Easy Slow Cooker Applesauce {NO Peeling Required}

Applesauce can be pricey at least in our neck of the woods, so as the saying goes “necessity is the mother of invention”. We got to making our own applesauce this afternoon. Actually this should be my motto–“necessity is the mother of homemade connoctions.”

Applesauce is super easy to make whether you’re making it over the stovetop or in the crockpot. And especially easy if you don’t have to peel the apples. See below my instructions for this easy no peel applesauce recipe.

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Can you believe you don’t have to peel your apples? Nope, don’t peel the apples! When you peel the apples you strip it of it’s nutrients and fiber, plus it’s time consuming to peel. So, don’t peel the apples Just cut up the apples to get the seeds and core out. Use an apple wedger to make the process even easier.

If you don’t want to use sugar, purchase naturally sweet apples like Fuji, Gala, Red Delicious. Those are really sweet apples and you may not need to add sugar, so if you go with that option wait until after they are cooked to add the sugar, then taste and see if it meets your needs.

Below I will share with you how to make the traditional recipe using apples and at the end of the post I’ll share the Babaco version.

Easy Slow Cooker Applesauce Recipe and NO Peeling Required (See below for the Applesauce from Babaco recipe)

12 medium apples
1/2 cup of water
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 cinnamon sticks (plus 2 tsp ground cinnamon)
1/3 cp of brown sugar (you may need more)

1. Take your apples and slice them up to get the seeds out or you can just core them.

2. Place all of the ingredients in the crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours.

3. Place in a blender (minus the cinnamon sticks) until the sauce is smooth.

As I mentioned above, if you’re wanting to go the no sugar route, leave out the sugar by using naturally sweet apples mentioned above. Then at the end, once it cooked, taste it and see if you need to add a tablespoon more of sugar.

For Babaco Applesauce:

I discovered if you live in California, Ecuador and New Zealand you might be able to find this long, yellow, acidic, fruit called Babaco. It kind of looks like a papaya but it’s meat doesn’t resemble the papaya. I’ve been able to find Babaco all over Ecuador in the markets and grocery store!

I’m not sure where I heard about using Babaco for baking but you can use it to make applesauce instead of buying apples which depending on the time of the year, apples can be pricey. So, I tried it and let me tell you, I couldn’t taste the difference. It was lovely because two Babaco fruits cost me less than $2 and it made a whole crockpot full. Note, Babaco is ready to be eaten when it’s yellow. I usually see them at the market sold green but if you leave it out on the counter for a day or two you should have a mostly yellow fruit ready to be eaten. But don’t wait too long, otherwise it will get really squishy and go bad. I share that from experience.

Ingredients:

2 large Babaco fruits
tablespoons of water (optional see notes below)
2 cinnamon sticks (plus 2 tsp ground cinnamon)
1/3 cp of brown sugar (you may need more as babaco on it’s own is not a sweet fruit)

Peel the fruit. When the Babaco is nice and ripe you should be able to just slide the knife right under the skin and it comes right off. I didn’t peel it all off as it was hard to get in between the crevices of this fun star-shaped fruit. Make sure to remove the white and spongy stuff from the middle of the fruit. Place all of the above ingredients in the crockpot minus the ground cinnamon and cook on high for 4 hours.

Update 10/2014–Another method: Cut in half without peeling it but do remove the white spongy stuff out. Place the two halves in the crockpot with all of the ingredients. Once it’s done cooking I just spooned the meat out (trashing the skin) and placed it in the blender. This method also worked just fine but it took a bit longer to spoon out the meat.

Note: You may not need to add any water at all since Babaco is a water-packed fruit. But since I don’t know the intensity of your crockpot, I would rather be safe then sorry, so if you feel like you need to just add a tiny bit of water to make sure you don’t burn anything. When you blend it, use a strainer to omit the juice and add it little by little in the blender depending on how thick you want it your sauce. The consistency of the apple sauce using the babaco is not as thick. Also, start with 1/3 cp of sugar and once it’s cooked and blended check to see if it sweet enough for you then add more if needed. You don’t need to blend the babaco if you want a chunky apple sauce but I did stick mine in the blender for 5 sec. since I couldn’t get it to the right consistency by just beating it.