My husband is a mix of German and Acadian descent. From the Acadian side comes a recipe for a traditional roast turkey dinner that we make twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. When I first met my husband, he would follow the recipe he’d been given to a T and was very reluctant on changing anything about it. Although it makes a very delicious meal, there were certain things that I wanted him to change. For example, it mentions using canned cranberry sauce. This was the first thing to go!
Cranberries are so healthy for you. Unfortunately, their benefits are lost when using processed, store-bought sauce. And there really is no excuse to be buying it anyways when making cranberry sauce at home is so easy and so much more delicious. And most importantly, you can control how you sweeten it and by how much. For the past few years, we have been using maple syrup but honey works well too, or even refined sugar if you must (it will still be better than the canned version).
I always ask my husband to make extra so we can still have some to spoon over yogurt for breakfast in the following days. And since fresh cranberries are hard to come by year round, at Thanksgiving and Christmas time, when they are readily available, I buy enough to put some aside in the freezer. They freeze well and frozen cranberries are perfect for adding to a breakfast smoothie!
Cranberry Sauce
(yields about 2 cups)
- 300 g (about 3 cups) fresh cranberries (if using frozen, just let thaw first)
- 160 g (about 1/2 cup) maple syrup
- 225 g (about 1 cup) freshly squeezed orange juice
- Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the cranberries are softened and have blistered and the sauce begins to thicken.
- Allow to cool; the sauce will thicken some more as it is cooled.
conifères & feuillus 
Homemade cranberry sauce really is so much better than store bought! I’ve never tried using maple syrup, but it sounds wonderful. Will have to give it a try this year!
Home made foods are always delicious and healthy. And your captures are amazing!!
Love your pictures, Annika! And your cranberry sauce is something to try! Easy and delicious, way healthier than the packaged ones! Thanks!
This looks great! I love your pix. I have a lemon ginger cranberry relish on my blog. I didn’t know maple syrup and honey are good in place of sugar. I’ll have to try that. I must follow this blog!
Thank you.. I will check out out your recipe, it sounds delish! Maple syrup and honey can be used to replace sugar for sauces such as this one… in baked goods, it gets a bit tricky but you can still do it by adjusting the quantity of the other wet ingredients.
Delicious! And you couldn’t ask for easier than that. Cranberry sauce is one of my favourites at Christmas time. It’s lucky for me they freeze well because I have no choice but to use frozen as they are out of season in our summer Christmas. Gorgeous photos Annika.
Thank you Tracey. I like this simple recipe as we are so busy at this time. I know, I would love to spend a Christmas south of the equator… the things I take for granted here!
Yessss. Such a fitting post for this time of year 🙂
Cranberry sauce is so delicious when home made and like you say much healthier. I too stock up now that it’s available. Beautiful photos Annika.
Thank you Myra
Simply wonderful. 🙂
Good ideas for the leftover cranberry sauce! We always use the canned but nobody ever really eats it at my house. Maybe if we made fresh!
You must make it this year!!! I promise you, you will never go back to the canned version. And if still, nobody eats it at your place… all the better.. enjoy over yogurt, on waffles, on ice cream…. anything you like! It’s amazing!
Wow, your recipe is similar to what I do as well! I use frozen cranberries though and I also add maple syrup and orange juice! The flavour combo is amazing!
I know.. so simple and delicious!