Cranberry sauce is a nice side dish with most meats at Christmastime. Even though it is a traditional “Thanksgiving” side dish, I really like to make it also at Thanksgiving. The flavor and texture of cranberry sauce tastes fantastic with ham, turkey and chicken!
Christmas Menu
Cheesy Spaghetti Squash and Spinach
Cranberry Apple Cake (recipe coming this week!)
Recipe:
Why I love this recipe:
1. It’s all homemade.
2. You can make it 1-2 days ahead of your party.
3. The flavor and texture is a little different than standard sauce – I like that.
4. Super simple.
Perfect Cranberry Sauce and Christmas Menu
: Mary Ellen P. Riley / Whisk Together
Ingredients
- 12 ounce fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed
- ½ cup sugar (up to 1 cup for sweeter sauce)
- 1 orange, zested and juiced
- 2 Tb. water
- 1 cinnamon stick or ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp. ground allspice
- ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Put a medium pot on the stove. Set aside ½ cup of the cranberries.
- Add the rest of the cranberries to the saucepan with the sugar, orange zest, orange juice and water.
- Cook on low for 10 minutes.
- Add the spices: cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. Stir together.
- Cook on medium heat for 12 minutes. Gently stir and smash the cranberries. They will burst.
- Turn the heat down to low.
- Add the reserved ½ cup cranberries. Stir together.
- Add any sugar, salt or pepper to taste.
- Remove from heat and serve once cooled off. Or let cool on the stove and store in the fridge until ready to serve.
Notes
Recipe adapted from Food Network's "Perfect Cranberry Sauce"
