From Scratch: Slow Cooker Strawberry Applesauce

Slow cooker strawberry applesauce is a great way to use up any extra apples that are sitting around your kitchen. This homemade recipe can be canned too.

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As I smell our Slow Cooker Strawberry Applesauce cooking away in the kitchen, I am reminded of wonderful memories of our Grandmother cooking up a storm for us. Family was everything to “Gramma” – and she loved nothing more than being able to cook us love-filled dishes straight out of her kitchen right into our hungry bellies.

Back then, our parents would drop my siblings and I off at Gram and Pop’s house with little more than the clothes on our back. They knew that Gram had extras of everything we could ever need and we never really needed anything more than her love, her cooking and her grilled cheese sandwiches. This doesn’t mean that Pop was useless – he was just different. His love came in the form of a stern, hard working Polish man that believed that children should rarely be idle. So if he didn’t have us on the computer writing binary code, he had us in the library gathering up books to read. Once he was sure that we filled our brains with enough knowledge for the day, he would then take us on long walks in the woods so that we could learn as much as we could about our natural environment.

So, Pop would be in charge is stimulating our minds and bodies, whereas Gramma was in charge of stimulating our bellies and nourishing our souls. The two of them raised us well and I miss them dearly. So when I walked into our Mom’s house the other day and saw similar treats laid out on the table for our own gaggle of kids, I couldn’t help but smirk at the fine assortment of goodies for her grandchildren. Like our Gramma, she had special treats for each and every palette – yet, when we were growing up, she often scolded her own Mother for doing the exact same thing.

Anyways, I had a bunch of apples that I needed to use up, so I thought it would be fun for us to make some homemade applesauce from Grandma. Slow Cooker Strawberry Applesauce is one of the easiest recipes you can make with your kids because they don’t need to stand over the stove – and you don’t have to stress out that they’re going to burn their eyebrows off. For this super simple recipe, all you need to do is just dump everything in the slow cooker, turn it on, and walk away!

While the Slow Cooker Strawberry Applesauce is cooking away, you can have your kids some some original artwork for their Grandparents too. Our kids love painting and creating mixed media art on canvases – and since we’ve been hard at work redesigning the Kids Klubhouse at Grandma’s house, we thought this would be a perfect gift to accompany homemade jars of homemade applesauce.

SLOW COOKER STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE

Modified from Live Simply’s Homemade Applesauce Recipe.

Ingredients:

6 cups apples, chopped
1 cup strawberries, chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons honey
6 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions:

Step 1: Toss all of the ingredients into the slow cooker (crock pot) and stir to combine. Cook on high for one and a half hours.

Step 2: Carefully open the lid. Using a potato masher, mash all of the ingredients together. The apples will still be a bit hard, so you’ll need to put some effort into it. When they’re nice and smashed, stir to combine and cook for another one and a half hours.

Step 3: At the three hour mark, use an immersion blender to blend your apples until they’re just the way you like it. I like chunky applesauce, so I usually take some of it out right away for myself. Then I blend it until it’s super smooth for the kids.

Fill your belly with good food,

Denine

Like this recipe? Here are a few of our favorite slow cooker recipes: