What is apple sauce

Apple Sauce: The Indulgent Treat With Health Benefits

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Apple sauce is such a nostalgic flavor. Whether you remember the smell of it simmering on the stove when you were a kid or spooning it from a jar onto your plate, that sweet, apple-flavored treasure always brings back memories.

Apple sauce might seem like an indulgent treat, but did you know that apple sauce has many health benefits? Here’s our lowdown on the health benefits of apple sauce, and why it might be better for you than you realized.

This nutritional profile is for unsweetened apple sauce, and all the information comes from the USDA. For sweetened apple sauce, refer to the pack for differences in the amount of sugar. Apple sauce only provides between 1% and 5% of the recommended daily micronutrients (vitamins and minerals); however, the one exception is vitamin C. One single cup of apple sauce provides 86% of the daily required vitamin C. Here is a detailed look at the nutrition facts of apple sauce, per 1 cup (244g).

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Variations of Apple Sauce

There are a few different varieties of apple sauce on your grocery store shelf. These are the key two types that we’re interested in.

Organic Apple Sauce

Organic apple sauce means it’s made from apples, which have not been treated with chemical pesticides or weed killers. This gives you the peace of mind that you’re not consuming any nasty chemicals with when you enjoy your apple sauce. If you want to make your own apple sauce at home, check that the apples you’re buying or picking are certified organic. Locally grown apples are great as you can check straight with the grower what their process is.

Unsweetened Apple Sauce

Apples are full of sugar, and it is very rare to need to add any sweetener to homemade apple sauce. Some store-bought apple sauce may be made with varieties of apple that are so tart or sour that they need sweetening. Unfortunately, many brands still use corn syrup or other additives that boost the glycemic index of the apple sauce, making it much less healthy.

Look out for natural, unsweetened apple sauce, or apple sauce sweetened with natural, non-sugar based sweeteners such as stevia.

Benefits of Apple Sauce

One question on every apple sauce fan’s lips: Is apple sauce good for you?

As you saw in the nutritional profile above, apple sauce is rich in vitamin C and provides dietary fiber and other nutrients. However, most of the calories in apple sauce come from sugar. So, what are the actual benefits of eating apple sauce?

Better Digestion

You probably know that dietary fiber is great for a healthy digestive system. Apples are rich in fiber- and so is apple sauce. In fact, there is virtually no difference in the amount of fiber in a raw apple to the amount in apple sauce- around 3 grams per cup.

More Calories than Fresh Apples

Wait, why is this a good thing? Well, if you’re on the go or very active, you might need the extra calories found in apple sauce. This is why apple sauce makes a great energy-boosting snack. If, however, you’re trying to limit your calorie intake, go for the fresh apple instead.

Apples or Apple Sauce for Weight Loss?

Apples have a very low glycemic index. This means that the carbohydrates are slowly transformed into blood sugar, which is better for you and can help with weight management.

Apple sauce is not quite as low on the glycemic index. Raw apple is around 38, classed as low, and unsweetened apple sauce is about 53, which is borderline between low and medium. For reference, the highest glycemic index number is 100, which is pure glucose.

Apple sauce will be converted to blood sugar faster than a raw apple, but as long as only small portions are consumed, this can still help with weight management. Apple sauce is easy to portion out, which means there’s no reason to have a “spike” in blood sugar- as long as it’s enjoyed in moderation.

Pectin, a type of soluble fiber, may also help suppress the appetite. Pectin is found in both apples and apple sauce, making both viable for helping with weight-loss and dieting. Fiber may help to reduce or control cholesterol as well.

Apple Sauce for Kids

Apple sauce is a great energy boost for busy kids. Kids who are active and have a relatively low sugar diet can handle the extra sugars in apple sauce, as they get used up as energy. A pouch or tub of apple sauce in a lunchbox or the car could be the difference between your kid feeling fatigued or having a great day. Plus, you know they’re getting a good boost of vitamin C too- great for their immune system.

Apple sauce is also really easy to make (see below) and is a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen.

Is Too Much Apple Sauce Bad for You?

As the adage goes, “A little of what you fancy does you good.” The flip side of that is that too much of anything is, of course, not good for you at all. Apple sauce is generally served in small portions, as a snack or side dish. This is because it’s high in sugar, which is something many people are trying to consciously reduce in their diet.

Too much sugar may lead to:

• Weight gain
• Risk of acne and skin breakouts
• Increased risk of type 2 diabetes
• Increased risk of heart disease
• Increased risk of mental health conditions such as depression

It’s important to note that many of these conditions are correlated with high sugar diets as part of a wholly unhealthy lifestyle. For example, someone who eats lots of candy and never exercises is clearly at a higher risk of obesity than someone who eats moderate amounts of sugar as part of a balanced diet and an active day-to-day routine.

Best Dishes Made with Apple Sauce

Apple sauce is totally delicious on its own but is also a key ingredient in some classic dishes. Here are some ideas you can try in your own kitchen.

• Add apple flavor to any muffin or cake recipe
• Apple sauce is a well-known substitute for butter when baking
• Add apple sauce to baked potato toppings for sweetness and texture
• Use apple sauce as a glaze for meats such as pork
• Apple sauce is a great topping for pancakes
• Add moisture and flavor to meatloaf with half a cup of apple sauce

How to Make Apple Sauce at Home

The best apples for apple sauce are the softer, less crisp kind. This is because they break down faster, making smoother apple sauce. For very sweet apple sauce, try Golden Delicious or Fuji apples. For a touch of tartness, use Braeburn, Liberty or Rome varieties. Mix and match to find your favorite apple sauce flavor.

Set some time aside as all these apples need coring and peeling. You can either use a knife or an actual apple coring tool. Chop the peeled and cored apples and either put them in a pan on the stovetop with a splash of water or into a crockpot.

At this stage, adventurous chefs might want to add some additional flavors. Popular flavors for apple sauce include:

• Lemon juice (also helps the apples break down)
• Cider
• Cinnamon, for that classic apple pie flavor
• Nutmeg
• Other fruits, such as raspberries

Cook until soft and don’t add sugar or sweetener until you’ve tasted it. Most apples are plenty sweet enough without any added sugar. Apple sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for a week if covered, or in portions in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Healthier Apple Sauce Alternatives

If a hit of apple flavor is what you need, then there’s no real substitute for fresh apple. Simply dice the raw apple and add it to cereal, yogurt, puddings, or just eat it as is. Apple sauce is only considered “less healthy” because so much of the water in the apple is cooked off, concentrating the sugar.

For sweetened apple sauce, look for apple sauce sweetened with stevia, as the sugar content won’t be any higher than the unsweetened variety.

Apple sauce for baking can be replaced with any other high-pectin fruit puree or even a mixture of water and pectin. This won’t have the apple flavor but should give a similar texture in the finished product.

Homemade apple sauce is the healthiest way to enjoy this American classic, as you know exactly what’s gone into your sauce- with no hidden surprises.

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Applesauce

Delicious homemade applesauce recipe! There is nothing better than homemade applesauce with hand-picked apples, and it is so easy to make!

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

Nothing beats the taste of homemade applesauce, and it’s so easy to make! Every year, starting in mid summer with the Gravensteins, and through late fall with Granny Smiths and Fuji apples, my father processes dozens of batches of applesauce from apples picked from his trees. He freezes them in large quart-sized mason jars for us to enjoy all year long.

The secret to my dad’s applesauce is that he adds a couple strips of lemon peel to the apples while they are cooking, as well as some lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.

The tartness of the lemon or vinegar serves to intensify the taste of the apples, and helps balance out the sweetness of the sauce. The result is a refreshing, utterly delicious applesauce.

He also likes to mix other fruit in with the sauce. He’ll mix fresh cranberries in with the apples for cranberry applesauce, or stalks of rhubarb for rhubarb applesauce. Plums and pluots sometimes find their way into his applesauce too.

For more information on which apple varieties are best for baking, check out our Guide to Apples.

Love Apples? Try These Recipes:

Applesauce

Apples vary in their sweetness level, depending on the variety and how late in the season they are picked. The amount of sugar you will want to add will depend on how sweet your apples are, and how sweet you would like your applesauce to be. This recipe is just a guideline, please adjust the sugar amounts to your taste. You can even leave the sugar out all together if you are using sweet apples.

If you use less sugar than this recipe suggest, you will likely want to reduce the amount of lemon juice or vinegar as well. The acid in the lemon juice or vinegar brightens the flavor of the apples and balances the sweetness.

In place of the ground cinnamon you can cook the apples with a stick of cinnamon, just remove it before puréeing.

To prep the apples, use a sharp vegetable peeler or paring knife and cut away the outer peel. Then quarter the apple and use a paring knife to cut out the tough core parts from the quarters. Or use an apple peeler corer.

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Apple Sauce

This is a recipe for an Apple Sauce, one of the two sauces I chose to accompany a Slow-Roasted Crispy Pork Belly I also published today.

What sets this sauce apart from your run-of-the-mill, basic Apple Sauce recipes? Starting with a caramel rather than just mixing sugar into the sauce. The result is a distinctly deeper, richer flavour in return for very little extra effort!

This is a bonus recipe (along with Vermouth Jus, also a bonus recipe!) for a sauce to accompany Crispy Slow Roasted Pork Belly, the main recipe for today. The sauce is straightforward as they come, so I’m keeping it short and sweet!

Apple Sauce

Pork and apple are classic partners on the plate. Apple Sauce is the most popular expression of this pairing and with its sweet-tart flavours seemed a natural choice to team with the pork belly recipe that I also published today.

Most recipes you’ll see for Apple Sauce use a basic method of cooking apples with sugar and sometimes butter, then blitzing until smooth. Adding one extra step of melting the sugar first to form a caramel really takes this Apple Sauce up a notch. The undertones of caramel lend a richer, deeper and almost savoury character to the sauce that makes people stop and wonder,”What is that I can taste in there?” This small outlay of effort really makes all the difference to set your sauce apart, and it’s as easy as throwing sugar in a saucepan and leaving it to turn to caramel!

While I’ve used this sauce for Pork Belly, there’s plenty of wide-ranging and wonderful options for using Apple Sauce. Don’t limit yourself to savoury thinking though. You can spoon this good stuff over anything from pancakes to French Toast, dollop it onto Apple Cake, scones, or dunk muffins into it and smear on to toast!

What goes in Apple Sauce

Just five ingredients are needed for this Apple Sauce! For the apples, I like to use Gala apples. They have a mild, sweet flavour which I think works well for Apple Sauce. However you can really use any variety of apples you want here. Obviously bear in mind that the flavour of the apple you use will dominate the flavour of the sauce. If you like a touch of tart, go the Granny Smith! If you want extra-sweet, go for Red Delicious or Pink Lady!

How to make Apple Sauce

The key step here that sets this Apple Sauce apart from most other recipes is melting the sugar to form a caramel, which creates a beautiful flavour base for this sauce.

Peel, core and cut apples – I cut the apple into quarters then slice it fairly thinly. This size makes them easy to stir and cooks fairly quickly;

Place sugar in a saucepan over low heat;

Leave sugar until it melts into a caramel – Shake the pan occasionally as it melts. Don’t stir, as you risk crystallisation of the sugar. Once it starts melting on the edges, swirl the pot around to get the sugar melting evenly (so the edges don’t burn);

Add the vinegar and apples – Stir and cook apples around 10 minutes until very soft;

Add butter then blitz – Use a stick blender to blitz until the apple is completely pureed. If you have splattering issues, tilt the pan so the head of the stick blender is fully submerged; and

Done! You have made Apple Sauce – ready for infinite possibilities!

Pork Belly, plated up fine dining restaurant style! Served with a smear of Cauliflower Puree, topped with slices of Slow Roasted Crispy Pork Belly, finished with Vermouth Jus and Apple Sauce.

What to do with Apple Sauce

I am specifically sharing this recipe as a sauce for Crispy Slow Roasted Pork Belly which I also published today. I felt however Apple Sauce alone left me wanting of a meaty, savoury accompaniment on the plate, so I also added Vermouth Jus which I’ve published as a separate recipe.

Pork belly + Vermouth Jus + this Apple Sauce is a magical combination. It oozes “fine dining” cachet both in looks and in the eating! Yes, it’s a bit of work to assemble but I promise the results are absolutely worth it!

Other uses for Apple Sauce

Roast pork belly aside, there’s many other sweet and savoury options for using this Apple Sauce. Hence the beauty of having this in your repertoire! Here are some ideas:

As a sauce for almost any pork dish, of course! Also traditional with festive duck and game bird dishes.

Great with smoky, fried bacon! Serve a dollop as a condiment alongside a breakfast fry-up. For the more adventurous (ie. not me!!), Apple Sauce is also classic with black pudding / boudin noir.

Spoon onto pancakes or pikelets, or even buttered crumpets

Serve a dollop with cake – try it with this Apple Cake or this one !

Topping for ice cream or rice pudding

Great as a chutney on a cheese board with strong, salty cheeses like blue vein, cheddar, washed rind and so on

Enjoy! – Nagi x

Watch how to make it

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