Perfect Cranberry Sauce Recipe

Cranberry sauce is a traditional holiday side dish that bursts with tart and sweet flavors enough to turn any meal into a festival. You may be a chef or a newbie in the kitchen; making your own cranberry sauce is pretty quick and easy. It takes a few ingredients and some simmering to come up with something far superior to any store version. Ready to make a sauce that will surely render your guests speechless? Then, let’s cook!

Ingredients

• 1 cup (200g) sugar;
• 1 cup (250ml) water;
• 4 cups (one 12-ounce package) fresh or frozen cranberries;
• Additionally: pecans, orange zest, raisins, currants, blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice

Instruction

Prep Time – 5 mins;

Cook Time – 15 mins.

Preparing the cranberries:

Put your cranberries into a colander. Rinse them well under cold running water, removing any that are bruised or damaged, as these will not taste as good and may affect the texture of the sauce.

Creating the sweet base:

In a medium saucepan, place your water and sugar. Turning the heat onto high, bring the mixture to a boil, occasionally stirring. What you want to do is dissolve all the sugar into a sweet syrup that will serve as the base of your cranberry sauce. This stage is quite important because, at this point, you marry the sugar perfectly into the water before adding the cranberries to give the desired smoothness to your sauce.

Add the cranberries, and cook until they pop:

Once your sugar-water mixture is at a boil, it’s time to add the cranberries. Just toss them into the pot and bring everything up to a good boil again. After boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer. Let the cranberries cook for about 10 minutes. During that time, you’ll notice the cranberries start to pop open-that’s exactly what you want.

Stir in mix-ins, if using:

Once the cranberries have popped, you can doctor up the sauce as you want. Think about adding a half cup of chopped pecans for texture and a little orange zest for a citrus note. If you want it sweeter, add a handful of raisins or blueberries. For a holiday twist, add a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg.

Cooling:

Move the saucepan from the heat, letting the cranberry sauce cool down to room temperature. Transfer it to a bowl and refrigerate. As it chills, the sauce will continue to thicken up until it has reached just the right consistency for serving.

Good to Know

• 103 Calories;
• 0g Fat;
• 27g Carbs;
• 0g Protein.

Other modifications to the recipe include using half a cup of orange juice added to half a cup of water for that added citrus taste. This adds a great deal to the flavor of the cranberry sauce, with a nice undertone of orange serving to make the sauce and the cranberries dance well on the taste buds.

If you don’t like it so sweet, begin with half of the amount specified and then add more to taste. Bear in mind that if you reduce the sugar, you’ll probably need to make slight adjustments in water to get the right consistency.