Mott’s Applesauce is one of the most popular applesauce brands in America. Odds are you had plenty of cups of their applesauce when you were a child at school. If you have a child of your own now, maybe you want to give them a relatively healthy snack without having to worry about a gluten reaction. Or maybe you’ve just started to wonder whether your favorite applesauce is really gluten-free or not.
Mott’s Applesauce is gluten-free. But that’s also true of most applesauce products. This includes any flavor of Mott’s Applesauce, and most applesauce products in general. When you look on the back, you’ll find no trace of gluten, wheat, or any other gluten-related product. The best gluten-free applesauce alternative to Mott’s is Thrive Market Organic Applesauce.
Let’s take a deeper dive into Mott’s Applesauce and see what’s really included in each saucy serving. We will also discuss other gluten-free alternatives. Let’s dig in!
What Goes Into Applesauce
Applesauce is a very old culinary invention. At its core, it’s just a bunch of apple slices peeled and then boiled in order to make a tasty, easy to chew and digest sauce. Depending on the recipe, you can add spices like cinnamon or sugar to enhance or change the flavor of the resulting sauce. Applesauce is popular with kids since it is sugary and sweet, and parents usually love to give it to them as a snack since it isn’t real candy.
Mott’s Applesauce is relatively basic, even if its core applesauce products also include tons of sugar. The main Applesauce offering from Mott’s only has three ingredients in total: apples, high fructose corn syrup, and ascorbic acid (which contains a little bit of vitamin C).
That basic formula doesn’t really have room for something like gluten, which is a good thing for folks with gluten sensitivities!
Why Gluten Isn’t Needed in Applesauce
Gluten is usually a binding agent. Take standard bread, for example. In bread, gluten traps the gas bubbles that arise during the fermentation process. Depending on how much gluten a given bread type has, that will impact its texture, flavor, and even appearance.
Gluten is sort of like glue that holds different molecules together. But this stickiness is also at the heart of celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. Many people can’t digest gluten very efficiently, and the sticky gluten can build up in their digestive tracts over time.
But you don’t need stickiness when you make applesauce. In fact, you want applesauce to be relatively mushy and easy to separate. So the majority of applesauce manufacturers won’t include gluten… except for one possibility.
You see, some sugar byproducts use glucose derived from wheat or other gluten-based products. Fortunately, this isn’t the case with Mott’s Applesauce. But it’s something to look out for if you shop around for other applesauce brands.
Mott’s Applesauce Nutrition Facts
To better understand just how basic Mott’s applesauce products are, let’s take a detailed look at the nutrition facts and ingredient lists in several of the brand’s most popular applesauce cups.
Mott’s Applesauce
Mott’s Classic Applesauce is its original product and it lacks gluten-related ingredients. In fact, it’s one of the better snacks for yourself or your children thanks to its basic ingredient list. That said, there are applesauce brands that have less sugar per serving than Mott’s.
Its ingredients are:
- Apples
- High fructose corn syrup
- Ascorbic acid
Nutrition Facts:
- 60 cal per serving
- 5 mg sodium
- 16 g carbohydrate or 6% DV
- 1 g fiber or 4% DV
- 14 g sugar
- 9 mg vitamin C or 10% DV
- 70 mg potassium or 2% DV
Mott’s Strawberry Applesauce
You might also be interested in Mott’s strawberry-flavored applesauce, which has many of the same ingredients with a few flavoring elements added. Note that none of these flavors have any gluten or are derived from gluten-based products.
Its ingredients include:
- Apples
- High fructose corn syrup
- Water
- Strawberry purée
- Natural flavors
- Ascorbic acid
- Red 40
Nutrition Facts:
- 90 cal per serving
- 23 g carbohydrate or 8% DV
- 1 g fiber or 4% DV
- 21 g sugar or 24% DV
- 9 mg vitamin C or 10% DV
- 70 mg potassium or 2% DV
Mott’s No Sugar Added Applesauce
Mott’s makes a line of “no sugar added” applesauce flavors, which only includes the sugar that naturally comes with the apples used in their products. This classic option is also gluten-free, making it great for parents who want to make sure their kids eat healthily and avoid gluten.
Its ingredients include:
- Apples
- Ascorbic acid
Nutrition Facts:
- 40 cal per serving
- 5 mg sodium
- 10 g carbohydrate or 4% DV
- 1 g fiber or 4% DV
- 8 g sugar
- 9 mg vitamin C or 10% DV
- 70 mg potassium or 2% DV
Mott’s No Sugar Added Granny Smith Applesauce
This Mott’s Applesauce flavor uses Granny Smith apples and apple purée to create a unique applesauce with a distinct flavor.
Its ingredients include:
- Apples
- Granny Smith apple purée concentrate
- Water
- Natural flavors
- Assorted acid
Nutrition Facts:
- 40 cal per serving
- 5 g sodium
- 10 g hydrate or 4% DV
- 1 g fiber or 4% DV
- 8 g sugar
- 9 mg vitamin C or 10% DV
- 70 mg potassium or 2% DV
Healthy Gluten-Free Alternatives to Mott’s Applesauce
While Mott’s Applesauce might be gluten-free and generally healthy, it’s also a bit sugar-heavy and you may not necessarily want to give it to your kids or eat it yourself. If that’s the case for you, good news; there are lots of healthy gluten-free alternatives to Mott’s Applesauce. Let’s take a look at some of those alternatives in detail.
Thrive Market Organic Applesauce
Thrive Market tries to provide organic alternatives for all kinds of foods, including applesauce. This particular applesauce comes with no added sugar or sweeteners, it’s low-sodium, and it’s even vegetarian and vegan friendly. In short, it’s one of the healthiest applesauce products you can purchase.
Its ingredients are:
- Certified organic apples, that’s it!
Nutrition Facts:
- 90 cal per serving
- 25 mg sodium or 1% DV
- 22 g carbohydrate or 8% DV
- 3 g fiber or 11% DV
- 15 g sugar
- 1 mg iron
This is probably the closest you’ll get to “traditional” applesauce made without any added ingredients or special spices.
Good & Gather Organic Applesauce
Good & Gather is one of the best brands if you’re looking for organic and vegan-friendly foods or toppings. So it’s no surprise that this brand’s organic and unsweetened applesauce is an excellent choice, especially if you want to avoid eating applesauce with way too much sugar as part of its formula.
Its ingredients are:
- Organic apples
- Water
- Ascorbic acid
Nutrition Facts:
- 50 cal per serving
- 10 mg sodium
- 12 g carbohydrate or 4% DV
- 1 g fiber or 4% DV
- 11 g sugar
- 2% DV of potassium
GoGo Squeez Applesauce
GoGo Squeez Applesauce has more sugar than the above two alternatives, but still less than Mott’s Applesauce in general. So if you like your applesauce to have some added sugar, just not as much as what you find in Mott’s Applesauce, GoGo’s sauce could be a better pick.
Its ingredients are:
- Apples
- Apple purée concentrate
- Lemon juice concentrate
Nutrition Facts:
- 70 cal per serving
- 16 g carbohydrate or 5% DV
- 3 g fiber or 12% DV
- 13 g sugar
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Mott’s Applesauce – and most other applesauce brands – are gluten-free by definition. Applesauce simply doesn’t usually use gluten, wheat, or bread at all. However, Mott’s Applesauce is pretty sugary. Keep this in mind when giving the applesauce to your children and consider trying their No Sugar Added Applesauce flavors for slightly healthier alternatives.
Related Questions
Is gluten normally found in applesauce?
No, not normally. Remember, basic applesauce like the kind you can make at home is essentially just sliced apples boiled down with any spices or flavorings you want to add. For example, one easy, at-home recipe for applesauce calls for several apples mixed with cinnamon after boiling. That’s all. Since apples and many traditional spices don’t have gluten, you don’t normally have to worry about gluten being in your applesauce products.
Is applesauce healthy?
That depends on the brand and how much sugar is added. As you can see from many of the most popular Mott’s Applesauce varieties, a single serving includes about a quarter of your daily recommended amount of sugar. If you already eat a sugar-heavy diet, applesauce may not be the best choice unless you make it at home yourself. On the other hand, Mott’s Sugar-Free Applesauce flavors are a lot healthier since they don’t include additional and unnecessary sugar.