An Unexpected Brand Makes Our All-Time Favorite Applesauce

If there's one food that screams autumn, it's apples. Apples can be found in all kinds of classic recipes, ranging from a drinkable hot spiced apple cider to a slice of classic apple pie fresh out of the oven. Or, you could enjoy your apples mashed into a tasty applesauce — the ideal snack for packing into kids' school lunches or enjoying in the afternoon.

While many apple sauces are perfectly edible, if you're after the best of the bunch, there's one brand that stands out. Daily Meal taste-tested 10 store-bought apple sauces, and while Mott's might be one of the better-known brands, the one that takes the crown as the best flavored and textured snack is Good & Gather's Homestyle Applesauce. This snack can be found at Target for a pretty reasonable price and is sold in both 4-packs of snack cups and larger jars for serving a bigger crowd.

The best thing about this Target-brand applesauce is that it achieves the perfect balance of flavor. While it's definitely a sweet taste that first hits the tongue, you'll still find tart nuances shining through in the sauce. While the brand doesn't list the exact variety of apples used to make the sauce, when you take a spoonful, Honeycrisp is the kind that comes to mind.

Beyond the flavor, this applesauce also has a smooth texture. It's not lumpy, but it's also not too watery. That means it works well for eating as a snack but can also be used to bring out flavors in meat dishes such as a traditional pot roast.

Finally, the short ingredients list also alludes to the quality of this sauce. It's made quite simply of apples, sugar, water, and just a bit of ascorbic acid to give it the golden color most of us associate applesauce with. The simple ingredients list allows the apple flavor to take center stage and keeps your meal free of additives, allergens, and unwanted chemicals.

While Good & Gather's homestyle applesauce is Daily Meal's favorite, that's far from the brand's only offering. You can also pick up a delicious unsweetened version of the sauce. This option allows for the flavor of the fruit to shine through even more and contains 11 grams of sugar as opposed to the 20 grams in the homestyle version. It's still got the same smooth texture, however, and once again comes in both handy snack packs, as well as in a larger 26-ounce jar.

Apart from the unsweetened version, you can also get a cinnamon variety of this particular applesauce. The cinnamon option is actually slightly sweeter than the original, containing 23 grams of sugar. However, this helps to balance out the warming spices in it, creating a bite that's reminiscent of apple pie. It also has a darker, reddish color to it, thanks to the spices in it. Whether you go for the unbeatable original or try one of these alternative versions, you're bound to be surprised by just how good Good & Gather's applesauce is.