Harvest Season Side Dish: Fast & Easy Homemade Applesauce in the Instant Pot

I grew up in an apple farming family, so late summer meant that warm applesauce made a regular appearance on our dinner table. An electric pressure cooker would have made it so much faster for my mom to prepare this easy side dish! With just a few ingredients, this Instant Pot applesauce comes together in less than half an hour, start to finish.

This is a small batch recipe, enough to serve alongside your favorite family meal or to top homemade pancakes on the weekend. If you want to make a larger batch for canning, follow these instructions.

Instant Pot Applesauce

Making applesauce is — in a nutshell — just a matter of cooking apples until they’re soft enough to smash. If you own an electric pressure cooker, it will make quick work of cooking the apples so they’re soft enough for applesauce. If you don’t own an electric pressure cooker, you can make this on the stove top or in a slow cooker, but it won’t be as fast.

You can use any variety of apple for making applesauce, but as I’ve stated elsewhere, the best apple — bar none — is the Gravenstein. (Okay, that’s just my opinion, but dang, they’re good!)

The sweeter the apples, the sweeter the applesauce. I like to use really ripe apples for making applesauce. The ones the have gotten too mushy for fresh eating are the perfect candidates for this Instant Pot applesauce. Using ripe (ripe!) apples means you’ll rarely need to add extra sugar. The apples themselves will be sweet enough, which is a bonus.

Once the applesauce is cooked, smash the apples with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon. This method results in a somewhat chunky applesauce, which personally, I love. For a finer applesauce, you’ll need to run it through a sieve.

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Instant Pot Applesauce

Yield: 6

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Total Time: 23 minutes

Homemade applesauce in a flash with an Instant Pot!

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Ingredients

• 12 apples
• 1-1/2 cups apple juice
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ cup granulated organic cane sugar, optional (I usually make mine without)

Instructions

1. Peel and then roughly chop apples. 
2. Combine all ingredients in inner pot of instant pot. 
3. Close lid and turn pressure valve to sealed. Cook on manual high pressure for eight minutes.
4. Allow for a quick pressure release.
5. Use a potato masher or the back of a spoon to mash the cooked apples into applesauce. You can leave it as chunky as you like. (If you like really fine applesauce, run it through a sieve.)
6. Serve warm or refrigerate and serve cold.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 6 Serving Size: 1 grams
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 211Unsaturated Fat: 0gSodium: 4mgCarbohydrates: 55gFiber: 6gSugar: 45g

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