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The Best, Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Homemade cranberry sauce is a must on every self-respecting Thanksgiving table. The flavor of homemade cranberry sauce is a welcome contrast to the richness that dominates the spread. This fresh cranberry sauce recipe is as classic and easy as can be. Orange juice compliments the cranberry’s assertive tartness and adds just the right amount of sweetness. We’ve added a hint of the warm spices that define the season—clove and cinnamon—as well as a dusting of brown sugar. You can also serve it with Thanksgiving Breakfast or on a holiday Cheese Board.
The Best Cranberry Sauce Ingredients
This is similar to our Cranberry Chutney, and totally different from our Cranberry Relish–It’s traditional, classic, easy and gorgeous. Here’s what you’ll need to make it:
Cranberries, fresh or frozen
Apple cider vinegar
Brown sugar
Cloves
Cinnamon
An orange
Vanilla extract
How To Make Cranberry Sauce
It only takes about ten minutes to make and it is seriously fool proof. If you’re hosting, you can get it done way ahead of time. If you’re being hosted, offer to bring the cranberry sauce! It’s always welcome. Here’s how to make cranberry sauce from scratch:
Pour everything into a saucepan.
Bring the cranberry sauce to a boil. Because of how quickly it’ll thicken, cranberry sauce has a tendency to splatter, so keep a close eye on it and stir it pretty often. It’s also a good ideal to use a bigger saucepan that you think you’ll need so the sauce has plenty of room.
Simmer over low heat until it looks the way you want it to—usually it’s ready in about ten minutes. Remember, it will continue to thicken and gel as it sits and cools, too.
How to Store Cranberry Sauce + Tips
Homemade cranberry sauce keeps for a long time in the fridge. In other words, it’s the Thanksgiving make-ahead recipe of your holiday hosting dreams.
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. However, if you make the cranberry sauce in the moment, it’ll be fine to serve it warm from the stove! It will thicken a bit as it cools, and that’s just fine.
What do you eat the cranberry sauce with? Everything! Truly, we put a big dollop in the middle of the plate with our Classic Mashed Potatoes and other Thanksgiving Sides. But traditionally, cranberry sauce is for the turkey. And of course, when it comes to making leftover turkey sandwiches or Turkey Hand Pies, the cranberry sauce is as essential as the mayo—in other words, extremely essential!
How do you make cranberry sauce thicker? Cranberries have a lot of pectin, which means that they’re naturally prone to thickening as they cook. In fact, in our experience, the issue with cranberry sauce isn’t achieving thickness or getting it to gel—rather, it’s more common to feel that the cranberry sauce has become too thick too fast because of all that pectin. If you do find that the sauce is more runny than you prefer, simply simmer it a bit longer to cook off a bit of the liquid. It should thicken up rather quickly.
Is cranberry sauce healthy? Yes! Cranberries are incredibly good for you—loaded with antioxidants and anthocyanins, vitamins and minerals. They’re a superfood, and they taste good, too.
Can you freeze cranberry sauce? Yes, you can freeze cranberry sauce! It’ll keep for up to a year in the freezer, but it’ll taste best if you use it within two months.
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