This is a recipe for an Apple Sauce, one of the two sauces I chose to accompany a Slow-Roasted Crispy Pork Belly I also published today.
What sets this sauce apart from your run-of-the-mill, basic Apple Sauce recipes? Starting with a caramel rather than just mixing sugar into the sauce. The result is a distinctly deeper, richer flavour in return for very little extra effort!
This is a bonus recipe (along with Vermouth Jus, also a bonus recipe!) for a sauce to accompany Crispy Slow Roasted Pork Belly, the main recipe for today. The sauce is straightforward as they come, so I’m keeping it short and sweet!
Apple Sauce
Pork and apple are classic partners on the plate. Apple Sauce is the most popular expression of this pairing and with its sweet-tart flavours seemed a natural choice to team with the pork belly recipe that I also published today.
Most recipes you’ll see for Apple Sauce use a basic method of cooking apples with sugar and sometimes butter, then blitzing until smooth. Adding one extra step of melting the sugar first to form a caramel really takes this Apple Sauce up a notch. The undertones of caramel lend a richer, deeper and almost savoury character to the sauce that makes people stop and wonder,”What is that I can taste in there?” This small outlay of effort really makes all the difference to set your sauce apart, and it’s as easy as throwing sugar in a saucepan and leaving it to turn to caramel!
While I’ve used this sauce for Pork Belly, there’s plenty of wide-ranging and wonderful options for using Apple Sauce. Don’t limit yourself to savoury thinking though. You can spoon this good stuff over anything from pancakes to French Toast, dollop it onto Apple Cake, scones, or dunk muffins into it and smear on to toast!
What goes in Apple Sauce
Just five ingredients are needed for this Apple Sauce! For the apples, I like to use Gala apples. They have a mild, sweet flavour which I think works well for Apple Sauce. However you can really use any variety of apples you want here. Obviously bear in mind that the flavour of the apple you use will dominate the flavour of the sauce. If you like a touch of tart, go the Granny Smith! If you want extra-sweet, go for Red Delicious or Pink Lady!
How to make Apple Sauce
The key step here that sets this Apple Sauce apart from most other recipes is melting the sugar to form a caramel, which creates a beautiful flavour base for this sauce.
Peel, core and cut apples – I cut the apple into quarters then slice it fairly thinly. This size makes them easy to stir and cooks fairly quickly;
Place sugar in a saucepan over low heat;
Leave sugar until it melts into a caramel – Shake the pan occasionally as it melts. Don’t stir, as you risk crystallisation of the sugar. Once it starts melting on the edges, swirl the pot around to get the sugar melting evenly (so the edges don’t burn);
Add the vinegar and apples – Stir and cook apples around 10 minutes until very soft;
Add butter then blitz – Use a stick blender to blitz until the apple is completely pureed. If you have splattering issues, tilt the pan so the head of the stick blender is fully submerged; and
Done! You have made Apple Sauce – ready for infinite possibilities!
What to do with Apple Sauce
I am specifically sharing this recipe as a sauce for Crispy Slow Roasted Pork Belly which I also published today. I felt however Apple Sauce alone left me wanting of a meaty, savoury accompaniment on the plate, so I also added Vermouth Jus which I’ve published as a separate recipe.
Pork belly + Vermouth Jus + this Apple Sauce is a magical combination. It oozes “fine dining” cachet both in looks and in the eating! Yes, it’s a bit of work to assemble but I promise the results are absolutely worth it!
Other uses for Apple Sauce
Roast pork belly aside, there’s many other sweet and savoury options for using this Apple Sauce. Hence the beauty of having this in your repertoire! Here are some ideas:
As a sauce for almost any pork dish, of course! Also traditional with festive duck and game bird dishes.
Great with smoky, fried bacon! Serve a dollop as a condiment alongside a breakfast fry-up. For the more adventurous (ie. not me!!), Apple Sauce is also classic with black pudding / boudin noir.
Serve a dollop with cake – try it with this Apple Cake or this one!
Topping for ice cream or rice pudding
Mix into granola
Great as a chutney on a cheese board with strong, salty cheeses like blue vein, cheddar, washed rind and so on
Enjoy! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Apple Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 gala apples , peeled, quartered, cored, and sliced thinly (Note 1)
- 1/4 cup caster sugar / superfine sugar
- 2 tbsp sherry vinegar
- 50g / 3 ½ tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 pinch of salt
Instructions
- Place sugar in a medium saucepan over low heat. Shake pan to spread sugar. Leave for a few minutes until the edges start melting and turning golden, then swirl the pan to spread the caramel/sugar to encourage even melting (do not stir, sugar may crystallise).
- Once the sugar is all melted, add apple and vinegar. Mix, and cook for 8 – 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apple is completely soft.
- Add the butter, stir it in until mostly melted. Blitz until smooth using a stick blender (tilt saucepan if needed to ensure head is completely submerged to avoid splattering).
- Serve with: Slow-roasted crispy pork belly or any pork dishes. Also great for sweet applications – see in post for more ideas!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
He used to love eating apple peel!! Now he’ll only take the sauce 😂
Easy to make and very delicious. First time I made an apple sauce, I will do it again. I used Bradley apples and the sauce is a bit sharp but sweet at the same time. Thank you for sharing your recipe
I think that if anyone had trouble with this recipe it may be your stove isnt turned up hot enough. Recipe says low but I turned my electric burner to 4 (almost medium) to melt the sugar. DELICICIOUS! Ty Nagi
This apple sauce recipe is fantastic! I never realized how easy it was to make at home. The flavor is so much better than store-bought, and I love that I can adjust the sweetness. Can’t wait to try it with different apple varieties! Thank you for sharing!
Magi please can you say what sherry vinegar is?
This apple sauce recipe is fantastic! I love how simple it is, and the tips for adjusting sweetness are super helpful. Can’t wait to try it with some cinnamon added in! Thanks for sharing!
This recipe is delicious, however extremely sweet!
I made it as per instructions and then added an additional 5 Apples to the mix and pureed together – also added lemon juice at the end which helped balance out the sweetness.
You will never buy store bought apple sauce again after trying this recipe.
Maybe you need gas for this recipe, mine started to melt in the middle and then turned to toffee, I had to bash it off and started again with sugar and apple and vinegar….
I struggled with this one. The sugar took way more than a few minutes to melt and then nearly burnt before it was completely melted despite being on a very low heat. I used my heavy based saucepan in the hope that it would help even distribution, maybe not. When I added the vinegar to the caramel I nearly got covered in hot melted sugar (I should have seen that coming). I then cooked the apple for waaaay over the recommended cooking time but couldn’t get it to blend smooth, tried adding water which didn’t work, then tasted it and realised the apple was still somehow not cooked?? Anyway back into the pan with yet more water to cook down, blended a second time, and we finally got there. It’s absolutely delicious don’t get me wrong but I couldn’t get it to work properly.
This is amazing, totally delicious everyone in the families new favorite apple sauce. We had it with roast pork for our Easter Sunday dinner
Making this for the second time to go with roast pork lunch tomorrow. It was amazing last time but my timing was out (well I blame the person manning the bbq!) so it was ready about half an hour after the meal. I thought I had botched it when the sugar caramelised but I persisted and wow it was so good. I mixed it through plain Greek yoghurt as a dessert – delicious! The texture of this sauce is perfect. Thank you Nagi!
Hi Nagi I put the sugar in the saucepan I had 6’apples so I doubled the recipe but the sugar wouldn’t melt or camarelize it was taking ages and I was worried I’d have a burnt saucepan
I Don’t know why
My grandsons wouldn’t eat the granny smiths so made this
absolutely delicious sauce to
go with the pork. Will definitely make again.
This sauce was a ABSOLUTE DISGRACE, to the apple sauce community. I’m not sure if it was they way it was made your or recipe but i would agree that this was a dessert apple sauce definitely not a app
e sauce i would pair with pork
This apple sauce is te bomb…
I’ve never made anything even close to the deliciousness of this sauce, I made it a couple weeks ago. But had pinned it waiting to make it… I love pork, it’s my preferred protein and I wanted to try something different. It was so delicious with my pork loin chops, I only made a half batch and couldn’t stop eating it. Finally got around to making more yesterday and froze it in 4cm cubes all 23 of the them. I think they might be great on a number of things, like on thick fluffy pancakes with your apple sauce and Creme fraiche with a little torn sage.
The flavour was great but VERY sweet. We used it sparingly with the pork, but will make good use of the rest in a dessert
Hi Nagi, I made your delicious apple sauce last weekend. It’s the most delicious I’ve ever made. 😋😋😋
We had it with roast pork for two nights running and then I kept a bit to stir through my porridge. 😜
Now today I’ve doubled the recipe so I can give a jar to my daughter to enjoy also. I’ll be waiting for the rave reviews. 🤣
Your new book, Tonight, arrived yesterday. A copy for me and another for my daughter’s birthday next week. ❤️❤️❤️
Love this recipe, read someone asked if you could freeze it, I can confirm it freezes beautifully! I make up a big batch and freeze in portions,
I made this Apple Sauce tonight to go with a beautiful shoulder of pork,
Nagi, this Apple Sauce was easy, velvety smooth and it was the perfect accompiant to the succulent shoulder of pork…….thankyou!
Really good recipe. I love it.