Crockpot Applesauce

A blend of Honeycrisp apples, apple pie spice, and brown sugar simmer in the slow cooker for 5 hours to make this easy and delicious crockpot applesauce recipe. Easily adjust the sweetness and texture to your family’s liking. This is an simple recipe you’ll want to make all fall long!

The moment my kids go back to school, I head straight into apple mode. I whip up a batch or two of my apple pie spice recipe and my slow cooker stays busy for the rest of apple season alternating between batches of my slow cooker apple butter and this crockpot applesauce. 

My kids love this applesauce and I do, too. If you’ve never made homemade applesauce, the flavor is so much better than the store-bought stuff. You get rich apple flavor in every bite, plus you can adjust the sweetness and texture to make it exactly the way your family likes it. 

This recipe only requires 15 minutes of hands-on time before you “set it and forget it” in the slow cooker for 5 hours. The finished applesauce can be stored in the fridge, but it also freezes beautifully so you can enjoy it for months.

Ingredient notes

• Fresh apples: As I mentioned above, Honeycrisp apples are my family’s favorite, but you can use any variety you like. Golden Delicious, Jonagold, Braeburn, and Cortland apples are all great options. Unless you like a pretty tart applesauce, I’d save the Granny Smith apples for apple spice cookies.
• Light brown sugar: I like the richness that brown sugar adds to the apples, similar to the filling in my puff pastry apple strudel recipe. You could use honey or maple syrup for a different flavor profile or even omit the sugar altogether.
• Apple pie spice: The blend of spices really ups the flavor here. If you don’t have apple spice spice on hand, you could substitute with ground cinnamon. 

How to make crockpot applesauce

This recipe is as easy as dump into the crockpot, cook, and purée.

Don’t worry too much about cutting your apples into perfect slices or chunks. You just need to break them down a bit so the slow cooker can do the rest of the work.

Add the apples, sugar, and apple pie spice to the crock of your slow cooker. I like to use my 6-quart slow cooker so the ingredients have plenty of room. Cook on high for 5 hours.

Once cooked, decide how smooth or chunky you want your applesauce to be. For a chunky applesauce, stir the sauce with a large spoon or use a potato masher to break down larger pieces.

If you want to purée the applesauce, use an immersion blender to get it to the texture you like. You can also use a regular blender.

Enjoy the applesauce warm with a dollop of whipped cream or spooned on top of homemade waffles or mascarpone pancakes, or chill it and spoon it over ice cream. (Or dig into it straight from the fridge!)

Storage

Store the cooled applesauce in airtight containers. It will keep in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for 3-6 months. 

Let frozen applesauce thaw in the refrigerator overnight.

If you like to can, refer to the directions in my post on how to can apple butter. You can use this same method to preserve this recipe as well. 

Frequently asked questions