Easy Homemade Applesauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the best apples for homemade applesauce? ›

The best apples for applesauce are whatever apples you have on hand and need to use up. However, if you have a choice, we recommend using a combination of sweet and tangy varieties for the best flavor. Popular sweet varieties include Honeycrisp and Fuji, while popular tangy varieties include Granny Smith and Braeburn.

The mellow sweetness of toasted sugar adds complexity. Apple cider vinegar helps brighten cooked fruit. Using skin-on fruit improves both flavor and color in the finished product. Aromatics like cinnamon, orange peel, and rose water intensify the flavor of the apples.

Homemade applesauce can be refrigerated for a week to ten days; it can also be frozen or canned for longer-term storage. Mott's recommends its applesauce to be used within ten days of opening. First let me introduce our panel.

Adding sugar to applesauce is optional…. However, lemon juice is not an optional addition. Lemon juice is added to help preserve the apples' natural colour and to assure the acidity of the finished product, since different varieties and harvesting conditions can produce apples of lower acidity.”

Obviously you don't want apples with an al dente bite, but did you know it's possible to overcook them? "Apples lose their flavor rapidly when cooked too long," says Martinez.

Golden Delicious

These apples are grown in Washington, Pennsylvania, and Canada.

The process calls for cooking quartered, unpeeled apples—cores, seeds and all—until they break down into a mush, then sieving that mush to obtain a purée—aka applesauce. And oh, what an applesauce it is. The pectin in the apple skin and seeds makes it thick and glistening even before any sweetener is added.

Taste; if the applesauce is too tart, add more brown sugar little by little until the flavors are balanced. (Note that no two batches will ever be the same; the flavor will depend on the tartness of the apples you use.)

We hold our apples to a higher standard. That's why our No Sugar Added Applesauce is thick and golden, like the real, high quality apples they're made from.

Not only does the homemade version taste better, but it's way cheaper, too. We call that a win-win! Making homemade applesauce is a great way to use up that big bag of apples that's been sitting in your fridge for two weeks. (It's okay… we all do it.)

What happens if you freeze applesauce? ›

Once frozen and popped out of your Souper Cubes trays, and transferred to freezer bags, it will last up to 6 months in the freezer - even longer if it is vacuum sealed! To thaw, remove the cube of applesauce from the freezer, and place into a bowl.

Yes, even homemade applesauce can go bad no matter if it is made with the best quality apples and preparation process or not. After the effort to make homemade sauce, don't waste any by letting it sit in the fridge for too long.

If you don't have time to wait for reduction, then the best method is to mix arrowroot or tapioca (or both) with a little bit of apple juice or apple cider. Use the resulting mixture as a thickening agent. Add it to the applesauce and let it stew. Before too long, the sauce will have thickened up nicely!

You can also pass the sauce through a mesh strainer to separate the skins from the sauce. 7The applesauce will thicken a little as it cools, but if it seems too watery, place the applesauce back into a pot and simmer until reduced a little.

Some recipes from other sources include a tablespoon of lemon juice per quart of applesauce. This will not hurt the product's safety and will help preserve the color of the sauce. The addition of ground spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg adds natural color that may mask some of the oxidation.

Gala. A crisp, sweet apple with a mild flavor, Galas have yellow-orange skin with red striping. They're among the best apples for applesauce, salads, eating out-of-hand, and pressing into cider.

I recommend using Golden Delicious, McIntosh, Fuji, or Gala. Don't use Granny Smith; they are too tart and firm for this recipe. Weigh your apples before coring and chopping.

For the best pies, crisps, and other baked treats, apples need to be firm enough to hold their own during the cooking process. We call these apples “baking apples” and to namedrop, they include Braeburn, Cortland, Honey Gold, Jonathan, Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Haralson, and Newtown Pippin.

The best apples for puree are those with a flesh that breaks down easily. McIntosh and Cortland are two great choices. Golden Delicious and Gala are idea for getting all the natural sugars you can in the puree. You'll be cooking the apples down so sweetness and softness are key.