All hail apple-picking season!!! As we do every year, we headed down to a local orchard and loaded up on dozens of pounds of apples intended for all sorts of homemade deliciousness. With a preschooler, toddler, and soon-to-be newborn in the house, well-processed applesauce is a necessary staple. This recipe is ridiculously easy for processing MANY apples in a short amount of time, and I hope the tools and tricks we use with be useful for you as well!
What I Used:
- Food strainer
- Somewhat expensive, but ridiculously useful if you like making homemade pasta sauce, jam, salsa, baby food, or anything of that consistency (differs from a juicer in that it processes a thicker consistency but easier than a food processor because it automatically separates the “waste” from the pulp of fruits and vegetables).
- Water
- Apples
(1) Wash apples, remove stems, and quarter.
(2) Place apple quarters in a large pot, fill with water until apples barely covered.
(2) Bring to a boil and boil, covered, for 10-20 minutes (depending on your variety of apples and size). You want them to be soft but not disintegrated. The picture below shows apples that were probably boiled too long.
(3) Ladle apple quarters with a slotted spoon into top of food strainer and process.
You may save the leftover ingredients for apple cider vinegar or apple pectin later!
(5) Store apple sauce in desired containers (make sure they are labeled). Applesauce will store frozen for several months at least (to be honest, we’ve frozen batches for over a year, and they’ve still been amazingly tasty).
You can also use this applesauce as the base for many different recipes such as various baby pouches, apple-spinach fruit leather, etc.
The leftover “pomace” from the applesauce process can also be saved for making pectin (for canning certain fruits) or apple vinegar.
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