Parents have daunting tasks in the fall. They have to get their children up and out of the housein time for schoolevery morning. They have to figure out this year's hottestHalloweencostume. And perhaps most stressful of all (not really), they have to find the right applesauce.
That's harder than it seems, because the sheer volume of applesauce brands available at the market is overwhelming. In our recenttaste testto find the best among them, we sampled no less than 28 varieties from 17 different brands.
Luckily, we found one way to narrow down the field pretty quickly. Tasting "unsweetened" and "no sugar added" varieties next to "homestyle" and "original" options, it became clear that any applesauce with added sugar should be avoided at all costs. Every sample in this category, no matter how "natural" that sugar source was, tasted shockingly, cloyingly sweet.
The good news is, most brands offer wonderful unsweetened varieties. To find them, check the ingredients list: the only thing you want listed is apples (and perhaps apple purée, water, and lemon juice or ascorbic acid—a.k.a. vitamin C, which is used to retain color).
Our favorite applesauce was not just unsweetened but also organic. However, I must say upfront thatVermont Village Organic Applesaucedoesnottaste like a typical applesauce (more on why below). If you're a traditionalist, go for our runner-up, which is almost as delicious.
For our methodology and the full list of applesauces we tasted, scroll to the bottom of the page. First up, the rankings!
Our Favorite Applesauce: Vermont Village
Right away we could see that this applesauce was different from the rest, as it's darker in color than most brands. Many wondered if that meant it was flavored with something, especially after tasting it and comparing its delicious complexity to the applesauces around it. But no—Vermont Village only contains "organic apples, organic apple purée, and vitamin C." (That last ingredient is a preservative found in practically every brand we tried.)Andrew Spenacompared the flavor to "the sticky filling that spills out of an apple pie and caramelizes on the tin." That's not to say it's more sugary than the other unsweetened brands, but it does have a robust cooked-apple quality to it—while still somehow tasting fresh and lively, with a lemony finish.
The Best Traditional Applesauce: Tree Top Organic
这么多的苹果酱在我们的名单是水分ry, mealy, or just downright boring. Tree Top surpassed all of these pitfalls. It has an exceptional—almost creamy—texture and is full of bright, earthy fruit flavor that's not quite as robust as our winner. Tasters who preferred a fresher-tasting applesauce, likeLauren Joseph, praised Tree Top's "smooth, mellow tang," and actually ranked it higher than our winner due to Vermont Village's more overtly cooked quality.
