Slow Cooker Apple Apricot Sauce for Full GAPS

Slow cooker apple apricot sauce combines apples with ripe fresh apricots for a soft fruit sauce with a gently tangy finish. The skins stay on, while apple cores and apricot pits come out before cooking. Half a cup of water starts the pot, and the fruit cooks until it is soft enough to collapse under a spoon.

After cooling, the Ninja blender breaks the softened peels into fine flecks. The finished sauce is a Full GAPS fruit snack, with no added honey, sugar or juice. Its sweetness and color depend on the apples and apricots you put into the cooker.

Jump to the Recipe

When our family went through Intro, we stayed on the same stage. That made the preparation details part of what I put on the table, including peeled apples at Stage 5. I keep this skin-on mixed-fruit sauce with the Full GAPS recipes. It gives you a different fruit combination without blurring the earlier apple preparation.

Use Ripe Fresh Apricots

Have five to ten pounds of apples and two to five pounds of ripe apricots available for preparing the batch. Once cut, the mixed fruit fills the cooker about three-quarters full and stays below its marked maximum. Save any extra fruit instead of trying to fit the entire weight range into one pot.

Choose sound, ripe apricots with yellow to orange color. The flesh should give gently without being mushy or decaying. Montana State University’s apricot guide describes choosing ripe fruit and opening it along its natural line to remove the pit.

Apricots can finish ripening at room temperature, then move to the refrigerator until cooking day. A hard, greenish fruit is not the same starting point as a ripe one. Use good fruit for the flavor you want in the sauce.

This recipe uses fresh ripe apricots, or the prepared chunks you freeze from them. Dried apricots have much less water and are not a pound-for-pound replacement here. The two-to-five-pound range belongs to the fresh fruit in this batch.

The apples can be sweet, tart or a mixture of varieties. If your apricots are tart, a sweeter apple gives a different balance than another tart fruit. There is no extra sweetener in this formula, so choose the fruit with the finished flavor in mind.

Remove Cores And Pits Before Cooking

Wash the whole apples and apricots under running water. Core the apples, remove the stems and seeds, and cut the flesh into bite-sized chunks. Leave the apple peels attached. An apple corer is useful, but a knife works too.

Cut each apricot along its natural seam and open it to remove the pit. Check both halves, keeping pits and any hard fragments out of the fruit bowl. Leave the apricot skin on, then cut larger halves into chunks similar to the apple pieces.

Small apricots need less cutting than a large apple. Aim for pieces that can soften at a similar pace rather than leaving huge apple quarters alongside tiny apricot scraps. The skins go into the sauce; the cores and stones do not.

Mix the prepared apple and apricot chunks before loading the cooker. This spreads both fruits through the batch. If you have more than fits, set the extra mixture aside for another load or freeze it in a useful portion.

How To Make Apple Apricot Sauce

1. Load The Fruit And Water

Fill the cooking pot about three-quarters full with the mixed fruit, staying below its maximum line, then add one-half cup filtered water. The fruit will release liquid during cooking. You do not need to cover it with added water.

I use the Ninja Foodi FD401 on Slow Cook LO. Fit the pressure lid with the valve in the VENT position and set the slow-cook time. The vented slow-cook setting is different from using a sealed pressure cycle.

2. Cook Until Both Fruits Collapse

Cook covered on low for six to ten hours, with around eight hours as the planning estimate. Start checking toward the earlier end. Fruit variety, chunk size and whether it began frozen change the actual cooking time.

Press an apple chunk and an apricot piece with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula. Both should squash easily without a firm center. The apricots may soften before a firmer apple variety, so check both fruits rather than stopping at the softest piece.

The mixture should smell fruity, with cooked apple and apricot together. It can look golden, orange-tinted or lightly brown depending on the fruit and peels. The softness of the pieces is more useful than expecting a particular bright color.

3. Cool For The Blender

Turn off cooking and Keep Warm when the fruit is done. Divide the hot mixture into shallow, heat-safe containers so it cools promptly. An ice bath around the containers and occasional stirring can help remove heat without adding water to the fruit.

Let the mixture cool to room temperature before using the Ninja BN801. Its manufacturer says not to blend hot liquids. If blending will wait until later, refrigerate the shallow portions promptly, within two hours, and blend them cold.

4. Blend The Soft Fruit And Peels

Set up the empty full-size BN801 pitcher with its stacked blade assembly before adding food. Add cooled fruit and its cooking liquid in batches below the maximum liquid line. Secure the lid and keep the pour-spout cap closed while blending.

Blend until the sauce is evenly spoonable and the skins are reduced to fine flecks. Stop the machine before checking or scraping. The finished sauce can contain tiny skin specks, but it should not have large peel curls or firm pieces left in it.

Transfer each batch following the manufacturer’s blade-handling instructions, then stir the blended batches together. A spoonful should settle softly rather than pour like juice. Keep the cooking liquid with the fruit for blending, without adding a large extra measure of water.

Where Apple Apricot Sauce Fits In GAPS

This is a Full GAPS fruit recipe after apples, apricots and their skins fit the foods you have introduced. Dr. Natasha’s 2020 food list includes apples and apricots. Her initial cooked-fruit guidance begins with peeled, deseeded fruit, so this skin-on mixture is a later preparation.

Intro Stage 5 names peeled, cored cooking apples stewed soft and mashed with ghee or the appropriate introduced animal fat. This mixed apple apricot sauce has no added fat and keeps its peels. It does not replace that earlier apple preparation.

On Full GAPS, fruit generally belongs in the smaller snack part of the day, between meals. Serve a little sauce as a fruit portion rather than making a large sweet bowl the main meal or assuming it belongs beside meat.

The apples, apricots 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. There is no added honey or syrup to remove from the ingredient list.

Freeze Prepared Fruit For Another Day

Washed, cored and pitted chunks can be frozen for up to about four months before cooking. Mix the apples and apricots, pack them in freezer-suitable containers or bags, and mark the fruit combination and date.

Keep the portion practical for the cooking pot. Loose chunks or manageable portions are easier to load under the fill limit than one oversized frozen block. Add the same half cup of water per load and allow toward the longer end of the cooking range.

The cut fruit can darken during preparation or freezing. This sauce does not add a lemon bath, syrup or a fruit-preserving powder. The color of the blended sauce can vary without changing the need to cook every piece fully soft.

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 if you want exact freezer portions. Leave room 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. Serve the sauce cool, or warm it gently on the stove after blending if you prefer it warm.

For a different fruit flavor, apple pear sauce uses ripe pears, while apple peach sauce uses peaches with their pits removed. The plain peel-on applesauce keeps the batch entirely apple-based. Each has its own quantities and card.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I Use Dried Apricots?

Use ripe fresh apricots for this recipe, or chunks prepared and frozen from that fruit. Dried apricots contain much less water and do not replace the fresh-fruit weight in this card.

Do I Leave The Apricot Skin On?

Yes. Wash it well and remove the pit, then cook the skin with the fruit. The softened peels are blended after cooling. The apple peels stay on too, while the apple cores and seeds are removed.

Why Is The Sauce Tart?

The apples and apricots determine the flavor. Tart fruit makes a tarter sauce, since there is no added sweetener. Choose ripe apricots and the apple varieties you enjoy before starting the batch.

Can I Double The Batch?

The 2× card gives ten to twenty pounds of apples, four to ten pounds of apricots and one cup of water across two cooker loads. Use half a cup of water per load and keep the same fill limit. With one cooker, plan successive runs and additional 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, optional apple corer, cutting board, wooden spoon or silicone spatula, measuring cup and shallow containers handle the rest.

The upcoming Jar & Freezer Labels will help keep the apple apricot portions distinct from raw frozen fruit and your other fruit sauces. Find upcoming resources in the WFLI shop. Mark the fruit combination, preparation date and amount on each finished portion.