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​Make the best Cranberry Sauce to serve this holiday season. The best part is that you will only need 3 simple ingredients to make this easy recipe. 

​No extra ingredients cause the sugar mixture to create a natural pectin with the perfect consistency.

This is one of those Thanksgiving recipes staples to serve with your Thanksgiving turkey recipe. This homemade version is a great way to add flavor to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

Not only will this fresh cranberry sauce work great to liven up your turkey for thee day, but the next day will work great served with leftover turkey sandwiches. Hello Thanksgiving dinner in one bite. 

Ingredients for Cranberry Sauce:

• Fruit: you will need to use fresh cranberries
• Juice: for added flavor use no pulp bottled orange juice
• Sugar: use the white sugar you have on hand or grab a bag from the grocery store

How to make Cranberry Sauce:

To a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the sugar and cup of orange juice. Whisk together and bring up to a simmer. 

Once simmering, stir in the cranberries and simmer whisking frequently for about 12 minutes, or until the cranberries have burst.

Place sauce into a serving bowl let it sit to thicken up. The longer it sits, the thicker it will become. Enjoy with all of your holiday meals!

How to store leftover cranberry sauce:

Fridge: If you have any leftover cranberry sauce, once the sauce cools pour it into an airtight container and store it in the fridge for up to 4 days. 

Freezer: To save the homemade cranberry sauce recipe for later, place the simple recipe in a freezer bag and store it for up to 3 months. 

Tips and tricks for this easy cranberry sauce recipe: 

Add more flavor to the given recipe: 

1. Add in orange zest
2. Place a cinnamon stick in the sauce
3. Star anise

Fresh or frozen cranberries:

​I enjoy making this recipe with fresh cranberries, but you could use frozen cranberries for this simple recipe. You may need to add some extra sugar and orange juice to the recipe since there could be added condensation from the frozen berries.

How to make this into a cranberry relish: 

Instead of using orange juice blend the cranberries with the orange with the peel on. Then mix in the sugar with a little cinnamon to make the thick sauce. 

Homemade vs Canned Cranberry Sauce

I think that canned cranberry sauce isn’t very good. I know some people thoroughly disagree, but to me it’s really more like cranberry-flavored jello. It’s thick and not saucy at all. When you squeeze it out of the can it plops on the plate in one chunk, complete with the can lines etched into the lump. Not appetizing!

Canned cranberry sauce has high fructose corn syrup, and corn syrup in it too, and honestly doesn’t even taste like real cranberries. Now don’t get me wrong, I love canned goods. I use them all the time in my recipes! But cranberry sauce is so easy to make homemade it’s almost as easy as opening a can.

Homemade cranberry sauce has real cranberries and tastes like actual fruit, not some weird fruit-flavored gelatinous substance. And the good news is it only takes 3 ingredients and takes 15 minutes to make.

More easy recipes:

• Garlic & Herb Mashed Potatoes
• Easy Thanksgiving Stuffing
• Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows
• Apple Cranberry Christmas Dump cake
• Easy One Hour Dinner Rolls

Quick links for making dinner easy:

• Family meal plans
• Tools for the kitchen and more
• The best cookbook for family dinner recipes
• FREE budget meal plan
• Cooking videos to watch

If you give these recipes a try, make sure to tag us on Instagram @julia.pacheco.cooking and let us know how much you liked the recipes!