Easy homemade Apple Butter! This simple recipe is made in a slow cooker and requires only minutes of prep time. Thanks to the slow cooker, you can set yours up before you go to bed, let it cook overnight, and enjoy fresh apple butter in the morning.
Recipe includes a brief how-to video at the bottom of the post!
We went apple picking last weekend and I have so many apple recipes coming up for you, but I’m especially excited to share today’s apple butter recipe.
Have you ever had apple butter before? It’s very similar to applesauce — in fact it essentially is applesauce, only cooked longer. It has a rich golden brown color that comes from the caramelization of the sugars in the apples during the extended cooking time. There’s no actual butter in apple butter, it’s just a nice smooth spread that tastes just as good on toast, muffins, or pancakes as butter does.
We like eating ours on English muffins and scones, and some of my family members even just like dipping apple slices directly into apple butter and enjoying it that way!
Apple butter is really truly easy to make, but it takes a long time to cook… 12 hours total, in fact.
Thanks to the slow cooker, you can set everything up before you go to sleep and allow it to cook overnight, which is what I like to do. I put mine in the crockpot before I went to bed and in the morning not only did my house smell amazing, but I had fresh apple butter for my breakfast.
The first time I made this recipe I peeled all of the skins off my apples. However, traditional apple butter is made with the skins and cores intact. I couldn’t leave the cores in for this slow cooker version, but I tried making this both with and without the skin and found that it didn’t make a difference at all. Save yourself a lot of effort and leave the peels — after 12 hours in the crockpot and a bout with the blender, you won’t be able to even tell.
What are the Best Apples for Apple Butter?
While Granny Smith apples are a standard baking apple (and I love using them in Apple Crisp), I don’t recommend using them for making apple butter as they are too firm and too tart.
Instead, choose a softer and less tart apple. Here are a few popular choices, and you can even mix several varieties of apples if you’d like.
- Golden Delicious (these are my favorite to use and are pictured here!)
- Fuji
- Gala
- McIntosh
How Do You Make Homemade Apple Butter?
- Core and chop (don’t peel!) your apples and place them in the basin of a slow cooker.
- Toss with sugar and spices
- Cook 10 hours on low heat
- Puree (I like to use an immersion blender (this is mine, affiliate) but you can use a regular blender instead if you don’t have the immersion type.
- Cook the apple butter another 2 hours without the lid on your slow cooker.
These last two hours are important. You’ll add your vanilla at the end here and cook until it reaches the appropriate thickness.
If the apple butter is still too thin for your liking you can cook it longer to thicken it. I’ve never needed to cook mine longer than the additional 2 hours, and keep in mind that apple butter will thicken as it cools.
Enjoy!
Scroll to the bottom of the recipe to see my video, complete with lots of tips! Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and be the first to see all of my cooking videos!
Apple Butter
Ingredients
- 5.5 lbs Golden Delicious Apples* Cored and chopped into small pieces, about 1/4"* (2.5kg)
- 1 cup brown sugar tightly packed (200g)
- 3/4 cup sugar (150g)
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Slice apples into small pieces (about 1/4") and dispose of cores.
- Place apples in the basin of large slow cooker
- In a medium-sized bowl stir together sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and cloves until well-combined.
- Pour sugar mixture over apple pieces and stir until well combined.
- Cook covered in crockpot over low heat for 10 hours.
- Once 10 hours has elapsed, either use an immersion blender** to puree apples until smooth and no chunks remain.
- Scrape the inside of the vanilla bean into your apple puree (or add vanilla extract).
- Turn crockpot on to low heat and cook another 2 hours uncovered, stirring occasionally.
- Store apple butter in the refrigerator in an airtight container, will keep about 2 weeks.
Notes
Nutrition
This recipe was originally published 10/02/2017, photos and recipe remain the same but text has been updated to be more helpful and include more tips on 10/12/2018
Tiffany says
Made this over the weekend. It’s wonderful, so much that I had to make more because each of my kids wanted their own jar. How long can it be frozen for?
Sam says
Hi Tiffany! I haven’t ever frozen it, but it should be ok for several months. 🙂
sheri says
Made this today in my crock. Turned out better than I had hoped. Didn’t want to be up til all hours tonight, so ran it on high. It’s nearly done now, but the immersion blender is such a gem for this recipe. Am happy to now go out and gift some of this nectar as well as use it in an apple cider doughnut recipe.
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Sheri! I love my immersion blender. 🙂
Stacey says
Hi Sam,
I purchased a 1/2 Bushel of Apple 2nd’s just yesterday and made a large pot of applesauce. I learned to make applesauce without peeling and I belive it adds so much more flavor and color to the final product. I’m so happy I found your apple butter recipe. I let it cook all day and now I’m on the 2 hours uncovered, reduction phase. I can’t stop taste testing it! It’s a gorgeous color and the texture is so smooth after the immersion blender. Thank you for the fantastic recipe, this one’s a keeper!
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Stacey! Hopefully it makes enough to last you a little bit. 😂 🙂
Cynthia Lane says
We love making this recipe we love eating this recipe easy to follow and we can freeze it and save a bunch for later
Sam says
I’m so happy to hear that everyone enjoyed, Cynthia! Thank you so much for commenting, I appreciate it 🙂
Joann M Fair says
How much did this make?
Sam says
Hi Joann! It will make about 3 pints. 🙂
Kim says
We just went apple picking upstate New York and I cannot wait to make this recipe. Your instructions look very easy to follow. Approximately how many apples is 5 1/2 lbs?I have a ridiculous amounts of honey crisp and fugi
Sam says
Hi Kim! I hope you love the apple butter! For me it took about 13 apples but it really all depends on the size of your apples. 🙂
Kim says
The apple mixture is in the crock pot now!!!!
Sam says
I hope you love it! I know you’ll enjoy that wonderful aroma while it cooks. 🙂
Wymomma says
Roughly how much/how many ounces of apple butter does this recipe yield? Thank you for the great recipe!
Sam says
It should make about 3 pints or 48 ounces. 🙂
Wymomma says
Thank you so much! Can’t wait to try it!
Debbie Stiegler says
How do I can your apple butter recipe. Looks awesome. Thanks Deb
Sam says
Hi Deb! I am not familiar enough with the canning process to provide guidelines. Maybe someone else can chime in. I’m sorry. 🙁
SheilaB says
20 mi utes in a water bath
C.M. Woods says
I’ve been making roasted apple butter for 48 years and it’s a wonderful addition to the other 11 organic varieties of fruit we grow here in IN. I have to make a comment on your blog itself. I don’t know if there’s a way to produce a blog without so many annoying ads in between the blog article itself. I’m finding myself more and more turned off by trying to maneuver thru a blog with so many ads and returning to blogs that haven’t been so monetized. I’m not sure why there are so many ads but they’re driving some folks away. My book group and I discussed this the other day during a zoom meeting and I was happy to know I’m not alone. As we spend more and more time online the ads are taking away from the content. Do the blog platforms charge so much the ads are needed to pay for the service? Just wondering.
Just an FYI: I used to compete at my county and state fairs and am now a state fair judge in the Midwest in canning division. I’m very pleased to see so many of the younger folks getting into organic gardening and canning. It’s very encouraging. We grow a large veggie garden and 12 var.s fruit and I put up between 400-500 jars a year of all kinds of goodies. For folks wanting to learn to can you can go to the National Center for Home Preservation at nchfp.uga.edu or contact your local county home extension agent. There’s someone on staff to help you access information, canning classes and fair competition. Perfecting and competing your homegrown, home canned fruits and veggies is a worthwhile objective and a lot of fun. You meet many wonderful people at the fair canning centers.
Have a great day!
Chris in Indiana
Sam says
Hi Chris! The ads allow me to be able to provide free content for users like yourself online as well as feed my family. I have the ads turned down a good bit, but unfortunately for me to continue to be able to do this they have to be there. I am considering a membership site that is ad free but would require some sort of subscription fee. If this is something you’d be interested in I can certainly add you to my list. Competing in the county fairs sounds like a lot of fun. Thank you for supporting me by visiting my website and using my recipes. It means a lot to me. 🙂