Swoon-Worthy Stovetop Strawberry Applesauce (made in 30 minutes!)
This Homemade Strawberry Applesauce is made with lots of strawberries (2 heaping cups), apples, a drizzle of vanilla extract, and a pinch of cinnamon. No added sugar! It’s very easy to make on the stovetop, and is full of bold fruit flavor!
Are you looking for a super easy applesauce recipe with a fun flavor twist?
Then, I’ve got you!
Get ready, because this delicious Strawberry Applesauce is going to be your new favorite recipe!
The first time I made this recipe, my kids ate the entire batch in 2.minutes.flat! It was actually pretty impressive! But they also didn’t leave me any, so I had to kick them out of the kitchen to go play outside while I worked on making myself a batch.
And they were right—this applesauce is amazing! It’s slightly sweet from simmering the apples with cinnamon and vanilla, followed by a big bold strawberry flavor to finish it off. I made a good dent in my bowl of fresh strawberry applesauce, but I called the kids back inside, and they happily sat on the kitchen floor with their newfound collection of sticks and polished off the rest of the second batch!
#momhack – I used fresh strawberries for my first couple of batches, but when winter rolls around and strawberries are at a premium, I switch to frozen, and I never noticed a difference in the taste!
Strawberry Applesauce Video
Ingredients
If you are looking for more easy and healthy applesauce recipes for your family, then be sure to check out my Carrot Applesauce, Beet Applesauce, this easy Unsweetened Applesauce, or these delicious 8 5-Minute Applesauce Combos for Kids. You can also find more recipes and information in my best-selling cookbook Little Foodies: Recipes for Babies and Toddlers with Taste.
Let’s Get Cooking
Other Berries You Can Use
The great thing about homemade applesauce is that it offers a solid base to get creative with many other kinds of fruit. You can include many kinds of fruits in your fridge or freezer that need to be used up, like these:
- Blueberries
- Raspberries
- Blackberries
- Cherries
- Peaches
- Mangos
Recipe Tips
- You can use any apples you have on hand or prefer, though the sweeter apples will give you naturally sweeter applesauce.
- Feel free to use fresh or frozen strawberries in this recipe.
- This recipe will thicken up once it cools down in the fridge for a few hours.
- You can store this applesauce in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- You can add this applesauce to reusable pouches for an on-the-go toddler snack.
Get the recipe: Swoon-Worthy Stovetop Strawberry Applesauce (made in 30 minutes!)
Ingredients
- 6 large apples peeled, cored and chopped
- 2 heaping cups strawberries, hulled and chopped
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Simmer Apples: In a large stockpot, bring the apples, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer over medium-low heat, cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add Strawberries: Add in the strawberries, stir, cover and then cook for another 15 minutes. Let cool slightly.
- Blend: For a chunky sauce, mash the apples and strawberries with the back of a wooden spoon. For a smoother sauce, transfer all ingredients into a blender or food processor and puree for 30-60 seconds or until you achieve your desired consistency. I pureed mine for 45 seconds using an immersion blender. If pureeing for baby, puree for 1-2 minutes or until very smooth.
- Eat: Serve or transfer to an air-tight container.
Notes
- Sweet and Mildly Sweet: Fuji, Kiku, Golden Delicious, Honeycrisp, Gala, Jazz Ambrosia
- Tart (with a little sweetness): Pink Lady, Jonagold, McIntosh, Jonathan, Empire, Granny Smith
- Crispy, Tangy and Sharp: Braeburn, Liberty, Ida Red, Rome, Pacific Rose, Opal
Toddlers
- They can help pick out and measure the ingredients.
- Toddlers can help chop the apples and strawberries into small chunks, with a child-safe knife.
- With assistance, they can add the strawberries to the cooking apples.
Kids
- They can pick out and measure all of the ingredients.
- Kids can help cut the fruits with a child-safe knife.
- They can help spoon the cooled sauce into a container.
- Easy Dessert: warmed with a dollop of coconut whipped cream.
- Yogurt Parfait: Spooned over yogurt and sprinked with granola.
- School Lunch: add this delicious applesauce to your kids air-tight lunch box (or container) and send it for school lunch.
- Oatmeal: spoon into a bowl of warm oats and top with some chopped pecans, sprinkle of hemp seeds and a little brown sugar.
- Reusuable Pouch: spoon into a reusable food pouch for an easy on-the-go toddler or kid snack.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @babyfoode on Instagram and hashtag it #babyfoode!
Medically reviewed and cowritten by Jamie Johnson, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), and Lauren Braaten, Pediatric Occupational Therapist (OT).
9 Comments on “Swoon-Worthy Stovetop Strawberry Applesauce (made in 30 minutes!)”
6 mos. Old baby & 2 yr old toddler loved it. Mama loved it too. 10/10 and easy to make. So delicious. Thank you
If strawberries are on the dirty dozen list too, shouldn’t we use organic frozen strawberries?
Yes, you can use organic strawberries as well as organic apples for this recipe.
Would frozen strawberries work?
Yes! You can use frozen strawberries in this recipe.
What are your favorite apples to use?
You can use any sweet apples – gala, fuji, honeycrisp, etc. I usually get whichever looks good at the time.
This was a hit at my house. I got my 5yr old to finally like applesauce. Thank you for this wonderful recipe!
Love hearing this!