9 Types of Applesauce to Make This Fall!

Get some different recipes to help you make the most tasty applesauce this fall with all the apples you pick yourself or get from the store or market.

A collage of 4 different types of applesauce - roasted with cinnamon, Pink Pearl, cranberry, and pear.

I absolutely love making my own homemade applesauce in the fall. It doesn't get much better! While I will make a batch of traditional applesauce from time to time I like let me creativity run while. Let me share with you what I have turned out in the past.

Here is the list. You can check out these recipes right now or continue to read on and I will go through some applesauce making basics and a rundown of each of these recipes.

A big bowl of applesauce next to an Instant Pot.

Applesauce Making Basics

Before I go into each type of applesauce featured on the blog, I want to give a run down of some basics of making applesauce.

Obvious it starts with the apples themselves. My goal is to never have to add sugar. Either I am adding something sweet like pears to the sauce to balance it out or I am using the right combination of apples. If I do want to add sweetness, it's more for flavor instead like when I make Honey Applesauce. Or if I wanted to do one with a brown sugar or maple flavor.

🍎 Get my list of 26 Apples to Use for No Sugar Added Applesauce.

As for cooking the applesauce, I no longer ever do it on the stove top. It's so easy to burn if you aren't paying close enough attention. My two favorite options now are:

Roasted in the oven (great for the caramelized flavor the apples get)
Instant Pot (great for speed!)

An immersion blender being used to smooth out pear applesauce in the Instant Pot.

I also don't like to peel my apples at all. It's extra work that I don't enjoy doing. So I have come up with two options that completely avoid this and they are both done after you make the sauce. You will need some extra equipment to do these two things:

Run the applesauce through a food mill
Use an immersion or stick blender to smooth out the sauce

The food mill does the best job and is easy to use. I use it when making homemade tomato sauce as well. But the immersion blender is more common to have and can do a lot more jobs, it's just going to take a little longer than the food mill would but you can get that applesauce smooth with it.

Pear Applesauce

Two of the best fruits of fall combined into one sauce. Since pears are sweet, I like to use more tart apples to create the perfect balance.

Any type of pear will work in this sauce. It's great option when you have overripe pears. You can just cut out the middle part and use what's good still. If you didn't know pears ripen from the inside out. To learn more see my post on How to Tell if a Pear is Ripe.

🍎 Get my recipe for Pear Applesauce

Pomegranate Applesauce

I never have seen this combo as a store bought flavor, so I thought I would give it a try. Pomegranate season and apple season overlap, so they make a great choice. The deeper color the pomegranate is, the most it will have an effect on the color of the applesauce.

I cook the pomegranate arils with the apples and strain them out either with my food mill or using a sieve.

🍎 Get my recipe for Pomegranate Applesauce

Cranberry Applesauce

Another fall fruit I love to include in applesauce are cranberries. I mean just look at the beautiful color they add.

This is for sure the kind of applesauce you want to use all sweet apples for since the cranberry are so tart on their own. If you are tired of the jellied cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving and want something different, you could give this a try. Just make sure you tell your guests you are serving cranberry APPLEsauce so there won't be a revolt (there still might be thought!)

🍎 Get my recipe for Cranberry Applesauce

Peach Applesauce

Fresh peach season is at it's peak in August and runs into September. This gives you a window for having both the best fresh apples and fresh peaches. The peaches break down into a sauce nicely. You can use nectarines as well. You know you never see a lot of nectarine recipes but I can't think of one of a situation where you couldn't go with nectarines instead of peaches if you wanted.

🍎 Get my recipe for Peach Applesauce (or Nectarine Applesauce 😄)

Strawberry Applesauce

This is a case where the two fruits peak season does NOT overlap. You can make this year round of course. I prefer to do it during the height of strawberry season because that is the main flavor that I am going for here.

🍎 Get my recipe for Strawberry Applesauce

Pink Pearl Applesauce

The last one on our list today is not one we add anything to besides apples. There is a heirloom apple variety called Pink Pearl. It has a yellow skin with a pink inferior. Take a look:

A yellow skinned pink pearl apple with a slice apple next to it showing the pink flesh.

When you make applesauce with the skins on with this variety it creates the most uniquely colored sauce.

A peachy rose colored applesauce made from Pink Pearl apples in a white bowl.

It's a peachy rose looking applesauce. If you peeled the skin instead the sauce would take more of a pink color. It's your choice but it's a great way to make a visually stunning applesauce.

🍎 Get my recipe for Pink Pearl Applesauce (and learn more about this heirloom apple variety!)

There are a couple other apples that are like this that I haven't made applesauce with yet, but I am sure would produce a pinkish colored applesauce. Those would be: