The best apple butter recipe is also the easiest

The simplest best apple butter recipe is a rich, thick spreadable apple paste made from homemade applesauce, just enough brown sugar, and spices of your choice with the help of your slow cooker. It seriously takes 1 minute to get a batch going.

I probably had apple butter for the first time when I was about 10 after my family moved to Texas. Being from Nebraska, I had never really come across it until we moved south. Still, that first taste of deep rich apples concentrated down with spices on a big fat biscuit was definitely memorable.

Actually it was a confusing memory. I remember loving the apple taste but not being in love with the cloying sweetness of the apple butter in question. At some point in your life as a cook, you realize that you don’t have to make things exactly as other people make them. You can actually tailor your recipes to your own tastes. That is the short story of why I make low sugar apple butter.

With almost no work you can make up this apple butter recipe (even easier if you have a batch of homemade applesauce on hand). Get a batch going in the morning, and it’ll be ready for spreading on muffins, biscuits or your favorite toast before you know it.

The best apple butter recipe

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Why this homemade apple butter will inspire you to make a batch of muffins post haste

1. Lazy!!!: I love it when you can make your kitchen tools do the work for you. With a slow cooker, this crockpot apple butter is almost totally hands off.
2. Better flavor: Because you can choose how spiced you make your apple butter and because we’re not putting any preservatives, you’ll lock in fresh, concentrated apple flavor.
3. Save money: Commercial apple butter is overpriced. While there’s nothing wrong with buying a jar, making your own will save you money in the end.

Ingredients for homemade apple butter

• Applesauce: Here’s where I bully you into making homemade applesauce first. Shoot, you can make the sauce and the butter back to back so that it’s not really adding any extra time. Homemade will give you the best flavor, and it’s not even close. If you want apple butter yesterday, choose an store-bought applesauce with just apples. North Coast is a great brand for this.
• Light brown sugar (optional): You can make healthy apple butter by cutting out the sugar entirely, though I think this is one place where a little will enhance the end. Still, you’re the master of your apple butter, and many apples are sweet enough that the simple act of cooking them down will concentrate that sweetness into a plenty sweet end result.
• Apple pie spice: I love my apple pie spice blend, which is a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla sugar. To my taste, these flavors enhance the apples without overpowering them. When I eat apple anything, I want to taste the apples, not just the spice. Feel free to use plain cinnamon or chai spice blend or pumpkin pie spice.

Equipment for making apple butter

1. Slow cooker: whatever size you have will work here.
2. Spoon: Use wood so that you don’t scrape your slow cooker.
3. Jars: for storing your apple butter later. My most used are pint Mason jars.

Tips for making the best apple butter

• Stir periodically: stir your apple butter as it cooks about once an hour-ish. As lazy of a recipe as this is, you want to stir things to check the consistency and make sure nothing is scorching.
• Prop open the lid: The apple butter will thicken better if you prop open the lid.  I set mine across the top, so that either end is open, but the apple butter is mostly covered.  This will help the extra moisture from the applesauce evaporate during the cooking.
• Not high: I cannot recommend cooking this on the high setting on your crockpot.  Doing so could risk scorching your apple butter.  The low slow cooking is much more gentle, and you won’t have to babysit the pot so much.
• Choose your day: Because it’s a good idea to stir your apple butter periodically during the cooking time to make sure it’s not scorching and to check its progress, this is one slow cooker recipe I would make on a day that I was home and also not sleeping. As easy and low-effort  as this recipe is, it would be tragic if you accidentally burned the batch because you weren’t there.

Apple butter FAQ

1. Can I use store-bought applesauce?: absolutely. If you do, try and choose a brand like North Coast that uses organic apples and no other ingredients besides apples. The flavors of tart lemon or citric acid will concentrate down in your final apple butter, so I choose to stay away from them. Store-bought applesauce will take longer to cook down than homemade since it’s frequently thinner than homemade.
2. I want to make my apple butter sugar free. Can I do that?: Yes, just don’t add it. My Mom is queen of adding monkfruit or other sugar substitutes, but I will advocate for just skipping the sugar entirely for the best flavor.
3. I don’t have a slow cooker. Can I make stovetop apple butter?: Yes, though you’ll have to babysit your pot a great deal more. Cook it in a Dutch oven or other deep pot with a wide bottom and turn down the heat as low as it can go. Stir every 10 minutes or so to make sure it doesn’t scorch. Timing will depend on how high your temperature is and how wide your pot is. Look for it to darken considerably and to be thick enough to sit on a spoon, holding its shape.

Ways to use apple butter

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