Sarah's Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce

More About This Recipe

• For our Facebook fans: This is Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce. It's easy, flavorful and has no added sugar in the recipe. This is Part 1 in our Apple Series this week.
  
  One of my earliest memories is sitting at the kitchen counter in my grandparents' home, helping my aunt peel, chop and cook up a fresh batch of applesauce. The intoxicating smell of apples cooking would permeate through the house while we cooked. She would boil it on the stove before mashing the apples and serving it with fresh potato pancakes.
  
  Aren't food memories the best? Just talking about that, I feel like I am back in that kitchen, knees pressed to the caned stools, waiting to take a bite of the tender potatoes and sweet applesauce. And it's like my grandmother will just walk in the door again, with my grandfather right behind her, both home from church.
  
  I can't go back to that time, and I can't recreate that scene, but I can fill my home with the familiar, comforting scent of cooking homemade applesauce -- and give my children happy food-related memories.
  
  The applesauce pictured is my Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce, which is actually (added) sugar-free. When my son was an infant, I started making homemade applesauce -- for the first time since my childhood -- and I discovered that if you start with sweet apples (sweet-tart is good too, as long as they are more sweet than tart), then you don't need to add any sugar.
  
  This applesauce is flavorful and sweet with tart notes. I love eating a bowl of warm applesauce, just out of the pan. It's amazing. But it's also great to have a stash of this in the fridge for breakfast time (or lunch or whenever!).
  
  To make this, you peel and core the apples, then cut them into chunks and mixed with some seasonings, lemon juice and water. The applesauce is cooked, covered, for 25 minutes or so, until the apples are tender. But it's important that you stir it during that time -- so it doesn't stick or burn. Then you mash the soft apples, stir and cook a teeny bit more, before serving.
  
  It's super easy. Really.
  
  Looking for a sweetened applesauce? Check out the Applesauce recipe from Betty Crocker.
  
  Watch for Part 2 in our Apple Series, coming up soon.
  
  Sarah W. Caron (aka scaron) is a food writer, editor and blogger who writes about family-friendly foods and raising a healthy family at Sarah's Cucina Bella.