Apple Butter in the Crockpot

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Making apple butter in the Crockpot is really easy! This simple recipe for slow cooker apple butter is flavorful, perfect for gifting, and sharing!

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What is apple butter?

Apple butter is actually just apple sauce that is more highly concentrated! It’s made by a long slow cooking process of apples and a combination of water, cider, and sugar.

The brown color comes from the apples and the sugars in them caramelizing. Because there’s a higher concentration of sugar developed throughout this cooking process the apple butter has a much longer shelf life than apple sauce or apples themselves!

Apple butter is a common way to make use of those fresh apples that are plentiful in the fall. It’s a great way to extend the life of your apples if you have a tree that produces more than you can use in a season.

Another reason it’s great to make apple butter is to use seconds! Our local farms sell apples that are not quite market quality at a much reduced price. These damaged or goofy looking apples make great apple butter since they can be chopped up for this recipe and we don’t really care what they look like.

How long can I keep apple butter?

If you have a jar or can of apple butter opened in the refrigerator it will stay at it’s best quality for about 1 year.

That being said, if you make apple butter you can freeze it for much longer than that and the same is true for apple butter that you then jar or can!

The jarring or canning process will extend the life of the apple butter nearly indefinitely. We always use ours long before it has a chance to go bad in the refrigerator or in the freezer.

Here’s a tutorial for caning apple butter, years ago I probably would have done it this way but it works just as well to freeze it so now we don’t much bother with canning since we have room in the freezer!

What do I need to make apple butter in Crockpot or slow cooker?

This might be my favorite part about making apple butter in Crockpot cookers…the ingredients are very simple and straightforward. The truth is, there’s nothing fancy going on.

The slow cooker is going to do the hard work of cooking the apples until the point of caramelization so there’s really nothing we need to add that’s super fancy, expensive, or hard to find!

This recipe uses apples that cored, peeled, and sliced, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and ground ginger. That’s it!

How much does this recipe make?

My recipe for apple butter in the Crockpot will make 1 8 ounce jar of apple butter approximately. Each 2 pounds of apples will yield about this much typically!

That being said, if you want to gift some to friends or family members you can always double up the recipe or even triple it.

I don’t usually store my crockpot apple butter in an 8 ounce jar I use the 4 ounce ones because they’re a more manageable size. You can do whatever works best for you!

How to make apple butter in Crockpot:

Peel, core and slice apples

Place all apples into a crock pot

If using green apples, increase the sugars by 1 tablespoon to help balance the tartness of green apples.

Cook on HIGH for 5 hours or LOW for 10 hours

Apples will begin to caramelize and mash easily with a spoon.

Transfer fully cooked apples to a blender or food processor.  An immersion blender may also be used.

Blend until smooth (about 1-2 mins)

Transfer to mason jar or Air tight container.

Allow apple butter to completely cool (about an 1.5-2 hrs) at room temperature.

Refrigerate after cooled

Looking for more delicious recipes to try?

If you are looking for even more awesome recipes to try here are some of my favorites! My family loves a cheesy and indulgent casserole like Super easy nacho chicken casserole or crockpot cheesy potatoes.

If you like making breakfast or brunch in the crockpot try out my Crockpot ham and cheese biscuits or a slow cooker breakfast casserole. Of course you can always go for the fan favorites like Crockpot chocolate peanut butter lava cake or Crockpot cinnamon rolls!