Whenever I tell people I make cranberry sauce from scratch they think I’m nuts (the reason they give me is the making from scratch part anyway) but I can’t think of an easier thing to make. So I’m sharing here in case anyone thinks this is really hard. Of course when you make it and people like it, it was really really really hard. You know, like you picked each berry by hand hard.
I shared the recipe straight from the Ocean Spray website last year but this year, I remembered to take pictures while I was making it.
For this you will need:
- Fresh or frozen whole cranberries. I used Ocean Spray
- Sugar
- Water
- Orange peel ( optional)
You need 1C Sugar for each bag of berries. I used two bags so 2C. Same amount of water. Put those in the pot, bring pot to boil. I like to add fresh orange peel to mine:
Photographed here before adding the water.
Once boiling, add berries. We have lots of cranberry bogs here in WA and we pass them on the way to visiting my father in law. So if you see this on your bag, we probably drove by them!
Mr. Chocolate loves cranberry sauce as its own dish. Not as a condiment. He will literally eat a bowl of it. So this time of year I stock up and throw bags of berries in the freezer.
Here they are in the sugar/water/orange peel. You want them to come to a boil and they’ll get a bit foamy. You do want to watch this pot boiling though because the berries will foam up and can bubble over.
As they bubble, they’ll turn a darker shade of well, cranberry. I let them go until they just about reach the top of the pot and then turn off the heat. Let them come to room temp or mostly cool off. Go make crafts.
Once they’re cooled down, pour into bowl, cover, refrigerate. I leave the orange peel in until I ladle into my serving dish to let the flavor set.
Seriously. Easy. And the recipe’s from the back of the Ocean Spray bag!
