In France, sauce is considered the key to the taste of a dish - even boiled vegetables can be seasoned with properly selected and prepared gravy and thus create a culinary masterpiece. And the housewife who did not know at least twenty recipes for various sauces was considered incompetent. Our gourmets, of course, are not as demanding as the French nobility. But pouring store-bought ketchup on crispy chops and condensed milk on fluffy pancakes sometimes gets boring and you want to try a new, interesting recipe. Apple sauce is good because it goes equally well with meat main courses and desserts. It can be stored for future use for the winter. And most importantly, the recipes are simple, quick and affordable, especially since it’s apple season.
Features of preparing apple sauce for the winter
Preparing a delicious sauce of the right consistency requires knowledge of some subtleties:
- It is recommended to prepare apple sauces for meat from sour varieties. If you don’t have any on hand, you need to add lemon juice to the sauce.
- Apples go well with cinnamon, whether the sauce is sweet or spicy.
- To prepare sauces, it is best to bake fruit in the oven. This way they will soften evenly and not lose their taste. After this, it is better to take a sieve and rub the finished fruit through it.
Sweet and sour fruit sauce for meat
If you decide to prepare apple sauce for the winter, we offer you an original recipe. It contains unexpected ingredients, but they perfectly complement the flavor profile of apples, imbuing this apple sauce with magical spicy notes. To prepare we need to take:
- sweet and sour apples – 1.5 kg;
- onion – 500 grams;
- raisins – 5 tbsp. spoon;
- sugar – 500 grams;
- grape vinegar - 1.5 cups;
- salt - half a teaspoon;
- ground black and red pepper, cloves - everything to your taste.
You can serve this apple sauce with beef, liver, rice and pasta. By the way, don’t look for ripe and beautiful fruits on the market; apple sauce for the winter can be made from unripe and not beautiful-looking fruits. Their inherent sourness will benefit the taste characteristics of the dish.
Cooking process:
- Apples and onions should be peeled and cut into small pieces. Then take sugar and add onions and apples. Place them in a saucepan, pour in 0.5 cups of water and send to simmer over low heat.
- Boil the onions and apples until the consistency of a thick paste.
- Add spices, salt and grape vinegar to the pan. Boil the apple sauce for another 10 minutes over very low heat.
- Turn off the preparation and pour into jars.
It is not necessary to roll up the jars with lids, you can use foil, but you will have to store the apple sauce in a cool place and away from light.
Preparation of products and containers
Large varieties of fruits, of any variety, are suitable for preparing apple sauces. Before cooking, it is necessary to wash the fruit well and remove the peel, core and seeds.
It is very important not to choose aluminum cookware for cooking.
Apples, like most fruits, contain acids that will react with cookware. Glass jars are chosen for storage. Plastic containers are also not suitable for apple sauces.
Dessert apple sauce
And this is a recipe for the whole family, even for the little ones with a sweet tooth, since it preserves as much as possible all the beneficial substances and vitamins, and there are no harmful additives except sugar. Therefore, it can be used in both baby food and adult nutrition.
- Remove the peel and seed pods with stalks from soft, sweet and sour apples and chop.
- Combine apples, sugar and water in a saucepan. Sugar should be taken at 1/3 of the amount of apples, and water at 2/3. That is, for 1.5 kg of apples - 0.5 sugar and 1 liter of water.
- Stir everything and cook over very low heat until it boils.
- Boil for no more than five minutes; if desired, you can add a cinnamon stick during cooking, then be sure to remove it! You can replace the cinnamon with vanilla and it will be equally delicious.
- Beat the finished sauce in a blender, boil again, pour into jars and roll up. If the sauce will not be stored for a long time, you do not need to boil it the second time after whisking.
This recipe can be varied by adding lemon or orange zest to the apples. This preparation is not suitable in its pure form for filling pies, since the consistency is quite liquid. But it goes well with hot pancakes or pancakes and can be used to prepare creams based on cream, milk or starch for cakes. Bon appetit!
How and for how long can the finished product be stored?
Apple sauces are stored in glass containers. In iron containers, an oxidation reaction may begin and the product will deteriorate. This happens due to the acids contained in fruits. The place where the product is stored should be cool and dark, usually in the refrigerator and cellar. It is not recommended to store the product in closets or cabinets. The shelf life also depends on the tightness of the lid of the jar.
Homemade apple sauces do not last long - 3 to 6 months in an airtight, sealed form. Spicy apple sauces or those containing mustard and lemon last longer - up to one year .
Sauce with a spicy taste for the winter
An interesting recipe for spicy apple sauce with lots of ingredients. However, do not be alarmed; your efforts will more than pay off with the delicious taste of the gravy. For this you need to take:
- tomatoes preferably fleshy – 990 g;
- sour apples – 250 g;
- bell pepper – 55 g;
- white onion – 50 g;
- garlic – 1-2 cloves;
- chili pepper - to taste;
- salt and sugar – 10 g each;
- vinegar – 20 ml;
- ground paprika - to taste;
- rosemary, cloves, thyme, coriander - to taste.
Step-by-step preparation:
- Apples, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers need to be washed. Remove peel and seeds. Cut into arbitrary small pieces.
- Place all the vegetables in the pan. Turn on the heat and start cooking.
- Peel and crush the garlic. Grind the chili pepper. Add both ingredients to the pan with the vegetables. Simmer over low heat.
- When all our mass in the pan boils, it must be boiled for another 10 minutes. Then season with herbs and spices, simmer for 5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat, let the mixture cool slightly, transfer to a blender and beat.
- The whipped mass must be returned to the pan, pour vinegar into it, bring to a boil and turn off the heat. Now the apple sauce is ready. All we have to do is put the gravy into jars, roll them up, and store them until winter.
Try this sauce on chicken salad and you will be pleasantly surprised by the delicious combination of flavors.
Most popular recipes
There are a huge number of apple sauce recipes. We offer several of the most popular.
To prepare it, you need to take about 10 apples, a tablespoon of lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar (preferably brown, white is also possible), cinnamon (to taste). You can prepare the sauce in less than 30 minutes. You need to peel the apples, cut them into slices and place them in a saucepan with the rest of the ingredients. Over low heat, stirring occasionally, wait until the apples dissolve. The sauce is ready!
In order to prepare the sauce for chicken, you need to take 3 kilograms of apples, 1 lemon, instead of water use apple juice (1 glass), half a glass of brown sugar, you will also need butter (about 50 grams), cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.
The process of preparing the sauce also does not take much time. You need to prepare the apples. Chop the fruits and place the pan on the stove, immediately add apple juice and squeeze 1 lemon into it. Add cinnamon and sugar. Simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes, then transfer the mixture to a blender and beat. Can be served. This sauce goes well not only with chicken, but also with other meats.
Usually it is made at once, so you will need 2 large apples, preferably sweet ones. Sour cream (about 100 grams), also garlic (2 heads), ground pepper to taste, mayonnaise (about 50 grams) and salt to taste.
The sauce is ready in literally 5 minutes. Apples and garlic must be grated on a fine grater and the whole mass mixed with sour cream and mayonnaise. Add spices to taste and the sauce is ready.
In order to prepare 2.5 liters of this product, you need to take: 1.5 kilograms of sour apples, 0.5 kilograms of onions and sugar to taste, also about 150 milliliters of water. You will also need half a liter of apple cider vinegar and one teaspoon of salt. You can add raisins and cloves to the mixture if desired.
The cooking process is very simple. In addition to preparing the apples, you also need to grate or chop the onion in a blender, then you need to make sugar syrup and add the prepared fruits and onion mass to it. Then add vinegar and seasonings to taste. Cook, stirring constantly, over low heat for about 5 minutes. After this, you can close the resulting mass in jars.
Features of product selection
When choosing products for apple sauce, there are several rules and requirements for the quality of ingredients that must be met.
These tips will help you choose the best fruits and other products, thanks to which the dish will taste even more pleasant:
- when choosing apples for sauce for meat, such as pork, you need to choose fruits that have a slightly sour taste;
- if the choice fell on sweet fruits, then it makes sense to add a certain amount of citric acid to the sauce so that a slight sourness appears;
- Rotten fruits should not be used, they can cause the product to sour in a very short time;
- Regardless of what the apple sauce is prepared for (whether it will be sour or sweet), it is recommended to add cinnamon to it; it perfectly complements the taste of apples.
Read also: How to pickle chanterelles for the winter: 4 recipes for making pickled chanterelles in jars (reviews)
The sauce must have a delicate, uniform structure. In order to achieve this, the fruits are subjected to several stages of processing. First, you need to soften the apples so they can be processed. They are usually either baked or boiled.
After this, you need to make a homogeneous apple mass. The surest way is to grind the apples through a sieve. Some people prefer a more modern method to this method - using a blender. This is also acceptable. But in this case, you need to peel the apples in advance so that it does not interfere with processing and does not spoil the taste of the sauce.
The most important thing to remember is the choice of cookware in which the actual cooking takes place. Under no circumstances should aluminum containers be used for heat treatment of apples. This is due to the fact that aluminum, when in contact with acid, forms substances harmful to the human body.
Brown sugar is best. But if there is no choice, you can use white. The amount of sugar is always determined only by a person’s taste preferences. If you wish, you can prepare the sauce without using any sweet ingredient at all.
Liquid should also be added based on personal preference. If you like a thicker sauce, then you do not need to add water or add it, but in a very small amount. And if you want to try a product with a more liquid texture, you need to add more liquid. Instead of water, juice of various berries or fruits can be used to add a special taste.
Thus, following the recommendations, you can easily prepare a very tasty apple sauce that will suit both chicken and barbecue, and can even complement any dessert.
