Apple season is one of our favorites. I’ve lost count as to how many pounds of apples I’ve bought so far this year. But, I think we’re up to at least 100 pounds. At 77 cents/pound, it’s a steal. We’ve eaten lots of apples fresh. But, I’ve also stored up apples for winter, spring, and summer.
Here are some freezer-friendly recipes that will help you do the same:
- Slow Cooker Applesauce
- Slab Apple Pie
- Cinnamon-Apple Oatcakes
- Apple Cinnamon Muffins
- Oven Baked Apple Compote
- Simplest Apple Sorbet
While, you can’t just throw apples in the freezer, you can preserve these lovely tastes of fall by prepping your favorite apple recipes and freezing them to enjoy later.
31 Days of Freezer Cooking
For more ideas about how to make freezer cooking work for you, follow along with us here in October as I post 31 Days of Freezer Cooking. You can see past posts here.
For even more Freezer Cooking how-to’s you can also buy my book, Not Your Mother’s Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook.
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So jealous! Our crazy weather in the spring destroyed 80% of our apple crop 🙁
Oh, that is sad. 🙁
I was in the store the other day and apples were 1.59 a pound. I live in ontario, canada. We are getting alot of our apples from the US. Our local apple orchards had a very poor season.
I live in a somewhat rural part of Southern New England and so apple orchards are not far from me. In fact, there is one is my small town. They sell “baker’s quality” apples for about 60 cents a pound, and they are very good. Last year, the crop was really good, so they were about 50 cents per pound. I’ve been buying a peck at a time (roughly 12 pounds) and have twice made applesauce this year using your slowcooker recipe. I didn’t know how good applesauce could be. I’ve canned most of it, and plan on doing another batch this weekend. I’m so glad you had the recipe here because it’s just more doable for me than working over a stove. 🙂
@Mary, I agree! I’m so glad you’re getting a good price on apples. I’m hearing not so much in other parts of the country.
Although you probably wouldn’t want to throw whole apples in the freezer, I do freeze apple slices to use for various things. I peel and slice them (depending on what you plan to do with them, I suppose you could leave the skins on). I just put them in ziplocs and then use them. They don’t keep forever in the freezer, but they do keep for several months. They would work well to throw in with pancakes or muffins, or anything that calls for sliced or diced apples and is baked. They aren’t perfect for eating raw after frozen. My mom also makes apple sauce with the frozen ones too. I have purchased 5 boxes of apples so far this season. Each box is a bushel. I don’t know how many pounds a bushel is, but they sell them $24 for a bushel for firsts (good apples) and $14 for a bushel of 2nds. If they have imperfections or are too small, etc. It’s a pretty good deal!
@Charlene, there are ways that you can treat them to last longer as slices. I did it years ago with citric acid, lemon juice, sugar, etc. Most preserving books recommend some kind of treatment to slow down the enzyme activity during freezing.
We do freeze apples! You won’t want to eat them fresh after freezing, but they work wonderfully in all your favorite recipes.
Here’s a post on how we freeze apples:
http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-freeze-apples.html
I actually cut them up, after peeling and pour lemon juice over them and put them in freezer bags in the portions I would need for pies or muffins or cakes. They freeze really well. I just pull a bag out when I need them. Sometimes we just use a bag for oatmeal , if we have company. they are really good with cinnamon and sugar.
@Shell, yes, lemon juice should work to stop the enzyme action.
Girl, you are a lifesaver. I can’t believe how expensive apples are here in SoCal. I came from Washington state where they are cheap. I just took the El Super grocery ad with apples at 49 cents a pound to WalMart and price matched it. The apples at El Super were tiny and had apple scabs and bruises. The ones at WalMart were big and not bruised, mainly because their regular cost is so high that most people don’t buy them. I stocked up and I think I’ll price match the granny smith ones this week and can apple pie filling since my Clear Jel came from Amazon yesterday!
I found a blog post years ago for storing cut-up apples (for cooking) in the freezer. It was as simple as dropping the apple slices in cold salty water, stirring it a bit, drain and bag in zip loc bags (without rinsing it). The apples stayed white for over 6 months in the freezer and they did not taste salty at all! No more lemon juice taste!
Thanks for sharing! Do they taste salty? (I don’t mind the lemon flavor.)