Making Cranberry Sauce From Scratch
Step #1Put clean, whole cranberries into a large saucepan on the stove.
For each quart of cranberries you’re using, pour a heaping cup of sugar into the pan, along with a scant cup of water.
FYI: There’s no need to be exact with your measurements. Just shoot for roughly a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water. Close is good enough!Stir the contents of the pan gently to mix it all up …
Step #2Now, turn the stove burner on, set it to medium-high heat, and bring the mixture to a boil.
As your cranberries begin to boil, you’ll start to hear a popping noise – like the berries are exploding. Yep, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
* Fun Fact *
Inside perfectly formed, ripe cranberries there’s a tiny air pocket. As the berries heat up in your saucepan, their air pockets expand, and the berries explode. Thanks to those little air pockets, ripe cranberries also bounce like little superballs … all over your kitchen, if you happen to drop them. Major oops!
While your berries are cooking, give them a stir every now and then. In just a few minutes, the mixture will begin to thicken.
Yippee … it’s saucin’ !!
This is a good time to taste your cranberry sauce. If it’s not sweet enough for your liking, add a little more sugar and stir some more.
Step #3Now turn the heat down, and let your sauce simmer for a few more minutes.
Hint: After 15 minutes of the cooking time, your sauce should be the consistency of “sloppy” jam. Don’t worry – it’ll thicken a little more as it cools.
What Makes Cranberry Sauce On Top Of Turkey Taste So Good
Turkey is a savory dish, so adding a bit of cranberry sauce can really enhance the flavor profile. Lots of people enjoy adding the sauce directly on top of the turkey to balance out the flavors.
The perfect mixture of saltiness and sweetness is pleasing to the palette. When you add this tangy yet sweet sauce to turkey, it creates a fantastic balance of flavors that work well together naturally.
Sometimes, cooked turkey can end up tasting a bit dry. Cranberry sauce gives the turkey the perfect amount of moisture to make it a delicious multifaceted dish.
How Do People Eat The Canned Cranberry Jelly On Thanksgiving
If youve never made homemade cranberry sauce, youve probably had your share of canned cranberry jelly. This storebought version is quite tangy and comes premade in a tin can.
To serve the jelly at the Thanksgiving table, it must be cold in order to keep its shape. The jelly is removed from the can and then cut into slices for serving.
If you want to add some cuteness to canned cranberry jelly, use a cookie cutter to cut the slices into fun fall shapes. You can also spruce it up with some rosemary sprigs, candied ginger, or orange zest.
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How To Serve Cranberry Sauce
- Serve as a part of your holiday meal. Its the perfect Thanksgiving and Christmas side dish!
- Spread on some bread for a leftovers sandwich the day after your big meal .
- Create the perfect bite turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. YUM!
- Prepare it ahead of time, can it in mason jars, tie it with a bow, and give it to friends and family as a gift.
- Make it year-round and keep it in your fridge! This recipe pairs perfectly with any dish, especially grilled chicken and Brussels sprouts.
- Slightly warmed over some vanilla ice cream.
How To Make Cranberry Sauce: A Guide With Everything To Know
Easy, homemade cranberry sauce recipe that anyone can make! Its flavored with orange juice and fall spices and foolproof! Follow our How to Make Cranberry Sauce: A Guide With Everything to Know.
When it comes to the Thanksgiving holiday, nothing says tradition quite like the sweet yet tangy taste of cranberry sauce.
This delicious side dish has a storied history, and its a popular favorite to drizzle on top of your turkey.
If youre wondering more about this mysterious yet delicious holiday dish, read on to discover a few fun facts as well as how to make cranberry sauce at home.
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Nuts Chiles And Other Additions
Classic cranberry sauce satisfies the traditionalists in your clan, but going rogue is easy if youve got the urge. Here are some ideas for jazzing up the flavor and texture.
- Nuts and Fruit
-
Nuts add richness and crunch. Try pecans, walnuts, Brazil nuts, pine nuts, pistachios or whatever your heart desires. Toast them first, then add them within a few hours of serving so they dont lose their snap in the fridge.
Chopped dried fruit adds sweetness and a pleasant chewiness to cranberry sauce. Stir them into your sauce after it has cooked but while its still warm.
Dried cranberries, strawberries and cherries intensify the berry factor you dont need to chop them. Dried apricots and pears add color and a honeylike flavor slice into bite-sized pieces before stirring into the sauce. Candied ginger adds a gentle bite chop it finely before using so its well distributed into the sauce.
Figs and dates give cranberry sauce Mediterranean verve. Slice them before adding. You could also add a few drops of rose water or orange blossom water to the sauce as well.
On A Day Dedicated To All The Best Foods Around Why Settle For Canned Cranberries We’ll Show You How To Make Tasty Homemade Cranberry Sauce Fast
Thanksgiving is the ultimate foodie holiday. We spend days prepping the most anticipated meal of the year. Every table is set with a perfectly roasted turkey a mountain of delicious, homemade sides and beautiful, freshly baked pies. But atop every table, there always seems to be one outlier: that can-shaped mold of cranberry sauce.
After a marathon day of cooking, grabbing canned cranberries can seem like an easy shortcut. While it may do in a pinch, it isnt nearly as good as scratch made. Our expert Test Kitchen team is here to assure you that making your own cranberry sauce isnt a chore at all. In fact, its simple, quick and darn delicious. Best of all, you can prep the sauce several days in advance and check it off your list early.
To make the sauce, our Test Kitchen recommends starting with this simple recipe. Lets jump in.
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How To Make Your Own Cranberry Sauce
One of the best parts of this recipe is that its SO easy to throw together. Follow these four simple steps to learn make your own cranberry sauce at home:
How To Make Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Take a medium pot and add the water, sugar, salt, and fresh cranberries.
Set the pot on the burner and set the heat to medium. Stir occasionally until it starts to boil.
I want to point out that as the cranberries heat up they will split and pop, that is completely normal, so dont freak out when that happens.
Once the mixture comes to a boil, turn the heat down to medium-low and allow the cranberry sauce to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. This will allow it to thicken up.
With about 2 minutes to go, sprinkle in the cinnamon and mix it in.
Once the sauce is thick, you can remove it from the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature. It will be a deep purple color.
TIP: You can remove the easy cranberry sauce from the heat at any point between the 10 and 15-minute mark, it just depends on how thick you want it.
Once the homemade cranberry sauce has cooled you can put it in the fridge until ready to serve. This is an easy dish to make ahead of time.
When you want to serve it, you can serve it cold, or heat it up a bit. Enjoy!
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Recipe Using Fresh Cranberries
This fresh cranberry sauce has a hint of orange zest and orange juice which brightens this sauce wonderfully. The flavors of this cranberry sauce is fruity and fresh and the texture is something you can totally control yourself. Mash it down more or keep it chunky, you decide! And you can also control the amount of sugar too so you can customize the flavors to what ever you like.
You wont believe how easy and amazing this homemade recipe is! Geez, its ridiculous how just a few ingredients will make one of the freshest and most delicious Thanksgiving side dishes ever. If youre used to the canned cranberries because you dont like to cook, then please give this fresh cranberry sauce recipe a try. All it takes is a sauce pan and dump all the ingredients in at once. Cook the sauce until the cranberries start to pop and soften and thicken. Within a short time, youll taste the cranberry sauce and go WOW! Its delicious!! This sauce is also great on top of deserts and ice cream. Its actually amazing on vanilla or chocolate ice cream. So you might want to make and extra batch just for the deserts if you eat it all up with the turkey. Enjoy more holiday recipes here and appetizer recipes here.
This recipe was originally published in 2017 and re-published in 2020.
Tools To Make Quick Cranberry Sauce
I always have this section in my recipe posts, but there is only one special tool to make cranberry sauce that you may not have.
Zester This is the one tool that not everyone has. Youll need to zest your orange peel. Some box graters have a zesting side, but this is a good tool if you dont have one.
Measuring Cups I love these stainless steel measuring cups. They hold up really well and theyre easy to clean.
Pots I switched over to stainless steel pots years ago and I love them. You can make this recipe in a nonstick pot too.
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Making Jellied Cranberry Sauce From Scratch
Are you one of those folks who doesn’t care for “whole-berry” sauce? Here’s how to make homemade jellied cranberry sauce:
- In a large saucepan, combine a quart of fresh, whole cranberries along with 3/4 cup water and 1 cup sugar.
- Heat the mixture to boiling. Stir. Then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Taste, and stir in more sugar if you’d like a little more sweetness.
- Set a small-holed strainer over a large mixing bowl.
- Pour the cooked berries and juice into the strainer.
- With the back of a large spoon, press and smoosh the contents of the strainer until every last drop of delicious liquid has been released into the bowl.
- Stir the contents of the bowl, set aside, and let the liquid cool to room temperature.
- Cover and refrigerate your made-from-scratch jellied cranberry sauce until it’s time to serve.
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This Month’s
Homemade Cranberry Sauce Ingredients
Theres only five simple ingredients standing between you and the BEST homemade cranberry sauce:
- Fresh cranberries: You can find fresh cranberries in the produce section of your favorite grocery store around the holiday season, if not year-round. Inspect the bag to make sure the cranberries are brightly colored and firm. You dont want a lot that are brown or faded.
- Orange Juice: Fresh-squeezed is ALWAYS best when it comes to orange juice. For this recipe, youll need the juice of one whole orange.
- Orange Zest: The zest of an orange helps brighten this recipe and combat the sweetness.
- Water: This helps thin out the jam-like sauce while it cooks and reduces, and also helps it not burn.
- Light Brown Sugar: The sweet, light caramel flavor of light brown sugar compliments the tartness of the cranberries and orange without discoloring the sauce.
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How To Make Classic Cranberry Sauce
My moms loosely adapted version requires minimal prep time and has less sugar than the original , plus orange zest for a bit of zip. To make it, combine one 12-oz. bag fresh or frozen cranberries , ¾ cup granulated sugar , 1 cup water, 1 Tbsp. orange zest, and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the cranberries start to pop and get soft and jammythey should easily coat the back of the spoonstirring frequently so nothing sticks and burns at the bottom. This takes about 10 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the cranberry sauce cool to room temperature . You dont need to add any thickeneras they pop, the cranberries release their natural pectin, and as the sauce cools, it gels into the texture you know.
In my family, it has to be this basic version. Ive tasted all the gussied-up cranberry relishes, sauces, competes, and more, with various spices, infusions, and toppings. But to us, this simple, easy recipe is best. Put the rosemary and chile flakes on the vegetables and that fancy maple syruppecan topping on the pie. The best cranberry sauce requires no dressing up. And while, yes, you could certainly replace the water with fresh orange juice, apple cider, or some other flavorful liquid, Ive found that opting for anything more than HO dulls that bright cranberry flavor we love so much.
No One Will Know Your Cranberry Sauce Came From A Can If You Dress It Up A Little Follow Our Simple Tips To Learn How To Improve Canned Cranberry Sauce That Will Pair Perfectly With That Juicy Turkey
If canned cranberry sauce conjures images of a can-shape jelly blob sitting on a platter next to the Thanksgiving turkey, you’re not alone. It’s a nostalgic side dish for the holiday feast, sure, but it is actually delicious when added to sweet and savory dishes any time of the year. And while it’s pretty easy to make cranberry sauce from scratch, you might prefer just grabbing canned cranberry sauce instead. Before you go serving up slices of the jellied sauce or just dumping whole canned berry sauce in a bowl, we’ve got a few ways to really improve canned cranberry sauce.
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Would You Call This A Make
You can definitely make this cranberry sauce ahead of time. Store the cooled sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days pre-Thanksgiving or five days post-Thanksgiving . As for what to do with any leftover cranberry sauce: Using it as a spread for your day-after turkey sandwich seems a natural fit, but I did say it goes great with everything, didnt I?
How To Make Cranberry Sauce
Its so easy. Place cranberries, sugar, and water/orange juice in a pot with a cinnamon stick.
Bring to a simmer and stir. Simmer about 10 minutes. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate.
Easy right?!
- Water produces a more traditional flavor while orange juice makes it zestier.
- This cranberry sauce recipe will thicken as it cools.
- If youd like a smooth sauce, place the warm mixture into a mesh strainer and strain it into a bowl. Press the cranberries with a spoon to remove as much juice as possible.
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What Do I Need To Make Cranberry Sauce
This easy cranberry sauce recipe uses just a handful of real, whole ingredients:
Cranberry sauce is the perfect way to cut through the heaviness of a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and it adds a gorgeous pop of color and flavor to every bite. I hope you give this super easy recipe a try this holiday season!
Cranberry Sauce Swaps & Substitutions
- Stir in any of the following at the end of cooking: pecans, orange zest, raisins, currants, blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice.
- For a a stronger orange flavor, decrease the amount of water in the recipe to 1/2 cup and add 1/2 cup orange juice.
- For a reduced-sugar cranberry sauce, use half the amount of sugar called for, then taste and add more as needed. Also reduce the amount of water to 1/2 cup, adding more as needed if the sauce seems too thick.
- To make sugar-free cranberry sauce, substitute a sugar replacer like Splenda or Truvia for the sugar.
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Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe // Video
The easiest whole Cranberry Sauce ever. Sweet and tangy, this Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce recipe is ready in minutes and can be made up to a week in advance. Perfect for your holiday table and even better with Thanksgiving leftovers.
For many years, the only cranberry sauce I knew of was the kind shaped like a can. I LOVED it! It was like eating jelly out of a jar with a spoon. I didnt like it ON anything, I never was that person who mixed all their food together and covered every square centimeter of their plate with gravy. No way.
I was the kid with the divided plate.until I was 30. I didnt like my food to touch. I would even shoe it away with my fork if anything looked like it was about to merge with another food.
For that reason, I never really knew the joy of the After-Thanksgiving Sandwich the way I do now. And it all started with the canned cranberry saucebecause I knew no other. I was brave one day and mixed some of the cranberry sauce with some mayonnaise.next think I knew I was grilling my turkey sandwich with the cranberry mayo, stuffing and gravy. It was crazy! And ridiculously amazing! I lived on the edge back thencan you tell?
