Easy Cranberry Sauce | Swanky Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How to jazz up cranberry sauce? ›

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)."

Cranberry sauce can be served either as a gooey liquid or as a solid jelly. The jellied version is solid enough to retain the shape of the container in which it's placed whereas the sauce version is much more fluid. The difference between the fluid sauce and the jelly versions comes down to pectin.

Mix with cream cheese for a tasty topping on crackers and bagels! Dollop a spoonful on baked sweet potato in place of butter. Top off your yoghurt with a spoonful for extra fruity flavour! Swirl it into your cake batter for delicious marbled muffins.

Canned cranberry sauce is delicious on its own, but there are ways you can dress it up for any meal. Adding fruits like oranges or berries brings different flavors and acidity to the sauce. Folding in crushed nuts at the end adds texture variety.

Maple syrup, brown sugar and even honey can make your cranberry sauce more dynamic. And don't forget the spices! Cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, citrus zest and star anise all work well with cranberries and can be added while the sauce cooks to infuse your sauce with flavor.

Dear Evelyn: I had the same problem when I first started making my own cranberry sauce. I found out that you should cook them just until they pop. Further cooking will make them bitter, and once that happens, you need to start again.

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.

Cranberry sauce is supposed to be a balance of sweet and tart. The sauce acts as a cleansing port in a tumultuous storm of fat and salt, but the effect is lost if the sauce is too sweet. Luckily, there is a very easy way to fix an over-sugared homemade sauce: You just need a little citric acid.

The major variation you're likely to come across is "whole berry" versus "jellied." The only difference between them is that the jellied sauce is cooked until the berries have completely broken down. They both slide out of the can as a wobbly red cylinder.

What brand is the best cranberry sauce? ›

Best Jellied Cranberry Sauce: Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce. The Ocean Spray brand is pretty much synonymous with all things cranberry, so it's not really a surprise that they have their cranberry sauce dialed in.

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.” Ocean Spray isn't immune either.

I sweetened my juice with honey which adds a sweet floral touch to the beverage. I also use a couple of freshly squeezed oranges which gives the juice a nice hint of citrus flavor. I'm sure apple juice or apple cider would work well too. I think moving forward I'm going to call this drink cranade (like lemonade…).

The traditional way to serve canned cranberry sauce is to slice the cylinder into rounds and arrange them on a platter. Go a step further by adding a garnish like sugared rosemary or candied ginger. Or, cook the canned sauce with orange juice and zest for a citrusy take on a holiday standby.

Heat 2 cups of distilled water. In a tea pot, add the hot water, then 1/4 to 1/2 cup of unsweetened pure cranberry juice. You can sweeten this to taste in your individual cup after pouring. To sweetened, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of maple syrup or unsweetened apple juice or pineapple juice.

Health Benefits

Cranberries are also rich in vitamin C and fiber, as well as the metabolism-boosting mineral manganese. And yes, you reap all these benefits whether the cranberry sauce on your holiday table is homemade or canned, jellied or whole-berry.