Homemade Applesauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the best apple for making applesauce? ›

For a basic applesauce, use McIntosh and Golden Delicious apples. Golden Delicious is a soft apple variety with a mellow flavor, so it cooks down easily and provides a great foundation for your applesauce. McIntosh apples are slightly tart and crisp, but soften easily, making them a stellar choice for pies and sauces.

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.”

Add the apples and apple juice to a large saucepan. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apples are soft. Remove from heat and let the apples cool for 5 minutes. Add the apples and their juice to a blender and blend to the desired consistency; serve warm or chilled.

Stay away from Red Delicious apples when making sauce. They don't mix well with heat and get undesirably mushy and unpalatable. If you're looking to add a little color to your sauce, keep the skin on while it cooks.

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.

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.)

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.

Some recipes for applesauce include a tablespoon of lemon juice for each quart of sauce to preserve the color and to increase acidity. The addition of ground spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg adds natural color that may mask some of the oxidation.

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!

Why is my applesauce foamy? ›

This is the same reaction you observed with the apple slices. It happens when the applesauce hasn't been heated enough to stop enzymatic reactions and there is enough oxygen in the headspace to react with the enzymes. It can also occur if air bubbles are not removed after the applesauce is poured into the jar.

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.

If you leave the skins on, you'll end up with pink applesauce, like mine, if you've used red apples. You'll want to puree the applesauce if you've left the skins on and strain it, otherwise, it can get “stringy” and I don't care for that texture.

Sometimes we accidentally add too much water to our recipe, or the apples produce more juice than anticipated which leaves us with watery applesauce. Luckily, it is so easy to thicken homemade applesauce. We just need to cook it longer to help the water evaporate.

During storage, applesauce may darken at the top of the jar because the oxygen in the head space is reacting to enzymes. Enzymatic browning is not harmful, but makes the product appear less appetizing.

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.

Gala – Among some of the best apples to use for applesauce and cider. These apples have a milder flavor, and are crisp, but sweet. Golden Delicious – This varietal is the best overall cooking and baking apple. With a mild rich flavor it still adds the sweetness you want in a cooking apple.