recipe. Loved reading all the great posts with good tips, add ins, and great memory’s.