Making your own cranberry sauce is simple and delicious.
And it’s a great winter immune system booster.
Getting hold of the cranberries, on the other hand, can be more of a challenge!
If you can’t find fresh cranberries, dried will work fine – just reduce the sugar a bit, as they’re usually already sweetened. We’ve included recipes here for both options.
Just bear in mind that dried cranberries are often already sweetened, so be cautious about how much extra sugar you add, or it could be overly sweet.
The point of this sauce is that it’s sweet enough to eat, whilst still being tart.
Ingredients Serves 6
Grated rind and juice of 1 orange
5 tablespoons port (optional) – substitute more orange, if not using port
350g fresh / frozen / dried cranberries
150g – 200g caster sugar (to taste)
½ teaspoon grated cinnamon
1 apple, peeled and grated
Fresh / Frozen Cranberries
1. Put all the ingredients in a pan – only use 2/3 of the sugar at this stage.
2. Heat gently until the sugar has melted. Cover and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes, until the cranberries have released their juices and the sauce has started to thicken.
Note: the cranberries will probably split. This is ok.
3. Check for sweetness and add more sugar if you need to. Only cook for long enough to dissolve the sugar and thicken the sauce.
Dried Cranberries
1. Wash the cranberries in a bowl of hot water, to remove any oil coating. Drain.
2. Put the cranberries and orange juice with 100ml water in a pan. Cover and simmer very gently for 10 minutes, until the cranberries are starting to plump up.
3. Leave, covered, for an hour. This allows the cranberries to rehydrate.
4. Then add the ¼ of the sugar, cinnamon, port and apple and simmer for 15 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.
5. Check for sweetness and add more sugar, if necessary.
I live near the cranberry capital of Wisconsin and I thought you might be interested in my:
Quick Cranberry Relish
In a food processer chop 1 bag frozen cranberries, 1 orange, (with the skin on), and 1/2 cup pecans. Very good with pork. Come enjoy Cranfest every September in Warrens!!!
Oh wow. This sounds so good. I live in Japan and can’t get fresh cranberries, but I can can dried, so I’m definitely going to make this for Christmas! I’ll let you know how it goes.
By the way, I have a toddler and baby, too! They keep you hopping, don’t they.
Abigail – great to have community in Japan! Can’t wait to hear how you get on with the recipe – do send us a picture. Clare’s kids are certainly a couple of beautiful live wires, for sure, and I know they keep her hopping, jumping, skipping and running. I have a cat, and that’s enough for me right now! How do you find it, cooking for the little ones?
Well, my toddler son is not a big eater, but he does love rice, rice, and more rice (it’s a good thing we live in Japan)! And rice would not be complete in his book without nori – flattened dried seaweed. He adores fruit, too, but he’s not big into green veggies very much yet.
I have finally posted about how I made and used this lovely cranberry sauce – http://mamatouille.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-cheesecake-with-sloshed.html.
This is DEFINITELY going in my make-again list.
[...] you have tonight Seems you can Babsgood, just reduce the sugar. Hmmm I love cranberry sauce. Cranberry Sauce Recipe VegBox Recipes Blog __________________ [...]
Glad to see I’m not the only one in Japan and trying to make holiday meals. Just made this for thanksgiving. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
Given it a run in France, it already smells great. We’ll see how it turns out.
It turned out great, very good
After finally finding dried cranberries (for about $10 no less!) here in Colombia I am eagerly anticipating how delicious this sauce will be. mmmm.
[...] also made cranberry sauce from rehydrated crasins (VegBox), applesauce, and gluten-free cornbread. The cornbread almost didn’t happen because my limited [...]
[...] Cranberry Sauce: So all we could find were dried cranberries at this ridiculously overpriced store in the north, srsly, they were about $10 a pop! [...]