After making your own apple sauce you’ll never want to buy store-bought again, especially when the instant pot makes it so easy! I never liked store-bought applesauce to begin with, I was spoiled as a kid and lucky enough to make homemade apple sauce with my grandma every year. Her apple sauce is still my favorite, full of flavor, sweet and always pink because she left the skins on the apples. The instant pot didn’t exist back then, so we used to use a food mill to make it by hand. This recipe is inspired by my childhood memories of my grandma’s delicious pink apple sauce, but with a few extra spices and a little less cook time thanks to the instant pot. This recipe is also easy to multiply if you want more applesauce or have lots of leftover apples. A mix of apple varieties is best, to give it depth of flavor. I prefer half sweet and half tart apples, but feel free to mix and match as you please.
Instant Pot Apple Sauce
Ingredients
- 4 large sweet apples Honeycrisp or Gala
- 4 large tart apples Granny Smith or Golden Delicious
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice if desired
- 1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ Teaspoon ginger
- ⅛ Teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
- Wash and dry your apples
- Remove the cores from the apples and cut into 1 inch chunks, leaving the skins on. I cut around the core, but but you can use an apple corer if you'd like
- Place apples in the instant pot and pour water over apples. The water ensures the instant pot doesn’t encounter the dreaded BURN error.
- Add in the spices and mix to lightly combine
- Close lid on pressure cooker and seal vent knob
- Cook on high pressure for 12 minutes. It should take about 10 minutes to come up to pressure.
- Once the cook time has elapsed let the pressure release naturally for at least 15 minutes before manually releasing any remaining pressure
- Depending on your consistency preference, mash the applesauce with a potato masher or use an immersion blender
- When cool, transfer the applesauce to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks
