We got so many requests for a cranberry sauce recipe last year that I finally wrote mine down and photographed it! It is simple and completely homemade.
Growing up was all about avoiding the cranberry sauce around the holidays. My mom wasn’t a huge fan and my dad liked it straight up from a can, so she opened one up every year to please him but none of us partook of that congealed mass of canned fruit. In other words, I never even considered that cranberry sauce could be delicious until a random sandwich shop in town served up a leftover Thanksgiving sandwich that sent me on the most wonderful journey ever. I’ve been sold ever since.
It doesn’t matter if you’re going with a smoked turkey or a roasted turkey, cranberry sauce goes with all of them and it’s a Thanksgiving must-have for our family! Forget the canned stuff and make it from scratch! We use fresh whole cranberries, orange juice and a little sugar to make the most delicious homemade cranberry sauce.
It can be made weeks ahead of time so that it’s ready for the big day.
Ingredients for Homemade Cranberry Sauce
You only need 6 ingredients for this homemade cranberry sauce and I’ll bet you have 4 of them already in the house…maybe 5! Here is what you will need:
- Cranberries – fresh is best, but you can use frozen
- White Sugar – adds sweetness and cuts the tartness of the cranberries
- Brown Sugar – I love the richness of flavor a little brown sugar adds
- Fresh Orange Juice – this is the key to the whole recipe imho, it wakes the whole dish up!
- Cinnamon – adds warmth and flavor
- Cloves – just a hint of cloves adds so much flavor
The measurements for each are listed in the recipe card at the end of this post.
How to Make a Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Recipes just don’t get easier than this! Combine all the ingredien