14 Best Apple Recipes (Beyond Pie) (2024)

FAQs

What is the number one apple for pie? ›

Granny Smith apples are considered by many to be the "pie apples." They are known for their snappy tartness and ability to maintain their shape and texture when cooked. These are, no doubt, a terrific choice for apple pie — especially when combined with a sweeter, softer apple like Braeberns or Crispins.

For the best pies, crisps, and other baked treats, apples need to be firm enough to hold their own during the cooking process. We call these apples “baking apples” and to namedrop, they include Braeburn, Cortland, Honey Gold, Jonathan, Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Haralson, and Newtown Pippin.

You could also make applesauce, apple butter or apple jelly. You could put them in muffins, crumbles and cakes. You could layer them in sandwiches. You could roast them with sausages or toss them into kale salad.

There are a few apples that don't make the cut. While great for snacking, Gala, Fuji and Red Delicious are the most common apples that won't hold up in the oven and will give you a watery-mushy pie, tart or cake.

Red Delicious Apples

They've got more polyphenolic compounds than most other apples, with most of the nutrition in the skin – so be sure not to peel them before chowing down. Red Delicious apples contain more anthocyanidins that provide their color and powerful antioxidants.

The Golden Delicious is sweet, with a rich, mellow flavor. It is one of the best all-around cooking apples, as it maintains its shape after baking.

Honeycrisp (Sweet)

They're extra juicy and very crisp with a honey-sweet flavor that translates wonderfully into baked goods. AND they are the star of the show in my Honeycrisp apple sangria.

Honeycrisp: You might be able to tell by its name, but Honeycrisp apples are where it's at when it comes to loads of juiciness and honey-like sweetness! One unique feature of this sweet apple is its cells fracture perfectly when you take a bite out of it, resulting in the perfect crunch.

Butter: Dot the pie filling with small cubes of butter before applying the top crust. Why? It adds buttery richness and actually helps prevent the formation of bubbles on the filling's surface.

Crust dust is a 1:1 mixture of flour and granulated sugar. When baking a pie, especially a fruit pie, a couple of teaspoons of crust dust sprinkled into the bottom of the crust will help prevent the crust from becoming saturated with juicy filling as it bakes.

Should apples be precooked for apple pie? ›

Should you cook the apples before baking apple pie? You don't have to pre-cook the filling before spooning it into the pie crust, but it's a quick step I recommend. Just 5 minutes on the stove begins the softening process, and also helps the flavors start to mingle.

The short answer is yes, apples may be frozen whole and with virtually no effort. Washed and wrapped in plastic or sealed in Ziploc bags to freeze, there is no quicker route from orchard to freezer. It may be easy, but bear in mind the end result is an apple that is inconvenient when it comes time to use it.

My best apple pie would include a combination of these three: Cortland, for flavor; Russet, for texture; and Granny Smith, for its combination of the two.

Apple pie is arguably one of the most popular pie flavors. A symbol of America, the apple pie was actually invented by the British.