Growing up in our house, Thanksgiving was a big deal! Turkey, potatoes, vegetables… you name it, it was on our table. We couldn’t have Thanksgiving dinner without all the trimmings, including cranberry sauce!
Only, the sauce on our table wasn’t a sauce at all.
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It was more like a jello mold in the shape of a can sliced thin and laid on a plate. Which is exactly what it was.
Fast forward 30 or so years and my own foodie journey began researching and eliminating GMO’s, artificial flavors, colors and ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and carageenan. At our Thanksgiving table (present day) you will not find jellied slices of red 40 and high fructose corn syrup. NO! At our table you will find a bowl of creamy sweet cranberries, water and sugar. That’s right, three ingredients that are easy to pronounce and you may already have in your kitchen (one would hope). The best part about it is it will take about the same time to make as it does to drive to the store buy the can, come home, open and slice the jellied artificial version: about 15 minutes. The price is als0 comparable where as 12 oz. of fresh cranberries is $2.50 and an 8 oz. can of jellied cranberry sauce is $1.25, both on sale right now.
Here is my easy recipe I hope you try and let me know how it fairs in comparison to the canned stuff!
Rinse
Boil
Blend
Sweeten
DONE!
Easy Cranberry Sauce Recipe {from scratch with love}
Ingredients:
12 oz. fresh cranberries
3/4 water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Optional additional/substitutions
equal parts water and orange juice
replace 1/4 cup sugar with honey
Directions:
- Rinse cranberries, picking out mushy or unripe berries.
- Boil water
- Add cranberries, boil 5-10 minutes, until all split open
- Drain, strain, then blend OR do not drain or strain, simply use liquid immersion blender(my method) right in the pan.
- Bring back to a boil.
- Add sugar, stirring gently for 1 minute.
- Remove from heat, allow to cool and refrigerate up to 7-10 days.
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The great thing about this recipe is you can process in a hot water bath for canning and keep for a year!
Also, if you are the kind of person who needs the jello texture, you can easily add gelatin and voila! Jellied cranberry sauce.
Hey mama duck,
Great post!
I can wait to see next foodie fridays post!
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