Make the most of the late summer or early fall crabapple harvest with our Instant Pot Crabapple Butter! This crab apple butter is sweet and tart with a beautiful reddish pink color. We include an option for making regular crabapple sauce as well!Makes about 5 to 6 cups of crabapple puree, and about 7 to 7 ½ cups crabapple butter. This is about 60 servings of 2 Tablespoons each.Top 8 free.
Course Condiments, Sauces, & Spreads
Cuisine American
Keyword crabapple butter recipe, instant pot apple butter
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
natural pressure release + time to puree/mill the apples 1 hourhour
⅛teaspoonsalt(optional, but salt helps enhance the flavors, this won't make your apple butter salty)
Instructions
Start by preparing your apples: wash the apples well, pull off any stems and leaves, and cut off the blossom end. You don't need to peel or core the apples for this recipe.
Cut the crabapples in half. This helps with cooking and also helps to find any apples that might have hidden worms.
Place 12 cups of halved apples into the pressure cooker with 1 cup water and pressure cook on high for 10 minutes.
Once the apples are done cooking, allow a natural pressure release for 30 minutes before quick releasing the remaining pressure. You will need to do a natural release first before a quick release.
Open the Instant Pot and stir the apples, they will break down more as you stir.
Using a food mill or a metal mesh strainer, press the apples and any liquid in the pot in batches through the mill or mesh to separate the seeds and skin from the fruit puree. We used a mesh strainer since we don't have a food mill, but a food mill is easier to use.
Once all the apples are done being pureed and separated from the seeds, you'll have about 5 to 6 cups of bright pink apple puree that is quite tart. Once it's mixed well, it will be moderately thick.
To the apple puree, mix in the brown sugar, spices, and salt, then divide into freezable jars if you plan on freezing these instead of canning them (I freeze mine).
If you are freezing your apple butter, scoop the apple butter into jars, leaving about 1 inch of space at the top of the jar, allow to cool to room temperature (covering with a light towel to prevent anything from getting into the jars while they cool), and put the lids on and put in the freezer.
When you want to thaw your apple butter, just set it in the fridge to thaw overnight.
For crabapple sauce instead of apple butter: skip the spices and stir in 2 ½ to 3 cups of unbleached white sugar instead of brown sugar (we use Zulka sugar) into the warm apple puree store as you would the apple butter.
Notes
*Since crabapples are so tart, this recipe requires more sugar than regular apple butter to make it sweet enough. If you want to reduce the sugar, you can replace some of the brown sugar with a sugar-free or low-sugar brown sugar alternative. For crabapple sauce: stir in 2 1/2 to 3 cups of white sugar into the warm apple puree.