Friday, March 21, 2014

Canning your own Applesauce



Applesauce is one of those things that is always nice to have in your refrigerator. My kids love to eat it as a side, snack or dessert. I love dipping my pork chops in it and using it as a substitute for oil when I'm baking. When my local grocery store put apples on sale 3 for $.99 I decided that would be a perfect opportunity to try making homemade applesauce. I very quickly realized that not only was it extremely easy but homemade applesauce tastes SO much better than store bought. Though the price is about the same, I'd gladly put forth the effort to make my own simply because the flavor is so good and I'm not feeding my family unnecessary preservatives.



It takes about 3 lbs of apples to make one quart of applesauce. So the best deal you can find on apples the best price for the finished product! I used a mixture of granny smith and gala apples. My most wonderful husband bought me a slicer/corer/peeler for Christmas so it no longer takes me an hour to hand peel and cut 6 lbs of apples. I can now do about 15 lbs in a mere 15 minutes. Gotta love him!

Fill a large pot with peeled, cored and sliced apples. My biggest pot can do about 6 lbs of apples at a time. Keep the skins outta there as to not mess the texture of the applesauce. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of the pot and start to cook on Med-High stirring occasionally until the apples are super tender. I like to add about 1 tbsp of cinnamon and about a half cup of brown sugar to the apples but really you could not add anything and it will still taste wonderful! Once the apples are tender (only takes 20-30 min as long as they were sliced thinly) use a hand blender to puree the apples into applesauce! If you have more apples to cook and intend to process the applesauce in a water bath canner then you'll need to make sure that you keep the applesauce hot so transfer to a slow cooker to hold temperature while you cook the next batch of apples.



Once all of your apples are pureed into applesauce transfer into sterilized canning jars and process the jars in a hot water bath for at least 20 min. If you are not storing for long term then make sure the applesauce has cooled and store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks - if it lasts that long! ;-)

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