Apple butter is applesauce cooked until concentrated, smooth, and deeply flavored. This page provides a slow-cooker refrigerator/freezer recipe and explains how it differs from a tested shelf-stable canning recipe. For the family-version article, see Mom’s Easy Apple Butter.
Slow-Cooker Apple Butter
Ingredients
- 12 cups peeled, cored, and chopped apples
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
- Scant 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
- Place the apples in a 3 1/2-quart slow cooker.
- Mix the sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt in a bowl. Pour over the apples and stir well.
- Cover and cook on high for 1 hour.
- Reduce to low and cook for 12–24 hours, stirring occasionally, until thick and dark brown.
- Uncover and cook on low for about 1 hour more, stirring occasionally with a whisk to smooth the mixture.
- Cool promptly and package in clean refrigerator or freezer containers.
Refrigerator, Freezer, or Canned?
The recipe above is presented for refrigerated or frozen storage. Do not make it shelf-stable by simply filling hot jars. For canned apple butter, use a current tested recipe from a reliable extension or recognized food-preservation authority and follow its exact proportions, jar size, headspace, processing time, and elevation adjustment.
Select and Sort Apples
A blend of sweet, tart, and aromatic cultivars creates more complex flavor. Use ripe, sound fruit. Bruised areas can be trimmed from otherwise sound apples for immediate cooking, but discard moldy, rotten, fermented, or off-smelling fruit.
Other Ways to Preserve the Harvest
- Applesauce: refrigerate, freeze, or can with a tested recipe.
- Pie filling: use a tested canning formulation or freeze a recipe intended for freezing.
- Jelly and jam: follow the specified pectin and sugar directions.
- Dried apples: use a tested dehydrator method and appropriate anti-browning treatment.
- Whole apples: store only sound keeper cultivars under cool, monitored conditions.
See the applesauce video and the whole-apple storage guide. Browse bare-root apple trees.