This unsweetened applesauce recipe comes together in just minutes. Sweetened naturally, it has no added sugars, and is a healthy applesauce that your family will love!
Applesauce is such a fun accompaniment to so many meals. If you’re like me and have kids, you know how much they love it! Every fall we seem to have an abundance of apples that I need to use up, so I created this unsweetened applesauce recipe to use up my stash of apples without adding tons of sugar.
While I love apple pie and apple crisp, its fun to mix it up and use apples in different ways. If you’re looking for a healthy way to use apples, this is a great recipe to try! It has natural sweetness from apples and a small amount of orange juice, and the cinnamon adds some flavor that takes it over the top!
How to Make Unsweetened Applesauce
You’ll need to peel the apples, and then chop or slice them in smaller pieces. I love this apple peeler and slicer, it makes it so easy! Once you’ve got them peeled and chopped, you just add all the ingredients to the Instant Pot, and set them to cook for 8 minutes. The last step is to mash or blend it until its smooth.
Tips for Making Healthy Applesauce
- It helps to use an apple peeler and slicer, you can peel and slice the entire batch of apples in just a few minutes!
- If you don’t have an instant pot, you can use a slow cooker, or cook them in a pot on the stove.
- If you have a freezer, you could easily double this and freeze the extras for another time.
Instant Pot Unsweetened Applesauce
- Prep Time: 20 min
- Cook Time: 10 min
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 10 1x
- Category: Side dish
- Cuisine: American
Description
This unsweetened applesauce recipe comes together in just minutes. Sweetened naturally, it has no added sugars, and is a healthy applesauce that your family will love!
Ingredients
10 apples
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice (from 1 small orange)
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
Peel and slice apples. Add them to the instant pot with all the other ingredients, and set to pressure cook for 8 minutes. Once it’s done, manually release the pressure and then mash the mixture or puree it with an immersion blender. Enjoy!
For the crockpot, follow the instructions above and then cook on low for 4 hours in a slow cooker.
For the stovetop, bring the ingredients to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes to cook.
Keywords: unsweetened applesauce
Want other apple recipes? Try these!
Chocolate Hazelnut Butter (perfect for dipping apples!)
Susan Taylor says
Kalee, I made this last night in a crock pot, so easy, and we really like it! I didn’t have orange juice so I used the watermelon juice left over from some packaged watermelon which was flavorful, a small of amount of stevia,, , a little water, and the last tbsp. of white wine left in a bottle. Macintosh apples were on sale for $.99 a pound so I used them. Thanks for a tempting photo and great recipe!