This cranberry sauce is easy to make and delicious! I love making this every year for Thanksgiving. It takes less than 30 minutes to make and works great as a make-ahead recipe. I like to make my cranberry sauce the day before Thanksgiving. Once the sauce has cooled, I transfer it to a glass food container and keep it in the refrigerator until I am ready to serve it on Thanksgiving day.
Short Video Tutorial
Quick and Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce
A delicious and easy to make Cranberry Sauce that is great to serve on Thanksgiving day.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
Scale
- 12 ounce cranberries, washed and patted dry (I prefer organic)
- 3/4 cup filtered water
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tablespoon orange zest or zest from 1 orange
- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice, or can use orange juice that’s not from concentrate or without any added sugars (I like the Lakewood brand).
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 📝Note: zest the orange first, then squeeze out its juice.
Instructions
- Add the cranberries, water, sugar, cinnamon stick, orange zest, orange juice, and lemon juice to a saucepan and mix.
- After some time, the cranberries will start to pop and then it will come to a rolling boil.
- Once it stars to boil, lower the heat to where there’s a low boil and cook for about 10-12 minutes, or until the cranberries have softened and the sauce has mostly thickened (mixing occasionally and breaking the cranberries down with the back of the spoon or cooking utensil).
- Remove from the heat, carefully remove the cinnamon stick and transfer the cranberry sauce to a glass heat-safe container. Allow it to cool completely.
- Keep it in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
- Serve chilled
Notes
- you may freshly squeeze some orange juice and use that. Or can use store-bought orange juice. When purchasing orange juice, I look for one that’s not from concentrate and doesn’t have any added sugars. Since this recipe already includes sugar, using orange juice with added sugars might make this a bit more sweet.
