Instant Pot Apple Butter
It doesn't feel like fall is really here until I enjoy a warm biscuit slathered with sweet Instant Pot apple butter. This spread is smooth, silky, and perfectly spiced-and is done in about an hour.
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Instant Pot Apple Butter
- ⏰ Prep Time: 15 minutes
- 🕰️ Cook Time: 60 minutes, plus time for pressure release
- 🍏 Flavor Profile: What was lightly sweet in Instant Pot applesauce becomes caramelized and deeply flavored in apple butter. It is also more spiced, with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
- 🍁 Good For: Spreading on biscuits, swirling into homemade yogurt, replacing butter or oil in baking (like these carrot cake muffins), or cooking into savory dishes (like this apple butter pulled pork).
- 🧡 Difficulty: So easy!
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- 🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Instant Pot Apple Butter
- 🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
- 🍏 The Ingredients You Need
- 🥄 The Equipment You Need
- 🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- 🥣 How to Make Instant Pot Apple Butter
- 🍁 Storage Info
- 🙋🏻♀️ Instant Pot Apple Butter FAQs
- 👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- 🥪 Ways to Use Instant Pot Apple Butter
- 🍎 More Tasty Apple Recipes
- 📖 Recipe
- 💬 Reviews
🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
After heading to our local apple orchard each fall, I come home, strap on my apron, and excitedly start processing all the goods. I usually start with making homemade caramel apples with the kiddo, and then I dive into preserving with canned apple pie filling, jelly, and apple butter!
The one hang-up with apple butter-it takes so darn long to make! But lo and behold, I found the solution: the Instant Pot!
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- No peeling: In fact, the apple peels are what help thicken the apple butter into a silky, thick spread. Easy-peasy!
- Hour instead of days. While Instant Pot apple butter isn't quite the same as apple butter that's slow cooked for days over an open fire, it's awfully close, and it's done in right around an hour!
- Super versatile: Just like jams and apple jelly, apple butter works well on toast, biscuits, English muffins, and all your basic breakfast pastries. But it also doubles as a condiment for savory dishes-I'm looking at you, Instant Pot pork roast-and can be used to add flavor and moisture to all kinds of delicious recipes!
🍏 The Ingredients You Need
- Apples. The best apples for apple butter are...the ones you have readily available! If you're headed to the apple orchard or farmers' market specifically for apples for this recipe though, then we recommend a mix of apple varieties for the best apple butter flavor. In general, we recommend a ratio of about half sweet apples (like Fuji or Golden Delicious) to half tart (like Granny Smith apples or McIntosh). But honestly: use whatever you have on hand!
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🥄 The Equipment You Need
- Instant Pot: Traditionally, apple butter is made in a kettle over a bed of coals. The spiced apple mixture is slow cooked for hours to days to cook it down into a thick, silky apple butter. The Instant Pot speeds the process up considerably.
- Immersion blender: A defining feature of apple butter is its smooth, silky texture, and in our recipe, we recommend using an immersion blender to accomplish this task and make it as velvety as can be. You can even use it throughout the cooking process if you notice any lumps.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Adjust the thickness: We like our apple butter the thickness of...well...very soft butter! It should be thick enough to pile up on a spoon on its own, but thin enough to spread easily. But apple butter is just as delicious when it's a bit thinner or when it's thick and decadent. You can control your apple butter's thickness by adjusting the cooking time. Remember it will thicken as it cools.
- Spiked apple butter: Replace with cider with rum or bourbon for a delectable spiked apple butter.
🥣 How to Make Instant Pot Apple Butter
Step 1: Put the apples, sugar, cider, spices, and salt in the basin of the Instant Pot. Do not peel the apples-they are vital for helping the apple butter thicken up!
Step 2: Seal the Instant Pot, and set it to Manual High pressure for 60 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for 20 minutes.
Step 3: Add the vanilla, then blend, blend, blend the apple butter until it is smooth as can be. It will still seem too thin to be apple butter, but trust that it will set up as it cools! To test it, put a small spoonful of apple butter in a small bowl and freeze it for 5-10 minutes. This will give you an idea of how thick the apple butter will be when it cools. If you're happy with it, go ahead and refrigerate the apple butter now.
Step 4: Optional: If you want a thicker apple butter, cook it in the Instant Pot on the Slow Cooker setting for 2-3 hours with the lid off. Do the freezer test again to make sure you are happy with the texture.
🍁 Storage Info
- Since this recipe isn't tested for safe canning, freezing is our favorite way to stash apple butter for use all year long. You can freeze apple butter in freezer-safe canning jars (they are the ones with straight sides and no shoulders), and just pull out a new jar to defrost when you are running low!
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🙋🏻♀️ Instant Pot Apple Butter FAQs
That probably means you didn't cook it for long enough! As apple butter cooks down, the flavors caramelize and get more concentrated.
In traditional apple butter recipes, you do have to peel or otherwise deal with the peels (like using a food mill to remove them), but our recipe uses the peels! The peels are full of pectin, which helps thicken the recipe. And because of the high pressure of the Instant Pot, the peels are cooked so intensely that they turn soft enough to blend into the apple butter no problem.
👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Easy on the spices: As the apple butter cooks down, the spices will intensify. Go light on the spices to start-you can always add more later!
- Leave the peels: Some apple butter recipes require you to peel your apples but ours doesn't! In fact, you need the peels here to thicken the butter properly. The pectin in the peels helps the apple butter thicken as it cools.
- Getting thick: If your apple butter seems thin, give it time. Because we're using pectin from the peels here, the apple butter will seem very liquidy straight out of the Instant Pot, but it will thicken dramatically as it cools.
🥪 Ways to Use Instant Pot Apple Butter
You're going to be tempted to grab a spoon and dig right in, but if you're looking for more to do with apple butter, we recommend you:
- Spread it on toast, biscuits, crackers, or English muffins.
- Add it to a cheese board-the sweetness contrasts nicely with something like a sharp cheddar. See our tutorial for how to make a cheese plate for more.
- Use it as a pizza sauce, like in this apple butter flatbread.
- Make apple cinnamon soft serve.
- Spread it on muffins from my apple cinnamon muffins recipe.
- Cook a pork roast in apple butter for amazing apple butter pulled pork.
- Serve it as the perfect condiment with pork chops.
- Put it in a grilled cheese (trust me!).
- Slather it on whole wheat waffles or whole grain pancakes.
- Swirl it into a bowl of homemade yogurt or slow cooker steel-cut oats.
- Bake it into carrot cake muffins or apple butter donuts.
- Use it as the filling for overnight cinnamon rolls.
🍎 More Tasty Apple Recipes
If you tried this Instant Pot apple butter or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
📖 Recipe
Instant Pot Apple Butter
Ingredients
- 5 pounds apples cored and cut into large chunks (any variety works)
- ⅔ cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup apple cider
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 tablespoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- In the basin of the Instant Pot, combine the apples, brown sugar, cider, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg.
- Close the lid, turn the lever to seal, and set to Manual High pressure for 60 minutes. When cooking time is up, allow the pressure to release naturally for 20 minutes, then remove the lid.
- Add in the vanilla extract.
- Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until very, very smooth.
- The apple butter will seem very thin, but the pectin from the peels will make the mixture thicken dramatically once cooled (similar to making jam). To test the thickness of the apple butter, place a spoonful of the apple butter on a small bowl or saucer, and then place in the freezer for 5-10 minutes until chilled. Run your finger through the chilled apple butter to test for thickness. If it's thick enough for your liking, store the apple butter in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
- If you want to thicken the apple butter more, turn the Instant Pot to the Slow Cooker setting on High, cook for 2-3 hours with the lid off, and then repeat the freezer thickness test to ensure you're happy with the thickness.
Notes
- The spices will intensify as the apple butter cooks down and the flavors get more concentrated. Start with a light hand on the spices-you can always add more later!
- Leave the peels on the apples, or your apple butter won't thicken properly.
- The apple butter may seem thin at first, but trust that it will thicken up as it cools!
We get a bushel of honeycrisps from our CSA every fall, and apple butter is one of my favorite ways to cook them down and use them. I love that this recipe doesn't require any peeling!
I love this apple butter recipe for the instapot. Can't wait to try. Can you go without the brown sugar? Just wondering if the added sweetness has a needed reaction for color or thickness or if ommitted, would the natural sugars be enough?
Hi SuZanne! The brown sugar helps to thicken and color the recipe—but it might be worth a shot using sweeter apples and trying no brown sugar. You'll probably have to cook it longer, but since we've never tried it, it'll take a bit of trial and error to figure out the time. If you give it a go, please let us know how it works out for you!