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A quintessential Thanksgiving recipe — the perfect Homemade Cranberry Sauce to pour all over your Roast Turkey!
Making your own cranberry sauce from scratch is so easy, and you can make it days ahead. With only THREE ingredients plus optional flavour suggestions… you’ll never want to buy store-bought again!
I can’t have a good Thanksgiving or Christmas without an incredible homemade Cranberry Sauce recipe! This is what my readers have been screaming at me through emails.
You asked — we delivered!
Cranberry Sauce
A classic sauce made from fresh or frozen cranberries, commonly served as a side with Thanksgiving dinnerthat seems to be forgotten about or preferred by many to grab a can from the store. However, homemade just doesn’t compare to anything in a jar or can.
Cranberries are tart and scream the need for sugar to balance out the sourness. The tartness never really disappears, which makes it the perfect sweet/tart sauce to serve with Turkey.
Some love it, some hate it. Others swear by it, believing wholeheartedly that thisis the perfect sauce for a holiday meal!
How To Make Cranberry Sauce
Just like making jelly or jam, our sauce is done in only a few easy steps:
Cook all ingredients together in a small pot Season with salt, fresh cracked black pepper, and/or a pinch of ground cinnamon if you wish.
For our recipe, we throw in a few whole cranberries right at the end once the sauce is nearly done. If you love the bursts of fruit, you will love this method!
What Do I Need To Make Cranberry Sauce?
Our recipe is quick to throw together, easy and uses only a handful of ingredients:
Brown sugar — or white granulated sugar. I find brown sugar creates the best flavour.
Orange juice — sub out the juice for water if you don’t like citrus flavours
Orange peel or lemon zest — both are optional but provide an even better flavour that pairs so well with cranberries. You could also add in 1-2 tablespoons of orange juice instead of using strips of peel or zest.
A pinch of salt and pepper
Optional add in’s: Pecans, cinnamon (ground or stick), nutmeg, all spice or finely chopped rosemary.
Is cranberry sauce supposed to be hot or cold?
Either! Some prefer to have it served fresh and warm, straight out of the pot, while others need it completely cooled down to enjoy the flavours. Personally, we prefer cooled sauce.
How long does homemade cranberry sauce last?
If stored in airtight jars or containers, sauce can be refrigerated for up to10 days.
Can I make it ahead?
Typically served chilled, our recipe can be made up to 3 days ahead. You may find the flavour has settled after two days, which makes it the perfect recipe to get started on ahead of time.
1strip orange rind or 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest(optional for added citrus flavour)
Instructions
Transfer 1/2 cup of cranberries a small bowl, set aside.
Cook remaining ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, while stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries are soft (about 10 minutes).
Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst (a further 10 minutes).
Reduce heat to low and stir in the reserved cranberries. Add in a couple tablespoons of extra water, if needed.
Adding a teaspoon or two of fresh lemon or orange zest, a tablespoon of chopped candied peel, or even a splash of juice to your canned sauce will brighten flavors and bring in some homemade flavor.
"Instead, start by stirring in one tablespoon maple syrup and one teaspoon of a sweet drink like apple juice, orange juice, or fruity white or red wine. Add more to taste. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt (in small amounts, it intensifies sweetness)."
One 12-ounce bag of cranberries makes about 2 1/4 cups of basic cranberry sauce—in my house, that's enough for about five people. Going the canned route? You'll need at least one can for six people.
Unopened canned cranberry sauce can last a year in the pantry but make sure to check the "best before" date to make sure it hasn't expired, and once open, it can be stored in a container with a tightly fitting lid for up to two weeks.
5,062,500 gallons of jellied cranberry sauce are consumed by Americans every holiday season. 70 million is the number of cans of cranberry sauce Ocean Spray produces a year.
Their sharp tang counteracts bitter flavors without having to add extra sugar. While citrus is a natural pairing for cranberry sauce, bright, savory vinegars like sherry vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and apple cider vinegar play well with the bitter-tart berries.
You may have added too much liquid to the cranberries. In addition to pectin, cranberries contain water, which means you only need to add a splash of liquid to get the cooking going. Add too much and you'll be stirring at the stove much longer than expected.
Jelling. Homemade cranberry sauce is meant to thicken, or “jell,” while cooking. If it stays soupy, that could mean a couple of things. One possibility is that you may not have used enough sugar: Sugar helps the sauce firm up, so be sure to use the full amount called for in a recipe.
But why? Ocean Spray says this is to get the cranberry sauce out in one intact piece. “The rounded part of the can that looks like the bottom has an air bubble in it,” Ocean Spray's representative explains. The bubble is there so you can “break the seal the sauce makes with the can.”
Why is my cranberry sauce so seedy? Cranberries do have seeds inside them. Sometimes, when using frozen cranberries, if it does not cook long enough, the seeds may not break down. This can cause the sauce to taste seedy.
Is cranberry sauce served warm or cold? It's up to you! We typically make this cranberry sauce recipe a few days before Thanksgiving, so that we can reserve our stovetop real estate for other things on turkey day. Because of that, it's usually cold from the fridge when we dish it up.
But that's not the case for prepared cranberry sauces, where prices are up. Lochner pointed out that processors set those prices, not growers, and that there are higher input costs unrelated to berries — like “processing the fruit and getting it to market.”
It's perfectly fine to serve up cranberry sauce — whole berry or jelled — straight out of the can. But in my experience, heating the canned sauce up takes its flavor to the next level. Plus, it becomes a little more aesthetically pleasing.
Cranberry sauce will last for two hours at room temperature. Homemade cranberry sauce will last in the fridge for 10 to 14 days. Canned cranberry sauce that has been opened will last up to a week in the fridge.
And this is why there are ridges on your canned cranberries. It's the cans Ocean Spray opted to use. The cans act as a mould, and as the cranberry jelly cooled, it forms into the shape of the can, ridges, and all.
Ocean Spray says this is to get the cranberry sauce out in one intact piece. “The rounded part of the can that looks like the bottom has an air bubble in it,” Ocean Spray's representative explains.
Regardless of a can's date, toss out any cranberry sauce cans that are leaky, rusted, bulging, or severely dented. If the top of the can is rounded instead of flat, the cranberry sauce has most likely gone bad. If you open the can and anything is brown or black, toss the can and its contents ASAP!
Introduction: My name is Mrs. Angelic Larkin, I am a cute, charming, funny, determined, inexpensive, joyous, cheerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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