Crabapple Sauce
Simple crab apple sauce. It can be made tart and red using red-skinned crab apples, or sweet, using all sweet crab apples. Expect some variation as apples vary in size. Basic recipe makes about 1 gallon / 4 quarts.
Servings: 32 Servings
Calories: 138kcal
Cost: 10
Equipment
- large pot (50 qt capacity or large enough to hold your apples).
- Food mill or apple sauce maker
- Potato masher
- Quart canning jars (optional)
Ingredients
- 15 lbs mixed, wild sweet crab apples
- 1 cup maple syrup or brown sugar, to taste
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2.5 tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
Apple Sauce
- Wash the apples if needed. Cut larger apples into pieces so they're the same size as the crab apples.
- Put the apples into a pot with 4 cups of water and bring to a simmer. Cover, stirring occasionally, cooking the apples until tender and mashing until they're completely broken down, about 30 minutes, depending on the size of your pot.
- Make sure to stir down to the bottom and don't be afraid to add a few additional cups of water to prevent scorching.
- Pass the apple mixture through an apple sauce maker or food mill to remove seeds and skins. You should have about 4 quarts. Add the maple syrup, salt, cinnamon lemon juice and mix to combine. If you want the sauce thicker, bring it to a simmer and cook for a few minutes.
- Double check the seasoning and adjust until it tastes good to you.
Canning crab apple sauce
- Transfer the apple sauce to canning jars. Put the jars in a water bath, bring to pot to a rolling boil. When the pot comes to a boil, set a timer for 15 minutes for quart jars, or 10 minutes for pint jars.
- After ten minutes, remove the jars and allow to cool, then label, date, and store in a pantry.
Video
Notes
Chef's Notes
- Small, red crab apples are usually very tart. Larger apples can be tart, sweet, or mild flavored. For sauce, I recommend using ⅓ - ½ tart red crab apples to sweet apples.
- 15-20 lbs of apples will give you about 1 gallon of finished apple sauce.
- You can also add a splash of wild vanilla extract to this.
- For a very smooth sauce, you can puree it with an immersion blender.
- You can use a slow cooker if you cut the recipe in half.
Nutrition
Serving: 2oz | Calories: 138kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 0.4g | Saturated Fat: 0.1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.01g | Sodium: 21mg | Potassium: 250mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 28g | Vitamin A: 115IU | Vitamin C: 10mg | Calcium: 24mg | Iron: 0.3mg