Easy Homemade Plum Sauce (Only 1 Ingredient)

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The easiest and most delicious way to use up extra plums. When our fruit trees are producing, this easy plum sauce is my go-to way to prepare and preserve plums to enjoy them all year long!

It’s no secret that growing, harvesting, and preserving food is a lot of work. So, I’m always looking for ways to create recipes that preserve the harvest in a way that we both enjoy eating, but is doable in our full days. Many canning recipes out there are time consuming, but this plum sauce is such a quick and easy way to use up a lot of plums with very little hands-on time.

This is the plum variation of the apple sauce, roasted tomato sauce, and peach sauce that are all staples in our home.

Plum Sauce Variations

If you look up plum sauce on the internet, most of the recipes that come up are for a savory, Asian plum sauce with added ingredients like garlic, onion, ginger, soy sauce, and chili sauce. A delicious sweet and savory sauce used for Asian dishes.

But plum sauce can also be used in sweet applications. Add a little bit of sugar, honey, or maple syrup, and maybe some spices like cinnamon or clover, for a delicious topping on yogurt, ice cream sundaes, or an addition to baked goods.

I like to make this very simple, 1 ingredient plum sauce, with the only ingredient being the fresh plums because it’s so versatile. You can eat it as is, or easily turn it into a sweet or savory version later, depending on what your needs are.

What Do You Need to Make Plum Sauce?

As far as ingredients, there’s only 1—fresh, ripe plums.

Equipment wise you could slow cook this either in a crock pot or on the stove, or in the oven in a large Dutch oven.

A high-powered blender, like a Vitamix, is also needed to puree the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture.

How to Make Homemade Plum Sauce

Gather all of your plums and remove pits. If you have free stone plums, this will be easy. But, if your plums, like ours, are not free stone, this will require a little more work.

To do this I just cut in half and ideally the pit would fairly easily pull from the flesh and then all of the flesh, skins, and juice would go into the crock pot or Dutch oven.

After the pot is full of plums, slow cook the plums. I like to do this on low for 8+ hours if using a crock pot. In our Dutch oven, we cook it in the oven at 200°F for 8+ hours. Another option would be to simmer the plums on the stove top over low heat.  

The longer you cook it for, the more concentrated and intense the flavors become. Cooking for longer also generally leads to a thicker sauce (or some may call it plum butter).

Once the plums have been slow cooked, scoop out the plums and juice into the container of a high-powered blender.

Blend it all together until completely smooth.

From there, if you are looking to preserve the plum sauce long term, can the sauce in either a water bath canner or pressure canner.

Skin or No Skin

This is a personal preference, but I am always on team skin on when it comes to fruit. And in this recipe, once the sauce is blended until smooth, the skin completely disappears into the smooth, creamy texture of the sauce.

The 2 reasons I prefer to leave the skins on are:

1. It makes it WAY faster and easier.
2. There are a ton of nutrients in the skin. Plum skins are a rich source of antioxidants, such as anthocyanins. It’s also a good source of other beneficial compounds like polyphenols and extra vitamins. 

Homemade Plum Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

– Plums (as many as you have or will fill a slow cooker)

Directions:

1. Pit plums and place all of the resulting skin, juice, and flesh in a Crock Pot or Dutch oven.

2. Slow cook on low for 8+ hours in a crock pot. If doing in the oven, cook at 200°F for 8+ hours, or simmer on the stovetop.

3. Scoop all flesh, juice, and skins into the container of a high-powered blender and blend on high until you get a smooth, creamy consistency.

4. From there, store in jars or can if you are looking to store the plum sauce long term.

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For more food preservation recipes:

Sugar Free Tomato Sauce
Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate
No Peel Applesauce

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