Homemade Cranberry Sauce

While it’s overlooked by some, cranberry sauce is a key player on my Thanksgiving plate, right alongside green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. Its sweet-tart flavor goes perfectly with everything from turkey to holiday breads and adds some much needed color to the classic holiday spread. While I understand the nostalgic appeal of the canned stuff, homemade cranberry sauce is 1,000x better. It's fresh, versatile, and so easy to make. All you need are 5 ingredients and 20 minutes to make this staple holiday side. Read on to discover how to make it the best it can be:

How To Make Homemade Cranberry Sauce

INGREDIENTS

• Sugar: It doesn’t get much tarter than cranberries—among fruit, only lemons and limes have more acidity—so I include a fair amount of sugar to round off their sharp edges.
• Cranberries: Either fresh or frozen will do—and there’s no need to thaw frozen cranberries before cooking. If buying fresh, look for deeply colored, firm berries, with no signs of bruising or shriveling.
• Orange Zest: Orange and cranberry were just made for each other. I love the way finely grated zest perfumes the cranberry sauce with aromatic orange oils.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

First, grab a small saucepan—but not just any saucepan! Make sure it’s either stainless steel or enameled cast-iron. Whatever you do, avoid aluminum, which will react with the copious acid in the berries, giving the sauce an unpleasant metallic taste. Add the sugar and 1 c. water and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Now add the cranberries and bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.

The beauty of cranberries is that (1) they readily burst and release their juices, and (2) their juices have so much natural pectin that the berries thicken nearly to jam in mere minutes. Ten minutes of simmering, with some occasionally stirring thrown in, is all the cooking required. Don’t sweat it if a small minority of the berries haven’t burst—they probably will by the time the sauce has cooled.

Stir in the orange zest and let the sauce cool; it will continue to thicken. And believe it or not, that really is all there is to it. What’s more, this is a Thanksgiving dish you can get off your plate up to 1 week in advance. Just transfer the cooled cranberry sauce to an airtight container and refrigerate until the big feast. Bonus: The flavors will continue to meld and deepen while it hangs out in the fridge.

Full list of ingredients and directions can be found in the recipe below.

Recipe Tips

• What to do with leftover cranberry sauce: Check out our list of the best things to do with leftover cranberry sauce. Some standouts include incorporating it into the salad dressing for leftover Thanksgiving salad, turning it into a cranberry-mayo slaw for Thanksgiving leftover tacos, or wrapping it into a tortilla with other leftovers, as in this Thanksgiving crunchwrap. Take inspiration from these and get creative.
• Fresh vs. frozen cranberries: Fresh cranberries aren’t always the easiest to find, so don’t worry—you can use frozen in this recipe. Fresh cranberries can be found in the grocery store about a month before Thanksgiving and hang around through Christmas. Frozen cranberries are available year-round and tend to be a little cheaper. Plus, they're picked at peak ripeness, so they're a great alternative to fresh.
• Missing the canned stuff? I get it, there’s something nostalgic about cranberry sauce from a can. Not only is it convenient, but it’s got a smooth texture some people can’t get enough of. (Unfortunately, a lot of the canned versions contain a ton of corn syrup, giving them a less-than-fresh flavor I don’t love.) Luckily, it’s pretty easy to get that same texture from homemade sauce—just follow the directions below, then press the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve to remove any solids. Because of the naturally occurring pectin in cranberries, the sauce should set up just as well as store-bought.

Variations

While this version is perfectly classic, if you want to experiment, you’ve got a few options. If your cranberry sauce isn’t complete without orange juice, you can sub freshly squeezed or bottled orange juice for some or all of the water. Alternatively, if you’re averse to oranges, feel free to skip the zest and add a pinch of ground cinnamon or a couple cinnamon sticks instead. Craving some crunch? Throw in some chopped pecans at the end of cooking.

Check out our keto cranberry sauce if you're looking to satisfy every diet, or our cranberry relish if you want a similar side without having to turn on your stove.

Storage

If you have leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.