You Don’t Need to Add Sugar to Applesauce
Why? Because sugar is a way to cover up lack of flavor. When food is tasty, natural sweetness sings. Chuck your sugar out the window – it’s not needed here.
My nephew houses this applesauce. He will eat 3-4 servings. As will my husband, brother, parents, and me.
Make this unsweetened homemade applesauce for your family.
It’s easy to make. Downside? Once you taste it, you can’t go back to store-bought. 🙁
Naturally Sweet Homemade Applesauce
No sweetener needed for this recipe, it has tons of flavor on its own. Plus, by leaving on the skins, you get all the fiber and vitamins. Great for kids and adults to eat. The key - you need a powerful blender to get a silky smooth consistency, unless you like your applesauce chunky. For me, the recipe tastes best when you blend the apples and skins to a creamy smooth texture.
Servings: 12
Ingredients
- 12 cups apples with skin about 4 pounds of apples
- 3 tsp lemon juice
- 2-3 tsp cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp fresh nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/4 cup water
Instructions
Chop Apples: Leave Skins ON!
- Chop apples into uniform bite size pieces. Leaving the skins on gives you all the great fiber and vitamins. Don't throw it away!
- Put the apples into a 6 - 8 quart stock pot as you chop them.
- Add 1 tsp of lemon juice for each 4 cups of apples chopped. Lemon juice prevents the apples from browning and adds flavor.
Heat
- Cook apples and lemon juice over medium to medium high heat covered on top of your stove.
Add Flavor
- Once the apples start to sweat, add the cinnamon (2-3 tsp depending on your taste, I like 3 tsp), fresh nutmeg, and sea salt.
- Continue to cook covered until apples are soft (20-30 minutes total). Stir often.
- The apples will make their own syrup as they cook down. You want to retain some of this. Apples will be soft enough while you still have the thick delicious sweet syrup in the bottom of the pot. Don't over reduce it!
Blend, Blend, Blend
- Once the apples are cooked, place in a high powered blender with the water. Blend on high until apples and skins are blended to desired consistency.
- I love my Vitamix because it gets my applesauce silky smooth. You don't even know the apple skins are there!
Notes
What Apples Should You Use?
Use whatever apples you like to eat. I prefer apples that are both tart and sweet and I like to mix apples. Honeycrisp, Braeburn, Pink Lady, Macintosh are all apples I love to eat fresh and as applesauce.
Jema says
June 3, 2014 at 3:47 amHi Angela,
Could you use 1/4 cup Apple juice instead of the water?
Thanks.
Angela says
June 3, 2014 at 4:31 pmJema, I don’t see why not. Since I’m not adding any sugar to the recipe and working to keep it as natural as possible, I’d use a brand that doesn’t add sugar. Apple juice has plenty on its own! I bet it will taste great!! 🙂