Top 100 Apple Recipes: Pies, Crisps, Cakes, Sauces and Savory Dishes

The first decision in any apple recipe is the variety, and it matters more than people expect. For pies, crisps and anything baked where you want the slices to keep their shape and a tart edge, reach for firm, tangy bakers: Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Braeburn, Jonagold, Pink Lady and the old favorite Bramley (in the UK) all hold up in the oven instead of dissolving into mush. Mixing two or three varieties — say tart Granny Smith with sweeter Honeycrisp — gives a filling with both structure and depth.

For applesauce, apple butter and anything you want to collapse into a smooth purée, the opposite is true: softer, sweeter apples like McIntosh, Cortland, Fuji or Gala break down fast and need little or no added sugar. They are a poor choice for a pie, where they turn to slush and shrink away from the crust, but exactly right when the goal is a silky, spoonable sauce with minimal effort.

For eating raw — in slaws, salads and on a cheese board — prioritize crunch and a balanced sweet-tart flavor that will not brown too fast: Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Fuji, Gala and Braeburn all stay crisp and snappy. As a rule of thumb, tart-and-firm for baking, soft-and-sweet for saucing, crisp-and-balanced for raw. When a recipe just says "apples," let the method tell you which type it really wants.

The classic apple-pie failure is a soupy filling with a hollow gap between the apples and the top crust — the result of raw apples shrinking as they release water in the oven. The fix is to deal with that water before the pie goes in. Many bakers macerate the sliced apples in sugar and a little salt for thirty minutes to an hour, then drain off the liquid, reduce it on the stove with a knob of butter until syrupy, and toss it back through the fruit. You lose the excess water but keep the flavor.

A faster, very reliable route is to pre-cook the filling: sauté the spiced apples briefly until they just begin to soften and give up their juice, let them cool, then fill the crust. Pre-cooked apples have already done their shrinking, so the slices settle into a tight, level pack with no air gap, and the pie holds a clean slice. Either way, thicken the juices with a starch — cornstarch for a glossy, clear set, flour for a softer, more rustic one, or tapioca, which tolerates the heat best of all.

Spice and balance matter as much as texture. Cinnamon is the backbone, but a little nutmeg, allspice or cardamom adds depth, and a pinch of salt plus a squeeze of lemon keeps a sweet filling from tasting flat. Cool a baked pie or crisp for at least a couple of hours — ideally longer — before cutting; the starch needs time to set, and a pie sliced hot will always run. For crisps and crumbles, a higher ratio of buttery oat topping to fruit and a hot oven give you the crunchy, golden lid that defines the dish.

Applesauce is the easiest apple recipe there is: peel, core and chop soft, sweet apples, then simmer with a splash of water (and a strip of lemon peel or a cinnamon stick if you like) until they collapse, fifteen to twenty-five minutes. Mash for a rustic, chunky sauce or blend for a smooth one. Taste before adding any sugar — a good ripe apple often needs none — and brighten with a little lemon juice. Leaving the peels on while cooking and passing the sauce through a food mill gives extra color and pectin.

Apple butter is applesauce taken much further: the same purée cooked long and low — for hours on the stove or in a slow cooker — until the water drives off and the natural sugars caramelize into a thick, dark, spreadable spread the color of mahogany. The keys are gentle heat so the bottom does not scorch, frequent stirring as it thickens, and patience; you are looking for a butter so reduced that a spoonful mounds and holds its shape. Spices go in toward the end so they stay fragrant.

Baked apples are the whole-fruit version of comfort. Choose a firm baking variety that will hold its shape, core it without cutting all the way through so the filling stays put, and score a line around the middle so the skin does not split. Stuff the cavity with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, oats and chopped nuts or raisins, add a little liquid to the dish, and bake until the apple is tender and the filling is bubbling. Baste once or twice with the syrup that pools in the dish, and serve warm with cream or ice cream.

Cut apples brown because their flesh oxidizes on contact with air, and for raw uses — salads, slaws, snack plates — that discoloration is the main thing to manage. The simplest fix is acid: toss the slices in a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon (or any citrus), or in a splash of juice on their own. A little salt water works too. For a salad you are dressing right away, a vinaigrette with lemon or vinegar does double duty, so slice the apples last and dress them immediately.

Whether to peel is a flavor and texture choice. Skins add color, fiber and a slight chew, and they help applesauce set thanks to pectin, so leave them on for rustic sauces (then mill) and for crisps where you do not mind the texture. Peel for a smooth pie or a refined cake. To core efficiently, an apple corer or a melon baller makes quick work of whole baked apples, while quartering and cutting the core out with a knife is fastest for slices. Slice to an even thickness so everything cooks at the same rate.

Store whole apples in the coldest part of the fridge, ideally in the crisper drawer, where they keep for weeks — far longer than at room temperature, where they go mealy. Keep them away from other produce, as apples give off ethylene gas that ripens (and over-ripens) everything nearby. For longer storage, peeled slices freeze well tossed in a little lemon juice or sugar, ready to drop straight into a pie or crisp; and homemade applesauce and apple butter freeze beautifully for months.