Homemade Apple Fruit Leather from Applesauce

If you already have homemade applesauce on hand, you’re only a few steps away from one of the easiest homemade snacks: apple fruit leather!

After making a big batch of homemade applesauce from our apples, I wanted to use some of it for something besides simply putting jars on the pantry shelf. Fruit leather was an easy choice.

It requires almost no extra work, uses ingredients I already have, and my entire family loves it. When I say the entire family, I mean the adults too. These little fruit leather rolls disappear surprisingly fast around here!

Best of all, you don’t need any special fruit leather trays. I simply spread the applesauce onto parchment paper, put it in the dehydrator, and when it’s finished, I cut the parchment and fruit leather together into strips. Roll them up, tuck them into a mason jar, and you’ve got an easy grab-and-go snack.

Start With Homemade Applesauce

For this batch, I used some of my homemade applesauce made from a mixture of Honeycrisp, Gala, and Golden Delicious apples.

How to Water-Bath Can Homemade Applesauce

Using homemade applesauce is especially nice because you already know exactly what’s in it. Plus, if you’re processing a large amount of apples during apple season, turning some of that applesauce into fruit leather gives you another preservation option besides canning.

You can use freshly made applesauce for this or open a jar you’ve already canned.

What You Need

This one is about as simple as it gets:

Applesauce
Parchment paper
Dehydrator
Dehydrator trays
Kitchen scissors
Mason jar for storage

That’s it!

If your applesauce is already sweetened or seasoned with cinnamon, there’s no need to add anything else. Plain applesauce works beautifully too.

How to Make Apple Fruit Leather

1. Prepare Your Dehydrator Trays

Cut parchment paper so that it fits your dehydrator trays.

2. Spread the Applesauce

Pour your applesauce directly onto the parchment paper.

Spread it into a relatively even layer, approximately 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Try to keep the edges slightly thicker than the center since the edges tend to dry faster.

You don’t need to make it perfect. That’s part of the beauty of homemade fruit leather!

3. Dehydrate

Place the trays into your dehydrator and set it to approximately 135°F.

Drying time will vary depending on the thickness of your applesauce, the amount of moisture in it, your dehydrator, and the humidity in your home.

Start checking around the 6-hour mark, although it may take closer to 6–10 hours or longer.

The fruit leather is finished when it feels dry and leathery but is still flexible. It shouldn’t feel wet or sticky when you touch the center.

4. Cut Into Fruit Leather Strips

Here’s my favorite part because it makes storing these incredibly easy.

Leave the fruit leather right on the parchment paper.

Use kitchen scissors to cut the fruit leather and parchment together into strips. Then simply roll each strip up with the parchment still attached.

You now have individual fruit leather rolls without needing plastic wrap between every piece.

5. Store in a Mason Jar

Place your rolled fruit leathers into a clean, dry mason jar and keep them somewhere cool and dry.

I love being able to reach into the jar, grab a roll, peel the fruit leather away from the parchment, and have a quick homemade snack.

And don’t assume these are just for the kids. The adults in our house reach for them too!

I made a few jars full so I vacuum sealed some.

A Few Fun Variations

Once you know how easy fruit leather is to make, you can experiment with your applesauce before putting it into the dehydrator.

Try adding:

Cinnamon
Apple pie spice
A little maple syrup
Strawberry or raspberry puree
Peach puree
A tiny sprinkle of nutmeg

Apple cinnamon would be especially good for fall!

Why I Love Making Fruit Leather

I love finding different ways to preserve the same harvest.

A big batch of apples doesn’t have to become 60 pounds of the same thing. Some can become applesauce, some can be freeze-dried, some can go into baked goods, and some of that applesauce can become fruit leather.

It’s also a good way to use an already-preserved food in a completely different way. Instead of buying boxes of individually packaged fruit snacks, we can pull a homemade fruit leather roll straight from a mason jar.

Simple, homemade, and actually something everyone wants to eat, and that’s a win around here.