Canned Apple Pie Filling Recipe

The recipe was excellent. It was very easy. My only suggestion would be that when you use a knife to get rid of the air bubbles, use a plastic one or spatula. The first time I used a metal butter knife and 2 of my jars busted during processing. I checked the Ball website and they said that using a metal utensil to remove air bubbles may cause the jar to break.

This is a wonderful pie filling recipe. The trick to the syrup is put your sugar and spices in 8 or 8 1/2 cups of hot water; stir till dissolved and place over low heat. Then mix 2 cups water 3 TBS lemon juice and corn starch and set aside. After you have the apples sliced and packed in the jars bring the sugar mixture almost to boiling stir in your cornstarch mixture and pour it into the sugar mixture. Stir or wisk mixture quickly. When the white of the cornstarch disappears, laddle over sliced apples. I use 3 tsp cinnamon and Florida Crystals unprocessed sugar. I also leave off the food coloring. It makes 9 quarts every time for me, but I pack the apples within 1 inch of the top. I have made 54 quarts already this year. Most to give as Christmas gifts.

I've been making this for years. Here's a tip. Divide sauce equally between 7 quart jars, then add sliced apples and push from top down until full. Much less messy.

Excellent recipe! I doubled the cinnamon and used clove instead of nutmeg (we like the flavors). The starch to liquid ratio was perfect for pie filling. Half of our first batch didn’t seal because we had packed too tight and the apples swelled! After that we left 1.5” headspace and had no problems Will use this again!

Had problem with the cornstarch. It turned into pellets at the bottom of the pot. Changed to 9 cups of water, waited for it to come to a rolling boil. In a medium bowl mixed 1 cup of cornstarch to 1 cup of cold water, whisked till blended well. In a small stream I added the cornstarch mixture to the boiling pot, while whisking the boiling liquid. Turned out great.

This is a good recipe. It helped us get through the many 5 gallon buckets of apples we had from a bumper crop of apples from only 2 trees. Definitely leave at least an inch of headspace, or the filling oozes out. Very frustrating. Others have said if this happens, your jars don't seal, but mine did. If the button is down, its sealed. I unnecessarily reprocessed a bunch of jars because I did not think the oozing jars had sealed. When I took the lids off they popped the seal so they were good after all- but, to each their own. If you want to reprocess, then reprocess. I used an iced tea spoon to remove bubbles and get the filling to flow into the air pockets. Definitely use wide mouth jars if you can. Cons: Time consuming over all, and messy when filling the jars. I experimented with this recipe a bit to try something new/fun with flavor. I reduced the sugar to 1 cup, then dissolved 2 cups of red hots/cinnamon imperials into 2 cups of hot water, brought to boil to dissolve. After dissolved, I let it cool. Mixed the cornstarch, sugar, salt, and 1 tsp cinnamon, (omitted the nutmeg) together then whisked in the remaining 8 cups of water, brought to boil, stirred in the red hots/water mixture. Added the lemon juice but skipped the yellow food color.

Have apples on my tree coming ripe so made 2 batches. The first one, doubled cinnamon by accident, but followed everything to a T. AMAZING! The second batch I did the normal cinnamon, but put everything in together at the same time. No problems at all. We did discover that we liked the extra cinnamon tho so threw in another 2 teaspoons. Will be doing more on Friday as the apples get ripe. Great recipe.

This recipe is what I've been looking for. In the past I have cooked the apples along with the syrup and depending on the apples, some of the filling turned out pretty mushy. However when I did it, I left out the thickening agent when canning, and stirred it in when I made the pie. The recipe I used called for flour which worked pretty well when adding it later. I haven't made this yet, but I think I will just leave out the thickening as I did before. But the rest, making the syrup and raw packing the apples sounds like it will take care of the mushy problem. Can't wait to try it and will write another review when I do.

Great recipe. With one change in the method. I mix my thickened liquid with the apples then put it in the jar. Much better results.

I followed what natural sugar mentioned and simmered the sugar water and spices and added the cornstarch, additional water and lemon right before adding to the jars. I got 6 pints and 1 quart from this recipe and had enough leftover to make at least 1 more jar. Like some others, I never added the food coloring as I feel it's not needed.

This was one of the 1st recipes I tried when I discovered All Recipes & when I had just begun canning. For the posters saying not to use cornstarch, we have used it in every single batch we have made with zero side effects. After coming out of the water bath canning, our longest lasting jar was almost 2 years old(only because it was hiding. Otherwise that baby would have been LONG gone, lol)... still tasted as amazing as the day we canned it! Now, my 2 cents on the recipe itself..... for a single batch of the sauce we usually can fill 6 quart jars... this varies on how any sliced apples we’ve put into the jar before pouring the hot filling over it. For those complaining of a bland taste.... just add a little more cinnamon or nutmeg to the recipe. As it thickens, get a small amount on a spoon and taste it! If you’re a new cook, whisk in small amounts of whatever you think it needs to kick it up to the next level and KEEP TASTING(use a clean spoon though... no one likes a double dipper). And yes, the best tasting apples for this recipe would be Granny Smith or another tart version, but we have also made it with Red Delicious, Fuji, basically which ever has been on sale. And it still tastes AMAZING every time! Ok, now for the big question.... what to do if you have extra sauce. We poured ours into pint and 1/2 pint jars, water bath process for the same 20 minutes, and decided it was a brown sugar/Cinnamon/nutmeg jelly to be added to plain oatmeal or cream of wheat for seasoning

The liquid never thickened, I processed anyway. I will have to figure out a way to thicken it when I open the jars. I used Certo

I blanched my apple slices for 2 minutes first, and mixed them into the jel mixture after it was off the heat. I got 6 quarts, probably because of the apples being softer with blanching. Great recipe, the jel-syrup is delicious!

So good!

Had all the ingredients at home — perfect!

Love this recipe. I used 2 1/2 cups white sugar and 2 cups packed brown sugar and 10 1/2 cups water. Soooo good. I had no problem with mixing corn starch at beginning. Made 49 quarts this year!

I followed the suggestions from the follower, "natural sugar" and it came out perfectly! It made exactly 7 quarts. The flavor is amazing and I love that I have homemade pie filling to use instantly! I will definitely make a few more batches this Fall.

Super easy and tasty!!!

I used 1 Tablespoon of clear jel per 1 cup water. It’s thick but Not standing spoon thick.

Great!!!!