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 😂
Delicious, thank you Nagi! For those asking the question about the butter/salt etc.. I added it with the apples and vinegar, worked perfectly.
Hi Nagi, is there a sub for sherry vinegar? I have white, white wine, apple cider, rice wine. Thanks!
Hi Emma, the best sub would be red or apple cider here 🙂 N x
Great, thanks for quickly getting back to me. I can continue with dinner prep – slow roast pork belly with apple sauce, roast carrots, roasted broccolini with tahini, and apple crumble. All your recipes! Looking forward to tonight 😊
Another delicious recipe – my new go to for apple sauce. The only reason this is four stars rather than five is that it doesn’t scale very well – my partner doesn’t eat cooked apples, so I try to only make enough for me. It was really tricky trying to work out the proportions for one apple! Scaling doesn’t get there, and it probably makes a difference on the size of the apple, too – it would be good to have a cups or weight measurement to be sure that the proportions are correct.
Also, not sure if it was because of scaling, or something else, but the sugar didn’t ‘melt’ for about eight minutes, and only after I’d turned the heat up to medium high, and there wasn’t enough liquid to ‘swirl’ at all, so I ended up with one part not melted, and another part getting very dark; I added all of the other ingredients straight away at that point.
But the apple cooked so well that I didn’t need to blitz it, and it was a really good counterpoint to the pork belly – I’ll definitely make it again.
Perhaps make the standard quantity and freeze the excess into portions?
It’s a good idea. Alas, we already have a freezer full of meals (usually Nagi’s amazing recipes), so I’m not allowed to freeze much more 😉
Beautiful sauce Nagi! But I couldn’t see where in the recipe to add the salt so I just added it at the end. Still tastes great
When should I add the butter? In the ingredients, but not the method.
I found the vinegar flavour a little overpowering unfortunately, but ok with slow roasted pork belly.
Thanks for picking that up Graham – it goes in with the apples, I’ll update the recipe now! N x
Quick check – you say in the comment above that the butter goes in with the apples, but in the updated directions, you have it going in at step 3 (i.e. after the apple is cooked). I’m not sure how much of a difference it makes – I threw everything in with the apples, and it worked really well, but wanted to check for next time.
When do you add the butter and salt?
Thanks Amy, just updating the recipe now! N X
Have made lots of Apple Sauce but never caramelised the sugar and I think this would be a game-changer.
Would like to make this in bigger quantities and bottle. Do you think this would work?
Lovely clutch of recipes all round. Who doesn’t love a wonderful roast belly pork??!!
Thanks Nagi. :))
Hi Mary, you could definitely make in bigger quantities, I’m sure you could bottle it too if done correctly it should last!! N x