Amish Peach Butter Recipe – Freeze or Can!

When I was a kid, “Amish” was synonymous with “extra tasty.” My mom made this Amish Baked Oatmeal recipe all the time. It’s basically dessert for breakfast, especially when topped with peaches and brown sugar. This Amish peach butter recipe has all the end-of-summer flavor you want, with only 90 minutes of cook time.

The secrets that make this Amish peach butter recipe the best

The first secret to this peach butter is cooking whole peaches – pits, skins and all. The pits and skins contain a ton of flavor, and *bonus* you don’t have to waste time peeling, pitting, or using a food mill. After the first 30 minutes of cooking, just remove the pits and blend in the skins! I use this immersion blender to make it super easy.  

The other “secret” is apple cider vinegar, which seems to be missing from a lot of modern fruit butter recipes. Vinegar may seem like a strange addition, but the right amount will dramatically improve the flavor (and the shelf life!) of your fruit butter. 

Why I don’t use a crock-pot for peach butter

Unlike apple butter, peach butter doesn’t benefit from a long, slow cook. Apple butter can cook for an entire day to get to the right consistency! But in my recipe testing, the sugars in the peaches became bitter the longer it cooked.

In the spirit of simplicity, this Amish peach butter recipe is lightly sweetened and spiced so the peach flavor shines. You can always add more spices or sugar to taste! And after cooking, you can either freeze or can this recipe for savoring long into the winter months.

Ways to use Peach Butter

Peach butter on toast, especially homemade sourdough toast, is one of the undisputed best things in life. However, you can use peach butter in a variety of other creative ways, like:

• in homemade peach buttermilk ice cream (with no eggs!)
• to add fruity dimension to barbecue sauce
• as a homemade gift that people can
• on a cheeseboard – this peach butter pairs super well with Brie or Fontina cheeses

Do you have any other creative uses for peach butter? Let me know in the comments!

Amish Peach Butter Recipe

Pure peach flavor, with just the right amount of sugar and spice. 

• Author: Abbi Page

Ingredients

4 lbs ripe peaches (they should be soft and smell amazing)

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 cups brown sugar, sucanat or sweetener of your choice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Wash peaches, then roughly chop or even just break them apart with your hands and put them in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottom pot over medium heat (pits and all!). Add water, cover the pot and let it cook for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, stir and break up the peaches a bit. Continue to simmer for 30 more minutes. Remove peach pits, then blend peaches and skins with an immersion blender or in a high-speed blender or food processor. Simmer for 15 more minutes, then add sugar, nutmeg and apple cider vinegar.

 

Canning

Place canning lids in warm water for 5 minutes to soften the rubber seal. Fill sterilized, hot half-pint jars with hot peach butter, leaving 1/2 inch of space at the top. Seal (don’t tighten the ring too much) and bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place a small rack or tea towel inside your pot so the jars aren’t sitting directly on the bottom surface, then add your jars in and process for 8 minutes. Use a jar lifter to remove from boiling water and set them on a tea towel on the counter. Don’t worry about removing water, tightening the rings, or anything like that – you want to let the jars finish sealing completely on their own. As the jars cool, they’ll vacuum seal and you’ll hear a “pop” as the center of the lid is sucked down. After 24 hours, if any cans are still unsealed, put them in the fridge and use that peach butter first.

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