My son gave me an apple tree for Mother’s Day.

It was a bitter-sweet moment.

I wrapped my arms around him in a big bear hug and tried not to cry. “This time,” I said, “we’ll make it stick!”

I meant the house, not the tree.

See, we just moved here. We’ve been doing a lot of that lately – moving.

We used to live way out in the boondocks, on ten acres. We had silver maples, pine trees, poplar trees, flowering crabs, a flaming willow, a maple tree, and all of the trees my children planted when they graduated from Kindergarten.

Plus, two apple trees.

We also had lilac bushes, strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, pumpkin, and a HUGE garden.

We lived there for 13 years.

We outgrew the house when the twins were born and had to move. And our new house had nothing but two pine trees. Literally. 🤣 😆

I must have been complaining. Because my oldest showed up on Mother’s Day with an apple tree. He had no idea that it takes two trees to make apples. ☺️ And apple trees are stinking expensive! There’s no way he could have afforded two, even if he did know. He was just a teenager.

But he promised to get me an apple tree every year for Mother’s Day.

He said he was investing in his future. 😂 🤣

He must have been missing the apple crisp, apple pie, and apple sauce I used to make.

He never did buy me another tree, but the following year, my husband did.

And then, a year later, we moved. Again. 🙄

The trees at my old house were just starting to produce when we moved. The trees at this house didn’t even have that chance. And now, at our new house, we once again had no apple trees.

So, when my second oldest showed up with an apple tree on Mother’s Day, just mere months after we moved, I wanted to cry.

My boys are the best!💕

You can easily make crock pot apple sauce with your kids!

I have not been apple-less all these years, though. My husband has a friend at work who gives us GORGEOUS apples every fall. My mom has an apple tree. And my mother-in-law has an apple tree. So there is no shortage of apples.

Every year I make apple crisps, apple pies, and our favorite apple cinnamon doughnut muffins (you can find the recipe on my muffin Pinterest board). I also make apple cider (and occasionally spike it 😉), but by far, our favorite thing to make is this crock pot apple sauce.

I always make it with the goal of canning it. But it never makes it that far. 😂 🤣 The boys eat it up before it ever reaches the pint jars.

And that is okay because it is best fresh. Actually, if you ask me, it is best WARM. Fresh, warm crock pot apple sauce tastes just like apple pie, minus the pie shell.

Yum.

Apple Sauce is so incredibly easy to make. There is probably nothing that tastes so good that is so incredibly easy to make. If you have never tried it, I would encourage you to give it a shot. It doesn’t even take a lot of apples – you can easily purchase ten apples at the grocery store and whip up a batch.

Homemade crock pot apple sauce gives your home a very comforting apple-cinnamony-kind-of-smell. It smells like fall. It smells like football. And it smells like the holidays.

I learned how to make homemade crock pot apple sauce from my son’s preschool teacher.  I worked in the preschool classroom as a paraprofessional at the time.  She put the apples in the crock pot in the morning, and in the afternoon all of the kids helped her make apple sauce! 😍

I have been doing it with my boys ever since.  It has become a fall tradition that we just absolutely could not live without!  What a wonderful way to kick off the rest of the year!

So grab your crock pot, a few apples, and your child – let’s do this momma!!

Homemade Crock Pot Apple Sauce

Wash about ten apples, or enough to fill your crock pot. Place the clean, whole apples, stems and all, into your crock pot and put on low. Cook the apples, stirring occasionally, on low for three to four hours. You will know they are done when the apples split in two and bubble over. They can be easily pierced with a fork – or spoon – for that matter.

Place your food mill over a pot of the same size. Spoon three to four apples into the food mill and grind. Occasionally back the mill up, reversing the direction of the blade, so that it can collect the apples it has missed. Continue to grind until you have nothing but pulp, cores, and stems in your mill.

Add more apples and continue the process, until all the apples are ground up.

Remove the mill from the pot.

While the apple sauce is still warm, add cinnamon and sugar, to your liking. I use about a cup of sugar and just dump the cinnamon and until it tastes good. Dump, pour and stir until your apple sauce tastes the way you like it.

Your apple sauce may vary in color, depending on the type of apples used and the cooking time.  The longer the apples sit in the crock pot, the browner your sauce will be. If you notice in the above picture, some of the apple sauce looks darker. This is because I cooked it in four crock pots, and one was my grandmother’s. It cooked the apples much faster, so they were browner.

It’s okay though! It all tastes the same, and you don’t notice the colors when you stir it all together.

Go ahead and serve it warm! It’s delicious that way!

Or you can allow it to cool, and then place it in your fridge. It’s also delicious cold!

To can your crock pot apple sauce

I always think I’m going to can my apple sauce. This last time, I made tons!!

But, it still never made it to the canner. 😂 🤣 Back when the boys were all little, though, I used to can it. Because they didn’t eat as much back then!

So, to can your crock pot apple sauce, start by washing about four or five canning jars, rings, and lids in warm, soapy water, and rinse. You may use pint or quart jars. I always used pint jars, so as not to waste any apple sauce. It can keep in the fridge after opening for about a week or two, so if you do not like wasting apple sauce, use smaller jars when canning it.

(The apple sauce will begin to mold when it goes bad. This usually starts out as dark brown spots but can be green or white as well. It only happened to me once, when all the kids were little. They just didn’t eat it fast enough.)

Place the lids in a small kettle, cover with water and bring to a boil on the stove. Boil the lids for ten minutes.

In the meantime, fill the clean canning jars with warm apple sauce. Fill just to the neck of the jar – do not fill all the way to the top.

Place the hot, boiled lid on top of the jar and screw the ring on as tight as you possibly can. Place prepared jars into a large kettle and completely cover with water. Cover the kettle and bring the water to a rapid boil.

Allow jars to boil for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, turn the heat off and remove the kettle lid. Allow the kettle to cool for five minutes before removing the jars. Then, using canning tongues, carefully remove the jars, taking care not to tilt them. Place the hot jars on a towel or hard, heat-resistant surface to cool completely. Allow to cool for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, check the seal on the jars by pushing down the lid with your fingertips. If the lid is sealed, it will curve downward under your fingers. If it is not sealed, it will bounce back up at you and make a popping noise (similar to the sound the pop-o-matic makes in the game Trouble).

All unsealed jars need to be reprocessed or stored in the refrigerator.

Wipe the jars clean and label them with the date processed. Store in a cool, dark place. Canned apple sauce is best when eaten within a year, but is still good after a year.

Supplies You May Need:

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