easiest homemade cranberry sauce

It's the week before Thanksgiving (already)! I'll be posting my favorite holiday recipes here all week, so be sure to check in.



As un-American as it sounds, I didn't "get" cranberry sauce for most of my life. This was in part because the concept of sweet and savory was entirely lost on me growing up, but mostly because the cranberry sauce of my childhood was cloyingly sweet and well, jiggly. Its texture confused me as much as its taste did, and more often than not, I opted for two giant ladlefuls of gravy instead.


Enter Urban Plates, my first kitchen job and one of the things I still miss most about San Diego. One of our most popular sandwiches was sliced roasted turkey  on ciabatta with garlic aioli, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Granted, we didn't invent the Thanksgiving sandwich, but we sure made a good one. It was this sandwich that forever changed my views of the jellied stuff, namely, that it could be so much better. Bright, tart, and deep red, a good cranberry sauce really is the perfect counterpart to the rest of our brownish (albeit delicious) Thanksgiving meals.



Truly, there's no reason why cranberry sauce shouldn't be homemade. A 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries costs as much as the can does, and making it is as easy as opening that can (maybe even easier). Anything else you'll need will be in your pantry or in the bag of Thanksgiving groceries you just lugged home. It takes less than 20 minutes, keeps for days and the flavor payoff is huge. I mean, I could actually eat this with a spoon. Can you say that about the canned stuff?



Leftovers (should you have any) can be used as an ice cream topping, stirred into yogurt, dolloped over cornbread or hot pumpkin pancakes, haphazardly spread over Thanksgiving leftovers or compiled neatly into a sandwich.

Me? I'll probably just go with the spoon.



More Thanksgiving recipes on OOT:
Roasted Brussels Sprouts 2.0
Simple Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
Banana Cream Pie

Easiest Cranberry Sauce
Recipe courtesy of Out of Thyme
Yield: about 2 cups | Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes

This is more of a method than a recipe. Feel free to use whatever herbs you like. Sweeten and season to your own taste. Like your sauce thicker? Reduce it longer. Like it thinner? Add more water. I used rosemary here for its festive, pine-y flavor and tarragon because its subtle licorice flavor goes so well with orange. But again, use what you like.

One 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries
Zest (about 1 teaspoon) and juice (about 1/3 cup) of 1 orange
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or 1/2 cinnamon stick)
1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter

Bring the cranberries, orange zest and juice, tarragon, rosemary, salt, cinnamon, 1/3 cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Lower to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until most cranberries have broken down and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes. Taste and adjust sugar and water if necessary. Stir in the butter. Serve immediately, or let cool and refrigerate in an airtight container for up to a week.