Slow Cooker Apple Pear Sauce for Full GAPS

Slow cooker apple pear sauce combines apples with ripe pears for a soft, naturally sweet fruit sauce. Both fruits cook with their skins on, then cool before blending. The result is a spoonable Full GAPS snack with apple flavor, the softer sweetness of pear and fine flecks from the blended peels.

This recipe uses the apple-and-pear combination. If you want only apples, the separate peel-on slow cooker applesauce has its own card. Here, the pears are part of the batch, and their ripeness matters when you are deciding what goes into the pot.

Jump to the Recipe

Our children are homeschooled, so lunch is whatever I prepare that day. When we go out, we pack food or eat ahead. That makes the storage end of a recipe useful to me, too. A little fruit sauce needs a closed container, a spoon and a way to keep it cold, rather than another large jar opened while everyone is getting ready to leave.

Choose Ripe Pears And Sound Apples

Have five to ten pounds of apples and two to five pounds of ripe pears available for the batch. These are ranges, because the fruit is cut and used to fill the cooker about three-quarters full. Its maximum fill line still applies. Keep extra prepared fruit for another load instead of compressing everything into the pot.

For the pears, press gently near the stem rather than squeezing the whole fruit. A ripe pear gives slightly at that narrow neck. The pear growers’ ripeness guide explains this check. Skin color alone is less useful for varieties that do not change color dramatically.

Firm, unripe pears can wait at room temperature before you begin. Once ripe, they can move to the refrigerator until cooking day. Choose fruit with sound flesh, and cut away the tough core and seeds. Ripe does not mean using moldy or decaying fruit.

The apples can be sweet, tart or a mix of varieties. Sweeter apples and ripe pears make a mild, sweet sauce without added honey. A tart apple contributes a sharper flavor underneath the pear. The final taste will vary with the fruit, rather than matching a single sweetness level every time.

Wash both fruits under running water before cutting. Core the apples and pears, remove the stems and leave the peels attached. A knife is enough for coring; an apple corer is convenient when you are working through a bigger pile of apples.

Keep The Water Measure Small

One-half cup of filtered water goes into each cooker load. The fruit releases more liquid as it softens, especially when the pears are ripe and juicy. The pieces should not be submerged in added water at the start.

Mix the cut apple and pear pieces before filling the cooking pot so the fruits are distributed through the load. Stop at about three-quarters full and below the appliance’s maximum. The weight of fruit that fits depends on its size, the cut pieces and the cooker.

There is no lemon juice, sweetener or fat in this particular fruit sauce. It gets its flavor from the two fruits and keeps their cooking liquid for blending. A pear batch may seem looser than an apple-only batch; that is a reason to check the cooked mixture before adding any more liquid.

How To Make Apple Pear Sauce

1. Prepare And Load The Fruit

Cut the cored apples and pears into bite-sized chunks. Roughly eight pieces per apple is a useful starting point, with smaller pieces for a very large fruit. Cut the pears to a similar size. Leave the skins on both fruits.

Put the mixed chunks into the cooking pot, keeping to the fill limit, and add the half cup of water. I use the Ninja Foodi FD401 on Slow Cook LO. Fit its pressure lid with the valve set to VENT. This setting cooks slowly without a pressure cycle.

2. Cook Until Both Fruits Are Soft

Cook covered on low for six to ten hours. Around eight hours is the planning estimate, but the fruit’s texture decides when it is ready. Frozen chunks may take toward the longer end of that range.

Check an apple piece as well as a pear piece. Each should squash easily under a wooden spoon or silicone spatula, without a firm middle. The pears may soften before firmer apples, so a soft pear on top does not tell you that every apple underneath is done.

The cooked mixture should smell fruity and sweet, with some pear aroma alongside the apple. It may be golden, pinkish or lightly brown depending on the peels and apple varieties. Soft flesh and no hard centers matter more than achieving a particular color.

3. Cool For The Ninja Blender

Turn off cooking and Keep Warm when the fruit is ready. Divide it into shallow, heat-safe containers to cool promptly. Set the containers in an ice bath and stir occasionally if needed to remove heat more quickly without diluting the fruit.

The Ninja BN801 is for cool or room-temperature ingredients, so let the fruit cool before blending. If you are not blending straight away, refrigerate the shallow portions promptly, within two hours, then blend them cold. Hot fruit does not go into this pitcher.

4. Blend In Manageable Batches

Set up the empty full-size BN801 pitcher with its stacked blade assembly before adding food. Add cooled apple, pear and cooking liquid below the marked maximum liquid line. Secure the lid and keep the pour-spout cap closed while the machine runs.

Blend until the skins are broken into fine flecks and the fruit is evenly spoonable. Stop before checking or scraping the pitcher. You may still see tiny skin specks, especially from a red apple. Large peel curls or firm core fragments do not belong in the finished sauce.

Transfer the batches to a clean bowl or storage containers, following the manufacturer’s blade-handling instructions. Stir the batches together so the fruit and liquid are evenly mixed. Judge the texture with a spoon: it should settle softly rather than pour like a thin drink.

Where Apple Pear Sauce Fits In GAPS

This is a Full GAPS fruit recipe after apples, pears and their skins fit the foods you have introduced. Dr. Natasha’s 2020 food list includes apples and pears. Her early cooked-fruit guidance begins with peeled, deseeded fruit, which is different from keeping the skins in this sauce.

Intro Stage 5 specifically introduces peeled, cored cooking apples stewed soft and mashed with ghee or the appropriate introduced animal fat. This mixed, skin-on apple pear sauce does not take the place of that recipe. A fine blender texture does not remove a peel from the ingredients.

Full GAPS keeps fruit in the smaller snack part of the day, generally between meals. Serve a little sauce as a fruit snack instead of turning a large sweet bowl into the main meal. The fruit still brings its own sweetness even though no honey is added.

Apples, pears and filtered water have no dairy, egg or nut ingredients. This recipe does not fit No-Plant GAPS, and a fruit sauce should not be assumed to fit a ketogenic GAPS menu. Choose the preparation that belongs with the foods you are currently using.

Prepare Fruit Ahead And Freeze

Washed, cored fruit chunks can be frozen for up to about four months before slow cooking. Mix the apple and pear chunks, pack them in freezer-suitable containers or bags, and mark the fruit combination and date. Save extra cut fruit from a load this way rather than overfilling the cooker.

Cook the frozen chunks with the same half cup of water per load. Keep within the same fill limit, and allow toward the longer end of the cooking range. Check both fruits for complete softness before cooling and blending.

Cut apple and pear surfaces can brown while you work. This sauce is not expected to be bright white, and the recipe does not add a lemon bath. Keeping the peels also means the finished sauce may have a little more color than a peeled pear purée.

Storage And Serving

Expect approximately two quarts from a cooker batch, with the actual amount depending on the loaded fruit and how it cooks down. Measure the blended sauce before dividing it when you want exact freezer portions. Leave space for expansion in freezer-suitable containers.

Refrigerate promptly at 40°F or below and use within three to four days, or freeze portions. Thaw in the refrigerator and stir before serving. The sauce can be served cool, or warmed gently on the stove after blending.

For an outing, take a small closed portion with a cold pack and a spoon. Keep the rest refrigerated rather than carrying the whole batch around for the day. Label finished sauce with its own preparation date so it is distinct from a bag of raw frozen fruit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Peel The Pears?

Leave the pear and apple peels on for this version, but remove stems, seeds and cores. The soft skins are blended after cooking and cooling. A peeled early Intro fruit preparation is a different recipe.

Can I Use Only Pears?

This is the apple-and-pear combination. Keep both fruits in the batch. For an apple-only choice, use the linked plain applesauce recipe rather than changing this card into a different fruit sauce.

What If The Pears Soften First?

Continue cooking until the apple pieces are soft too. Test a piece of each fruit with the spoon. Both should collapse easily, without a firm center, before cooling for the blender.

How Does A Double Batch Work?

The card doubles the ranges to ten to twenty pounds of apples and four to ten pounds of pears, with one cup of water across two cooker loads. Use half a cup of water per load and keep the same fill limit. One cooker needs successive runs, so allow more total elapsed time.

Recommended Equipment

Use the Ninja Foodi FD401 on Slow Cook LO with its lid vented, then the Ninja BN801 full-size pitcher for cooled blending. A knife or corer, cutting board, wooden spoon or silicone spatula, measuring cup and shallow containers handle the rest.

The upcoming Jar & Freezer Labels fit this recipe well: write “apple pear,” the date and the portion amount so the frozen fruit and finished sauce are easy to identify. Find upcoming resources in the WFLI shop. Give the raw chunks and cooked sauce separate labels.