This easy homemade apple pie filling recipe is a great way to use apples! It makes the most delicious apple pies and they’re especially great for holidays!
How to make homemade apple pie filling
My mom makes the best apple pie. We have always loved it. I was talking to her and asked her how she makes it taste so good. She said “I used canned apples.” HA! All this time we thought it was some great secret and it was just canned apples!
If you are like me and have fresh apples piling up everywhere, here is a recipe I love that tastes amazing and freezes really well. I keep bags of it in the freezer to pop into a pie crust when I need it. Make this now and have it ready for those more hectic days during the holidays when you need a quick dessert or apple pie.
Part of the reason canned apples sometimes taste better is because the apples are fully cooked and nice and tender so make sure your apples are well cooked.
This apple pie filling recipe can be slow cooked in a crock pot on low until apples are tender or cooked as the recipe says in a Dutch oven.
Apple Pie Filling Recipe
9 cups baking apples (I use what I have for apples), peeled, cored & sliced
1 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
5 cups water
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
Toss apples with lemon juice and set aside. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a Dutch oven and bring to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add apples and return to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until apples are tender (6-10 minutes). Cool for 30 minutes. Then ladle into freezer containers or bake in pies. Makes enough for two 9 inch pies.
You can cook in the crock pot on low for 4 hours or until apples are tender.
-Jill
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Sounds great, I will have to give a try with the new johthans that are coming in the store.
Justed wanted to say that I have really enjoyed your newsletters and blogs. Keep up the good work!
My suggestion is to freeze the pie filling in the shape of your pie plate, by lining the bottom of the pie plate, placing the fruit in, freezing, then removing the frozen fruit and putting it into a ziploc baggie. Then, when you want pie, just pull it out, place it in the pie plate with pie crust, and bake! You don’t even have to defrost it!
At what temp and for how long do you bake the pie at then? This is exactly what I’ve been looking to do, but didn’t want to waste a bunch of apples by not doing it right .
Bake it at 450 degrees the first 10-15 mins. then turn it down to 350 degrees and bake about 35 mins. longer. When the crust is nice and brown and there is filling bubbling out of the steam holes that is a good indication that it is ready. The first 10 on high is to help brown up the crust. The last 35 mins. is for cooking the fruit. If you use the apple pie filling recipe the apples are already cooked in it so you don’t need to cook it as long as a normal apple pie which is 45 min. cooking time. You are just cooking it long enough to brown the crust and heat it good and hot all the way through.
I meant if you do as Grace in Alaska suggested, freeze the apple pie filling right in the shape of the pan. Do the same instructions apply?
I’m doing it today, hopefully :)
Jana you need to just bake the pie 20-45 minutes longer then the recipe normally calls for. This is a good way to do it but for real convenience sake I would make up the pie crust too and freeze it all. Then when it is time to bake it is all ready to just pop in the oven. Because your filling is all ready cooked all you are really trying to do is to is to brown the crust and get the filling nice, hot and bubbly.
Last year my neighbors and I made a very similar pie filling, just about double this, many times over and canned it all. A quart fills a square pan, add your favorite topping and you’ve got cobbler or crisp in addition to pies.
I agree with the freezing to shape of your pie pan…what I did was place the gallon freezer bag in the pie plate, filled it, and placed whole thing in the freezer the next day I popped the bag out of the pie pan and ta da…ready made pie filling to fit the pie and ready to go when needed.
I like the freezing in the pie plate idea. Great.
I made the Apple Crumble Pie recipe from the cookbook over the weekend. SO GOOD!
This looks like just what I need, today! Tons of apples (well, not tons…) and I want to freeze apple pie filling. Using the crock pot will be terrific. Thanks! P.S. I just tweeted this, too.
instead of a freezer container could i also put them in hot jars and seal like apple butter. thanks
Yes you can. Do it just like you would apple butter or apple sauce
Love trying your recipes. So glad you all know how to cook and I love reading all the comments too. Thank you and keep up the good work.
I just canned 18 quarts of this apple pie recipe for use this winter using the hot water method.
Wow! You have been busy Patricia. Great idea to can it. Probably even better then freezing because there isn’t the chance that if you loose power it will spoil in the freezer.
I tried ur recipe for the apple pie filling in my crock pot.it came out very watery .don’t know what i did wrong but I’m guessing 5 cups of water was way too much.any ideas?
Some fruit is just juicier then others so all you need to do is add a little more cornstarch until it thickens up to how you want it or next time if you use the same type apples you can cut back some on the water. Older recipes for something like this don’t even give amounts. Ladies would add more or less of things until they got it to how they liked it. I am so glad we at least have a general recipe to use now a day.
I followed your recipe and it has worked out perfectly. It definitely needs to be boiled on the stovetop as the recipe states since it thickened up in those 2 minutes going to a translucent thick sauce. Added benefit was that it was the most amazing room freshener. I found this just in time since local apples are abundant right now. Thanks!
I would like to cook this in a crockpot do I cook on low or high and for how long please. I am thinking till apples are soft but wanted to make sure
You can cook this for 4 hours on low or until apples are tender. Thanks for asking. I will add this info to the recipe because originally I did make this in the crock pot and just forgot to add it.
I don’t have a dutch oven, what else could I use?
Just use the largest pot or pan you have and it you don’t have a big enough one the half the recipe.
Thanks for the cooked apple pie filling recipe!!!!
If you are cooking in the crockpot, how do you bring the ingredients to a boil? Do you just add everything together and set the timer for 4 hours?
You don’t need to bring it to a boil because you are cooking it slower and for a longer period of time. In the crock pot let it cook on low for about 6-8 hours depending on your crock pot.