Homemade Applesauce

Most people generally associate apples with fall.  In our house, fall means homemade applesauce.  While we don't currently have an apple tree (yet), we make an effort to get out to the local orchard to get fresh apples for snacks, pies and of course applesauce.

Homemade applesauce is super easy to make, but does require a time commitment.  If you're not willing to put in the time by all means going to the grocery store is easier, but making your own will allow you to control what goes into the sauce.  Generally their are not many additives to applesauce, so what goes in is generally not a big deal.  We decided to start making our own so that we could get different flavors from different apples, freshness of apples, use honey or agave as sweetener (if necessary), and all as much or little cinnamon as we wanted.

So just how easy is making applesauce?  Well if you have the following items you're 70% of the way there!

• Food processor
• Apple peeler (or knife)
• Storage container
• Lemon juice (optional)

To get started I suggest getting a big bowl and filling it with ice water and a few drops of lemon juice.  As you peel and cut the lemons into chunks, place them in the ice lemon water, this allows the apples to retain their yellow color until you can throw them in the food processor.

Once you have peeled and cut up about 6-7 apples (if they will all fit in your processor), place them in the food processor and pulse the apples until you reach a slightly chunky to puree texture. 

From here I generally taste the applesauce to see if it needs any cinnamon or sweetener.  My most recent batch with Mutsu apples was perfect all by itself so I was able to dump it out of the food processor and into the storage container. 

Because I did not heat the apples to pasteurize them, the applesauce needs to be kept in the fridge.  Also because there are no preservatives in the applesauce it will turn light amber brown, this transition from yellow to brown does not impact the taste.




Our local orchard: Milburn Orchards offers a lot of resources on their website about when various varieties of apples are in season and links to other apple websites.