Simple Crockpot Applesauce

This is your bonus recipe! Check out the main recipe on the blog today : Applesauce Mini Muffins. 

Last week I made homemade applesauce in the crockpot. I did my usual cooking thing of reading a bunch of recipes online and then kind of cobbling them together/cooking from memory. I chose Jonamacs after a conversation with a police officer and a grocer in the produce section of our co-op, because they were described as tart-but-sweet.  I did not peel them, because I thought, oh, apple peel is good for you! It has fiber! I will blend the applesauce, and then it won’t matter!  Wrong. I did not end up blending the applesauce, I mashed it with a potato masher because I am lazy. And subsequently I have picked out chunks of apple peel while eating applesauce, because it’s just sort of weird and flavorless and floppy. In conclusion: peel your apples.

Innocent-seeming apples with their healthy little peels.

Here’s the recipe :

Ingredients
3.5 pounds apples, whatever variety you prefer
1 cinnamon stick
Half a lemon
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup water

Directions
Core, peel, and chop apples (chopping into quarters is fine) & place in crockpot
Juice the lemon and pour into crockpot (pick out lemon seeds first). Cut off chunks of lemon peel and toss those in, too
Add the vanilla, cinnamon stick, and water and give everything a quick stir
Set crockpot to low and walk away to do whatever you have to do that day! (Note: you can give it a stir if you’re around in order to shift the top apples to the bottom, but it isn’t necessary.)
After 4 – 6 hours (depending on your crockpot), remove lemon peel and cinnamon stick and mash apples with a potato masher or large fork
Serve & enjoy!
Keeps in a sealed container in the fridge for 1 – 2 weeks.

Okay, now that you’ve got your homemade applesauce, head on over to my post about applesauce mini muffins! Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of homemade applesauce left to eat — the recipe only uses one cup. 🙂

Before I cobbled this recipe together, I read these posts for inspiration : Simply Recipes Applesauce, Detoxinista’s Slow Cooker Applesauce, and The Pioneer Woman’s Homemade Applesauce.