Applesauce, water-bath canned
Sound apples — seconds are fine once the bruises are cut away — into the easiest jar of the year; no added acid needed, and sugar optional.
Makes
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9.5 kg (21 lb) of apples; 6.1 kg (13½ lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars
Active time
1¼ hours
Total
2½ hours, plus 12–24 hours cooling
Photo JeepersMedia on Flickr · CC BY 2.0
Before you start
What keeps this jar safe
- Apples are a high-acid fruit; no lemon juice or citric acid is needed for safety — the ascorbic acid is only for colour. That holds for fresh, firm apples with no rot or mould: cut out bruises, never use windfalls, and refrigerate or freeze sauce made from apples that have been stored a long time, which can be less acidic.
- Hot pack only: the sauce must be boiling when it goes into the jars, which is why it is reheated after milling.
- Sugar is for taste, not safety; leave it out entirely if you like.
- Do not add butter, cream or thickeners — this is a plain fruit recipe. Cinnamon goes on at the table.
This follows NCHFP: Applesauce. Quantities, acid and times are theirs; do not scale the vegetables without scaling everything, and do not change the vinegar, lemon juice or processing time.
Ingredients
- 9.5 kg (21 lb) sweet, juicy, crisp apples — about 1.4 kg (3 lb) per litre jar; for a tart sauce, use 1–2 parts tart apples to 3 parts sweet
- 125 ml (½ cup) water for the pot
- Ascorbic acid, optional, to stop browning: 1 teaspoon (3 g) in 4 L of cold water, or six crushed 500 mg vitamin C tablets
- Sugar, optional: 30 ml (⅛ cup) per litre of sauce, or to taste
Processing
- Jars
- 500 ml (pint) · 1 L (quart) in brackets
- Headspace
- 1.25 cm (½ inch)
- Time at 0–300 m (0–1,000 ft)
- 15 min
- Higher up
- 1 L jars: 20 min. 500 ml: 20 min at 300–1,800 m (1,001–6,000 ft), 25 min above 1,800 m. 1 L: 25 min at 300–900 m (1,001–3,000 ft), 30 min at 900–1,800 m (3,001–6,000 ft), 35 min above 1,800 m (6,000 ft).
Method
- 1
Set the washed jars to heat in the canner and wash the lids. Wash, peel and core the apples; children can wash and feed the peeler. If it will be a while before they cook, drop the slices into the ascorbic-acid water.
- 2
Drain the slices into an 8–10 L pot, add the ½ cup of water and heat quickly, stirring now and then so nothing catches, until tender — 5–20 minutes depending on the variety.
- 3
Press through a food mill or sieve for a smooth sauce, or mash in the pot for a chunky one. Taste; stir in sugar if you want it (⅛ cup per litre is the starting point).
- 4
Bring the sauce back to a boil, stirring — it spits, so keep little helpers back.
- 5
Fill the hot jars with boiling sauce, leaving 1.25 cm (½ inch) headspace. Work a chopstick through to free trapped air, wipe the rims, centre the lids and screw the bands on fingertip-tight.
- 6
Lower into the canner with at least 5 cm (2 inches) of water over the lids, bring to a full rolling boil and time it: 500 ml jars 15 minutes, 1 L jars 20 minutes at 0–300 m.
- 7
Turn off the heat, uncover, wait 5 minutes, lift the jars onto a towel and leave 12–24 hours. Check the seals; refrigerate any that failed and eat within a week.
Keeps: 12–18 months in a cool dark cupboard. Refrigerate after opening and eat within a week.
Variations: Mixing varieties — a McIntosh for softness, a Cortland or Spartan for body, a crab or two for tang — gives the best sauce.
Tested source: NCHFP: Applesauce. Checked October 2026. If a jar did not seal, refrigerate it and use it within a few days. Never taste anything from a jar that is bulging, leaking, spurting or smells wrong — when in doubt, throw it out without tasting.
The crop
Apples: when to pick, how to store, what else to make →
Apples are high-acid, so everything you make from them water-baths without added acid: applesauce (sugar optional, hot pack, 15 minutes for 500 ml jars and 20 for litres at 0–300 m), apple butter (the tested recipe cooks apples down with cider, vinegar and sugar until a spoonful mounds without weeping, then 5 minutes for 500 ml jars), and sliced apples in very light syrup, juice or water (hot pack, 20 minutes). Slices freeze well for pies if you hold them in water with ascorbic acid first or steam-blanch them 2 minutes, then tray-freeze; the texture is for cooking, not eating. Dried rings are the children’s favourite: dip 5 mm slices in ascorbic-acid water, dry at 60 °C (140 °F) for about six hours until leathery with no damp centre, and condition them in a loose jar for a week before sealing. Fresh-pressed cider is unpasteurized: bring it to a boil before giving it to children, older people or anyone with a weakened immune system — freezing keeps the flavour but does not make it safe. What does not work: canning pie filling thickened with flour or cornstarch (only Clear Jel, in a tested recipe, is safe — thickeners stop the heat reaching the centre of the jar), raw-packing apple slices (they float and brown), and putting windfalls in jars or juice — extension food-safety services say drops have been in contact with soil and animals, are often bruised enough for moulds to start inside, and are less acidic than picked fruit, and the mould toxin patulin survives cooking. Windfalls that are sound go in a pie this week; the rest go to the compost.
More for apples
- Water-bath canning
Apple butter, water-bath canned
A long, slow pot of apples, cider and spice cooked down to something that mounds on a spoon — the whole house smells of it.
About 9–10 × 500 ml (pint) jars, or twice as many 250 ml · 1½ hours active
The recipe → - Drying
Dried apple rings
Leathery, chewy, lunchbox-sized apple: the drying recipe to start with, because it forgives almost everything except skipping the dip.
About 500 g of dried rings from 5 kg of fresh apples (they lose about nine-tenths of their weight) · 40 minutes active
The recipe → - Drying
Fruit leather, apple or berry
Purée poured thin and dried into a roll-up: the snack children ask for by name, made from the fruit that was too soft for anything else.
500 ml (2 cups) of purée makes one 33 × 38 cm (13 × 15 inch) sheet, about 8 roll-ups · 20 minutes active
The recipe →