Cranberry sauce is incredibly simple to prepare and makes a wonderful accompaniment to turkey or chicken dishes. Here’s how to make your own fresh cranberry sauce in just a few minutes.
This recipe can be halved if you prefer a smaller batch.
Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe
You’ll Need
4 cups cranberries
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
In a medium saucepan combine sugar & water, bringing it to a boil over medium heat.
Boil for 5 minutes.
Add the fresh cranberries and boil without stirring until the berries pop; (approx 5 minutes). Remove from heat, pour into a serving dish, cool and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.
It would be considered totally bizarre to go to someone’s house for dinner and not find some form of cranberry sauce on the table. It has become so common, it’s basically expected.
However, this common condiment can be changed up quite easily! There are so many ways you could make your own cranberry sauce that it would never get old; here are just a few delicious variations:
* Cranberry-Ginger Sauce – Grate about 1 inch of fresh ginger into a pan of boiling water then add 2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen) and simmer until they pop (about 10 minutes). Strain out the cranberries, finely chop the ginger and return to the pan. Stir in 1/2 cup sugar (you can add more if you like) until it dissolves, then squeeze in 1 lime’s juice.
* Cranberry-Chocolate Sauce – Melt 100g dark chocolate with 2 tbsp of butter, then stir in 3 tbsp of maple syrup or honey along with 250 ml of fresh or frozen cranberries. Simmer for 5 minutes before mashing the cranberries into a chunky sauce. Serve warm over vanilla ice cream!
* Cranberry-Orange Sauce – Make this version just as you would the classic red jelly but use orange zest instead of lemon zest, orange juice instead of water and rosemary instead of mint.
* Cranberry-Peach Sauce – Make this version just as you would the classic red jelly but use peaches instead of oranges, peach brandy or schnapps instead of cranberry juice and sage leaves instead of mint. Serve warm with turkey, chicken, pork… anything!
The cranberry sauce is fantastic! I have a slight variation that I like to use for Christmas, with slivers of orange. It is so much better than the kind in cans! It actually tastes like cranberries, not sugar.
What you need:
– 1 cup water
– 2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen)
– 1 orange (peeled and sliced thin)
– 8 tablespoons of brown sugar (I use 6 for a less sweet sauce but either works depending on preference or what you’re serving with it.)
Directions: Boil water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Add the cranberries and cook for 5 minutes. Add the sugar and oranges to the pan & stir well until the sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to low, cover, stirring occasionally. Simmer 15 or until thickened. Serve with turkey.
That’s it! If you’re using canned cranberry sauce, try this one next time to see how much better it is. Merry Christmas!