Easy homemade Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi pressure cooker applesauce recipe with cinnamon and can add other fruits like Instant Pot cranberry applesauce with fresh apples for a healthy dessert everyone will love.
Owning an Instant Pot is a learning process, even when I’ve used it for over a year. When I made this homemade pressure cooker applesauce for the first time I was amazed at how easy it was to make! It’s not just great for babies but my girls who are 9-17 years old just love applesauce and this one turned out great. It’s one of their favorite snacks on our Instant Pot recipes post. (affiliate links present)
Table of Contents
- Ninja Foodi Applesauce Recipe
- Homemade Instant Pot Applesauce with Fresh Apples
- Ingredients
- Equipment Needed
- Substitutions
- How long to cook apples in pressure cooker?
- How to Make Homemade Applesauce in Pressure Cooker
- How do you Make Chunky Pressure Cooker Applesauce?
- What can you make with homemade applesauce?
- Pressure Cooker Applesauce Recipe
Ninja Foodi Applesauce Recipe
Now you can use whatever brand of pot you have at home to use, it doesn’t matter. With this one you use the lid that is not attached. As long as yours is electric with high pressure it will work. Enjoyed as one of our top Ninja Foodi recipes for kids, or in a Crockpot Express it will come out the same I promise.
I first attempted to make my Instant Pot apple crisp but I left it in too long and it turned out as a new recipe, this!! It was not my intention to make a healthy snack really but I got a two for one essentially so that was a win win. Then I went on, with less time, and kept the apples more firm and OH MY was it the most amazing thing ever too!!
If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with let’s start with a few basic tips:
- Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
- Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should know how to deglaze a pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the model I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.
Super versatile you might say, so I decided to share them both. I mean this isn’t just for babies, though they do sure love it when they are starting to eat solids huh? Of course if you’re making this for Instant Pot baby food you’d want to omit the oats I included to make it nice and smooth but turns out great for that purpose. 😉
Homemade Instant Pot Applesauce with Fresh Apples
You can also choose whichever type of apples you like and each variety definitely brings a different taste to this Instant Pot applesauce. Green apples are going to be a bit tart, fuji are great if you want it as naturally sweet as possible.
If you want just the natural sweetness you can omit the brown sugar entirely and it will still have a sweetness to it. Just the little bit I added was great for our tastebuds. If you’re looking for a homemade treat/snack that is ready in no time at all this is a great choice.
Ingredients
- 7 apples – any variety, peeled, cored, and sliced (the thicker you slice them the chunkier it will be)
- Brown sugar to make sweet
- Maple syrup, I used real syrup
- Apple cider or you could use apple juice but this brings more flavor
- Cinnamon is optional for flavor
- Butter gives it a richness
Equipment Needed
Apple corer and apple peeler are handy to have to slice them and get rid of the middle you don’t want. Immersion blender if you want it really smooth, or use traditional blender once apples are room temperature to reach desired consistency
Substitutions
If you wanted to make this dairy free you could leave out the butter entirely or opt for a vegan plant based product. For sugar-free, leave out the syrup and sugars entirely or use a Splenda product for a bit of sweets.
After you enjoy this, you can add other fruit in it too like we did with fresh cranberries linked above! It was a tweak on the original I made after Thanksgiving was over and I had leftover sauce I didn’t want to throw away. Added a bit of chunkiness to the dish, tartness and great for the holidays.
I added some old fashioned rolled oats in this batch, I didn’t use instant oats. Those are totally optional. If you want to make overnight Crockpot applesauce we’ve done that too. It just takes longer. Pressure cooking takes a fraction of the time.
How long to cook apples in pressure cooker?
8 minutes is just right with thick slices, less if you want it chunky. This is how simple it is to make. It’s a great cooking activity to do with your kids in the kitchen too! Remove skins from apples, or leave just a bit on if you want a little texture, slice about 1/4 of an inch thick. Put sliced apples in pressure cooker. Pour apple cider and maple syrup on top.
How to Make Homemade Applesauce in Pressure Cooker
- Add sliced apples
- Sprinkle brown sugar on top of that, sprinkle cinnamon on top.
- Pour melted butter on top of everything.
- Put lid on and close steam valve.
- Set to pressure high for 8 minutes (times vary a bit depending on type of apple, and thickness you have cut your apple slices). Picture shows 8 minutes.
- Do a quick release. Apples should be so soft that they don’t even have to be blended, just stir and you have perfect homemade applesauce. Or use an immersion blender to make very smooth.
How do you Make Chunky Pressure Cooker Applesauce?
Deciding what texture you want it to be is easy. Want it chunky? Make slices larger and decrease timing by 1 minute. You can adjust the texture easily from there. Lift the lid and think it is a bit too much? Use an immersion blender quickly OR set to saute and cook down a bit more to your liking.
If you want to blend it smooth then use your immersion blender right in your pot. Or allow it to cool down and pour it into your “regular” blender like this. Your Crockpot Express recipe or Ninja Foodi will work too.
What can you make with homemade applesauce?
When we are done we always enjoy some as is with breakfast, then we will make applesauce spice cake with it. I like to blend it a bit more for this so it is nice and smooth before measuring it out. For smaller bites our zucchini applesauce muffins are kid favorites, and some homemade apple butter is a yummy choice too!
First off use Fuji and/or Gala apples because they are naturally sweeter. Torani has a sugar free liquid sugar you can use which tastes great. Stevia is another plant based sweetener option. Monkfruit is a new powder that tastes amazing, you can find all of these on Amazon to see which you like best.
Start with the apple flavor you love, we like green because they are a bit more firm and have a tart flavor. Golden delicious are sweet and softer which is great if you prefer it to be very smooth. Maple syrup or agave adds sweetness, cinnamon is popular, nutmeg adds a Fall flavor or vanilla extract is a fun add in too.
Pressure Cooker Applesauce
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 lbs apples, about 7 apples is what we used, peeled, cored, chopped
- 1/4 c brown sugar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup, real syrup is best
- 1/4 c apple cider
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tbsp butter, melted, optional
Instructions
- Remove skins from apples, or leave just a bit on if you want a little texture., slice pcs. 1/4″ thick.
- Put sliced apples in pressure cooker.
- Pour apple cider and maple syrup on top.
- Sprinkle brown sugar and oats (optional if you want more texture, not quick oats) on top of that, sprinkle cinnamon on top.
- Pour melted butter on top of everything.
- Put lid on and close steam valve.
- Set to pressure high for 8 minutes (times vary a bit depending on type of apple, and thickness you have cut your apple slices). Picture shows 8 minutes.
- Do a quick release. Apples should be so soft that they don’t even have to be blended, just stir and you have perfect homemade applesauce.
- Or use an immersion blender to make very smooth.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Is there a way to Incorporate peaches into it for peach applesauce. Thank you
Hmmmm you’d probably be fine to add one diced into the pot as well.
I love applesauce. Growing up we had apple trees in our backyard. I don’t know what type of apples they were but we always had applesauce. I don’t like plain apples so I’m always making applesauce. I discovered I could make it in my instant pot and freeze it. I don’t put anything extra in because I like the sweetness without extras. I will definitely try this maybe without the sugar. Thank you so much for the recipe.