A healthy, easy snack: crockpot applesauce

Fall in New England, in addition to offering eye-popping foliage and cool, crisp golden days, also brings apples.

A favorite among most New Englanders is the McIntosh. While it’s a nice, tart apple to pack in school lunches, it also makes delicious applesauce. If one leaves the skin on, the sauce will even come out pink.

With so many moms working full-time jobs these days, who would have time to make applesauce?

The answer?  You!

Delicious applesauce can be made right in a crockpot. It’s extremely easy to make and, with a little bit of advanced preparation, it can cook unattended in a crockpot all day long while you’re at work.

When you come home at night, your house will be filled with the luscious fragrance of cinnamon and apples.

Kids will love homemade applesauce as an after-school snack or for dessert after supper. The best part is it’s not only delicious, but it’s a very healthy thing for them to eat.

Did you know the McIntosh apple was named after an actual person? Yes, it’s noted that his name was John McIntosh of Ontario, Canada.

Apparently, he discovered a tree with these white-fleshed apples on a farm he bought in the late 1700s.

He took seedlings, planted them and the rest is, so to speak, history. Every McIntosh apple you pick up these days is probably a “cousin” to the original.

The best part of making homemade applesauce in a crockpot is you can be very flexible. You can follow a specific recipe (there are tons of versions online) or you can improvise.

Here is one  improvisation of crockpot applesauce.

I took 12 McIntosh apples, washed them very well in warm, soapy water.  After rinsing, the apples were peeled, cored and sliced.

Then I added a cup of dark brown sugar, a tablespoon of freshly-squeezed lemon juice, a teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of ground cinnamon.

Again, add more sugar if you like sweet applesauce and less if you prefer it to be on the more tart side. You can use granulated sugar instead of brown, too. I just like the rich, dark coloring of applesauce that results from using the brown sugar.

I stirred everything together. Once poured into the crockpot, I also added a stick of cinnamon.

I flipped the crockpot to high and cooked the mixture for six hours. The house smelled divine and the resulting applesauce tasted absolutely yummy.

You can certainly use other kinds of apples or a combination of several different kinds. You can also add apple juice.

I read one recipe that called for pumpkin pie spice and would like to try that sometime.

Again, if you want pink applesauce, leave the skins on McIntosh apples.

So call the kids help you peel some apples and haul out the crockpot.  Everyone is bound to love this delicious treat!

Leftover applesauce can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for a few days.

Or it can be used to make an applesauce cake, but that’s for another column!

Posted by Susan M. Wicker Guerrero on September 27, 2012. Filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry