Cranberry Sauce

The final touch for Thanksgiving dinner.

Cranberry Sauce, recipe and photo by me, Anna Vocino

I have all the Thanksgiving recipes you could ever wish for at my Thanksgiving Round-Up here at my site.

I leave these recipes on my site up year round because I don’t want the holiday meals be the reason you get off track.

I’ve never done a cranberry sauce before now because I personally was never attached to this element of the meal.

But here I am, making a cranberry sauce…a different kind of sauce. And now I like it! Homemade is always better…

NOTE:

CRANBERRIES ARE TART AF!!!

Girlies with our UTIs downing cranberry juice know this for a fact. Food companies put a metric ton of sugar in cranberry juice to make it palatable. I really didn’t want to do that with this recipe.

I was hoping the juice of one large naval orange and some blueberries would be enough to mitigate the tartness of the cranberries, but to me, it was still too tart without any added sweetener.

If you are serving this dish in mixed company, you are welcome to add more sweetness to taste, even after it’s already cooked. Just dissolve more sweetener in the pan by mixing it in, but add very slowly, then taste, so you don’t overdo it.

Bonus is that this recipe is super easy to make, can be made 1-2 days in advance, and it looks gorgeous on the table.

As always, here’s a downloadable, printable version of this recipe.

I will add it to the Thanksgiving Round-Up at my site, so now our Thanksgiving meal is complete. And next year, I better come up with something new for us turkeys.

CRANBERRY SAUCE (Low Sugar)

(yields 2 1/4 cups)

• 4 cups fresh or frozen thawed cranberries

• 1/2 cup water

• Juice of one large naval orange (about 1/3 cup)

• 1/2 cup blueberries

• 1-2 tablespoons honey, coconut sugar, date syrup, or sweetener of your choice to taste

• 1 tablespoon orange zest

• 1/2 cup pecan pieces (optional)

Place cranberries, water, and juice of one orange in a sauce pan over  medium high heat. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes to turn over cranberries. Cranberries will start to burst. Add blueberries and sweetener, cook another 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Using a potato masher, give the berries a few mashes when stirring at the end of the cooking time. Remove from heat and stir in orange zest. Add pecan pieces, if desired. Let cool for 4-8 hours before serving.