Easy Homemade Applesauce
You’ll never want store-bought again once you make your own, Easy Homemade Applesauce from scratch! Adjust the flavors and sweetness to your taste and you can have your own healthy clean eating snack!
It’s one of the easiest and delicious snacks that is so easy to make and so so much better than store-bought! Our Easy Homemade Applesauce is one of my kids’ favorite snacks and one that I am so happy to serve and pack in their school lunches because it’s so healthy, easy to make, and I know it’s made with whole foods and we can control the sugar level and flavors.
Ingredients Needed
- Apples – Our favorite apples to use are Honeycrisp apples because they are one of the sweeter varieties of apples which will mean less added sugar is needed to bring up the sweetness of the homemade applesauce. Other great choices are cosmic crisp, fuji, and gala apples.
- Brown Sugar – Not a ton is needed for this recipe and can totally be adjusted to your taste!
- Lemon Juice – Just a touch to add some additional acidity that rounds out all of the flavors together.
- Cinnamon – A classic for applesauce! And can be adjusted to your taste by adding even more for a heavier cinnamon flavor.
- Ground Ginger and Nutmeg – Optional but I just love ginger and apples together (it’s one of the ingredients that I think makes our Apple Fritters so delicious!)
- Water – To cook the apples in, just enough to aid in the cooking process but not too much to make it a watered-down applesauce.
Tools Needed
(Amazon affiliate links)- You can find all of my kitchen essentials here!
Vegetable Peeler – To help peel those apples before giving them a chop.
Apple Peeler Corer – Or to make your life even easier (and prep faster) you can use this handy dandy tool!
Heavy-bottomed pot – You can of course use whatever saucepot you have, but we suggest using a good heavy-bottomed pot in general because they spread heat evenly and will ensure better, more even heating.
Vitamix or Blender – While you can just mash the apples into a sauce, it’s easiest (and fastest) to use a good blender.
So Easy to Make
The “hardest” part of this easy snack recipe is prepping the apples. But if you have a handy apple peeler corer, that’ll make it even easier!
Once the apples are peeled and chopped, then they’re ready to be cooked. Just add the apples, water, lemon juice, sugar, and all of the spices to your pot, bring it to a boil, and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes until the apples are nice and fork-tender. At this point, you can taste to see if you would like to bring up the sweetness and add more sugar.
Add those soft delicious cooked apples to your Vitamix or blender and give it all a good blend until nice and creamy.
For an absolutely delicious, clean, whole foods Easy Homemade Apple Sauce!
Recipe Tips
We prefer a sweeter apple for our homemade applesauce because we want the flavor and natural sugars of the apples to shine. The sweetest to use are Honeycrisp, Fuji, Gala, and Cosmic Crisp. For a slightly less sweet apple that has a great texture for applesauce is Golden Delicious.
Chop the apples a bit smaller and this will allow them to cook and soften faster. The bigger the chop, the longer the cook.
Love more cinnamon? Add it! Not a ginger fan? No problem, you can omit it. This recipe has just a touch of ginger which adds a great kick of flavor without being overpowering at all. My 7 year old who claims she does not like ginger (mostly fresh in recipes), loves this applesauce.
This is such a great snack to make ahead and store in the fridge for the week. Fresh applesauce will last in the fridge for up to 7 days or frozen for up to 6 months.
This recipe is great for canning, too! Although we suggest making a much bigger batch. Use safe water bath canning methods to can and store this homemade applesauce to enjoy all year long!
We love this applesauce from scratch still warm or warm from the fridge! It’s also wonderful to use in some of our baking recipes that use applesauce, like our Oatmeal Carrot Cake Cookies and I cannot wait to share with you a new cake recipe that uses this applesauce, too!
You Also Might Like
- Easy Homemade Apple Fritters
- Easy Cast Iron Apple Crisp
- Maple Walnut Baked Apples
- German Apple Pancake
Buh-bye store-bought applesauce! You’ll never want to go back once you see how easy it is to make on your own!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
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Easy Homemade Applesauce
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 lbs honeycrisp apples
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar up to 1 1/2 tablespoons
Instructions
- Peel and Core Apples: Peel and core the apples and chop them into 1-inch pieces.
- Cook Apples: Add chopped apples, water, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg to a pot and heat on high. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat slightly to a strong simmer. Let simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the apples are fork tender. Taste apples for sweetness. Add more sugar if desired (see recipe notes).
- Blend: Add it all to a Vitamix or other blender and blend until creamy or desired consistency.
- Enjoy hot or let cool and store in the fridge.
Just made this applesauce, and wow, what a game-changer! So much better than store-bought, and I love that I can adjust the flavors to my liking. Perfect for a healthy snack anytime! Thank you!
Making your own apple sauce at home is such a blessing because you have the control and the bonus is you gain a knowledge!
Interesting i think ill try this at home i never tasted it in my life i think it is time to do this!!!
I want to try this now because it looks interesting and apple sauce is not common in my homeland, it looks great and delicious!