I absolutely love fresh cranberry sauce. If I could, I would have it all year round. It’s such a delicious chutney and so versatile. We use it for so many things, not just as a side dish. I have tried making drinks with it, infusing my tea with it, and making tarts with it. And it’s a quintessential dish for our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Make it once, and enjoy it in many ways.

The Ingredients for Fresh Cranberry Sauce

Six ingredients are all you need to make this super delicious chutney.

The Ingredients List for Fresh Cranberry Sauce:

2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large fresh orange
1 cinnamon stick (or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
2 star anise
pinch of salt
1 cup of water

Other Dressings and Dips you will Like:

Ready to use homemade barbeque sauce — Mango Salsa

The Cooking Process for Fresh Cranberry Sauce:

Making cranberry chutney is such a simple task. It’s a matter of putting everything in a pan and letting it boil. Well, almost. Properly wash the cranberries and discard any that might be too soft. You want to use the plump ones for your sauce. If the berries are soft, it means they are starting to go bad and you don’t want to use them. Discard the soft ones, because using those will mean your fresh cranberry sauce will not last as long.

Add the washed berries to a medium sized pan. Then add your water, sugar, cinnamon stick, star anise, and salt to the pan as well. If you have a nutmeg grater grate the rind of the entire orange into the pan. But, if you don’t have one, you can just use a regular grater too. Cut the orange and squeeze all of the juice into the pan. Now we are ready to cook it. I tend to throw the skin of the orange into the pan too, because the rind has a lot of flavour and I prefer not to discard it. The oils from the rind hold a lot of flavour and it helps flavour the fresh cranberry sauce.

The Thickening Process:

It’s not time to cook the cranberries, because cooking the cranberries makes the sauce last much longer. The cranberries have natural pectin that helps the sauce to thicken as the berries cook. We need to cook the berries till they just start to pop. This takes about 10 or so minutes. Allow them to boil just once and then turn the heat off. And go ahead and remove the orange skin at this time and discard it. Its job should be done by now.

Let the sauce cool down completely before enjoying it as a condiment with your turkey dinner. As the sauce cools, it thickens. You can smash the cranberries with a fork or a hand blender and even strain them using a sieve. I prefer to enjoy the sauce as is because I like the taste of the tart berries popping in my mouth.

Uses for Cranberry Sauce:

This versatile sauce is one of my favourite condiments and I am sure you will love it too once you make it:

Enjoy it with your Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
Make tarts or pies out of it. Check out my Custard Tart here.
Give my Leftover Sauce Buns a try.
My kids’ favourite is my Left Over Cranberry Sauce French Toast.
Try using it as a spread on Biscuits or Toast.
Infuse your Herbal Teas with it.
Add a couple of spoonfuls to your Granola.
Pour a dollop of it to your Oatmeal and see how delicious it turns out to be.

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