30-minute Homemade Applesauce
If you’ve been blessed with an abundance of apples this year, or just want some pure applesauce on hand, this quick recipe is for you. It’s hardly a recipe and more of a process, but it’s one that I wish I had learned earlier!
My husband and I just moved to Idaho, which is very agricultural. We’ve received more fresh produce the past couple months than we can eat fresh, so I’ve been freezing a lot of it. Chopped tomatoes can be frozen and then thawed to the equivalent of a can of diced tomatoes, frozen peaches are great in smoothies, frozen grated zucchini can be used in bread later….but what about the bags of full of red delicious apples we just gathered? How am I to preserve them without canning equipment?
I’m not a fan of red delicious apples, but thankfully these ones aren’t so mushy and yucky like they normally are. They are an earlier breed, from before they were made to be thick-skinned for better transport. Anyhow, you can only eat so many red delicious apples fresh.
Our church has a huge orchard near us, where there are acres and acres of apple, pear, apricot, and peach trees. They are used to fill up storehouses that supply food for the needy, both locally and abroad. We have gone to the orchards to pick apples for the Church, and afterward we glean apples that we can take home. The Church doesn’t use any apples that have touched the ground, so any that are dropped or fallen are free to take. We collected 7 huge cloth bags full of perfect apples in mere minutes. Nature is SO abundant!
Nearly any variety of apple makes good applesauce. I used a combination of red delicious with a few golden delicious. Jonathan, McIntosh, Rome, and Jonagold are other popular varieties for applesauce. No need to skin the apples–that’s too much work and takes away some of the most nutritious part of the apple. The skin is softened during the brief cooking period, and it blends up very well to create a smooth applesauce.
This applesauce is very sweet, very easy, and very fast. Best of all, it’s pure apples! Enjoy!
A very sweet, smooth applesauce made of 100% pure apples and no added sweeteners.
- apples (a variety of apples gives better depth of flavor, so at least two kinds is nice)
- water
- cinnamon
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Cut up as many apples as desired into quarters. Cut core out.
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Fill up a large pot with apple quarters, and put about 1/2 cup water in the bottom. If the pot is not full of apples, less water is needed. It doesn't need to be exact, because any extra will steam out. Add 1 tsp cinnamon, if desired.
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Let steam, covered about 15 minutes, or until apples are soft and easily pierced with a fork.
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Spoon apples into a blender, and blend until smooth and no pieces of apple skin remain. Red apples will give the applesauce a rosy color.
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Applesauce can be frozen in plastic or glass containers, then thawed on the counter or in a bowl of hot water.
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Cook the apples with water and cinnamon on high for 2 hours, or low 3-4 hours, then blend as written above. This extends the warm cinnamon smell filling your house. 🙂
