The Secret To Making Homemade Applesauce

Applesauce is something of an underrated food. It seems to be written off to childhood a lot of times, but it's actually a wonderful item to keep in the pantry no matter your age. Though homemade tends to be better, store-bought applesauce is nicely sweet and can be used in baking, too. While making homemade applesauce might sound like a chore, it is actually much easier than you'd expect.

If you ask Ina Garten, applesauce is as easy as putting a few apples in the oven and forgetting about them. She simply tosses peeled, quartered, and cored apples into a Dutch oven with the juice and zest of an orange and a lemon. After that, she adds butter and spices and lets the concoction cook for about an hour and a half. Once the apples come out, all she does is whisk them together and serve a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top (via The Barefoot Contessa).

There are a few key points to pay attention to when gathering ingredients to make applesauce. While you could use almost any type of apple, choosing some that are already sweeter will cut down on the amount of sugar you will want to add. A bonus is that bruised or dented apples are perfect for applesauce since it cooks down to the consistency that it does (via AllRecipes).

If you don't want to peel your apples before making applesauce, you'll want to have a food mill or ricer on hand. Once the apples are soft and cooked, you can pass them through this and the skins and seeds will separate out. If you do choose to peel and core your apples, be sure to cut them into equal pieces so they cook evenly.

Finally, you can make great applesauce in as little as 35 minutes on the stovetop with the right recipe. Though you can use an oven or a slow cooker, the fastest results will come from the stovetop.