Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe with Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

You really know the fall cooking season has arrived because of two things: stores are selling pumpkins and cranberries. Today, I’ll be looking at making a fresh and easy cranberry sauce. No need for sliced can shaped sauce! This lip smacking turkey topping sauce can be made with as little as 3 ingredients and about 30 minutes on your stove top. 

What is Cranberry Sauce?

Cranberry sauce, as I know it, is really more of a jam than a sauce. In it, fresh cranberries are cooked down with sugar and other seasonings until thick. The thick texture is what gives it a more jam-like quality.

What Thickens Cranberry Sauce?

There are two things that thicken cranberry sauce: pectin and sugar. 

Pectin is what makes cranberry sauce and other jams/jellies thick. When cooked, pectin expands and forms long strands of fiber which can tangle and intermix like a big ball of yarn. The result for me is thickening. You can think of this as very similar to the thickening process of making a roux or slurry. 

Sugar, on the other hand, thickens the sauce because it is solid at room temperature. When I heat sugar, it turns to liquid (caramelization). This allows me to mix it with items like cranberries.

I have effectively snuck solids into my liquid so that when the liquid cools and those sugars turn back to solids, I will have a thicker solution. 

My Approach to Cranberry Sauce

I am going to keep this really simple, cranberries + sugar + orange. You can quite literally, put everything into one pot, heat, stir, and chill.   

What Makes a Good Cranberry Sauce?

As always, when it comes to really simple dishes in terms of prep and ingredients, those few ingredients you are using need to be good. I’ll be using one bag of fresh cranberries for this recipe. 

If your store is anything like mine, you will probably have only one choice of brands, and that is Ocean Spray. No worries though! Their cranberries are very good. 

If you have an option for organic, that’s even better. Though I have found that the organic ones may not be as ripe or sweet, so take that into consideration when developing your flavor. 

When it comes to sugar, plain white is the way to go for traditional cranberry sauce. You can definitely mix it up with raw sugar or turbinado if you are looking for something a bit richer. I would not necessarily recommend using only brown sugar, as I think the molasses really starts competing with the freshness of the sauce. 

Developing Flavors

I’m doing two small things that can really help develop your flavor here

1. Add a pinch of salt to the sauce. This will highlight the bright flavors of both your orange and the cranberries and will reduce the pucker a bit. 
2. Zest the orange. All the orangey flavors you want are in the zest, not in the juice. The juice is going to help a tiny bit, but the zest is the true flavor component. 

What Pairs with Cranberry Sauce?

Sidestepping the obvious answer of turkey, you can pair cranberry sauce with stuffing or a bright green bean salad. Also, do not forget, at its heart cranberry sauce is a jam, so if you have biscuits or scones, cranberry sauce and butter make an excellent addition!

Tools Required

You need very little to make this dish: 

• Medium size sauce pan
• Measuring cup
• Wooden spoon 

To get the zest off the orange, a microplane is best, but you could use a cheese grater or just a serrated knife (even a butter knife can get zest off).