Homemade Apple Sauce

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This easy Homemade Sugar-Free Applesauce is flavorful and delicious. You’ll never buy store bought applesauce again! If you’ve never made Homemade Applesauce you are in for a treat. This recipe is super easy, incredibly delicious, and far better than the store bought stuff – seriously no comparison. You will love it!

Every fall we visit Gross’ Apple Orchard in Bedford, Virginia.  They are a family operated apple orchard near the Blue Ridge Parkway, this is a tradition that MeMe started when Henleigh was not even a year old.  Side note- one of my favorite pictures is of MeMe and Henleigh in the apple orchard. Anyway we love them for the variety of apples you get, the community feel, and the cost.  Oh and the kids get to run around and pick their own apples. 

Each year we get at least a peck of apples.  IT IS A LOT of APPLES, but if you put them in the fridge or root cellar if you have one they last for a while. And use them, they are so good and good for you! What is that old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”.   We love making large batches of applesauce to free or can and Apple Pie with my homemade Sourdough Crust. And I can’t forget Nana’s Apple Cake!

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

homemade apple sauce

How to Make Homemade Applesauce

Ingredients-

  • Apples (peeled and chopped)
  • Water

 

A basic applesauce will use only the two ingredients above. I highly recommend adding a few extra flavorings (below) to really take this over the top. Play around with the recipe to create your perfect version.

  • Sweetener: choose granulated sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, or honey
  • Spices: cinnamon is my favorite, but you can also use a few pinches of pie spice, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, or cloves
  • Lemon juice: this adds a pop of fresh flavor

To Make-

  1. Peel your apples.  We love using our KitchenAid Spiralizer Attachement, And don’t throw away the peels, make sure you feed them to your worms or add them to your compost bin. You can also give them to your kiddos as a snack. 
  2. Place the apples and water and any other desired ingredients in a saucepan/stock pot and cook (covered) over medium/low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
  3. Once the apples are tender you can mash or puree them into “sauce”. Jamie’s favorite way to do this is to get the immersion blender out and puree away!

Chunky or Smooth

This is one of the perks of making homemade applesauce – you can choose the texture.

Chunky: mash the apples with a fork or potato masher into a chunky sauce.

Smooth: use an immersion blender, or food processor to make the sauce completely smooth.

Recipe tips

  • Use a variety of apples. Using a mixture of sweet and tart apples creates great flavor.
  • Adjust the sugar and spices based on your taste preferences.
    Add more liquid (water) as needed during cook time. Depending on how juicy your apples are, the amount of liquid can vary a bit.
  • If you accidentally add too much liquid, just let the applesauce simmer with the lid off, and the extra liquid will evaporate.

Applesauce was the first puree that we introduced to each of our kiddos and it was homemade. For those first couple batches of applesauce we didn’t add any sweeteners or spices just the apples cooked down and pureed. I do suggest that you make your applesauce smooth if you are planning on feeding it to your infant or toddler. Their first reactions were priceless!!  

As they got a little older we started making pouches with our Homemade Applesauce to take on camping trips or pack for daycare.  These were so easy and cost a fraction of what you would buy in stores. I will link the two different pouch making systems that we used below.

Living the Farmhouse Lifestyle is all about simple and what could be more simple than Homemade Sugar-Free Applesauce? And by making it yourself you know the ingredients and you can control what goes into your food and therefore into your body. I would love to know what your favorite ingredients are to spice up your applesauce, leave a comment or send me a message on Instagram!

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What’s Next?

Check out some of our other from-scratch recipes!! Be sure to check out the Strawberry Jam.