Mom's Cranberry Sauce Recipe
By Steven Biggs
How to Make Cranberry Sauce
Mom and Dad loved entertaining for Thanksgiving.
They’d cook a turkey on the BBQ, and Mom always had homemade cranberry sauce ready.
Find out how to cook a turkey on a charcoal BBQ.
Secret Ingredient for Cranberry Sauce
Mom’s cranberry sauce always included orange:
orange juice
and orange zest
She’d explain to our Thanksgiving guests how well orange pairs with cranberry—and how easy is is to make your own cranberry sauce.
I recommend that you make your cranberry sauce in the morning (or a day ahead) so that there is time for it to set.
Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
4 cups of cranberries (the bags of cranberries available at supermarkets here contain 4 cups)
1 1/2 cups of sugar (or less, if, like me, you prefer a tangy sauce)
Juice and zest of an orange
Water
Directions
Zest the orange
Juice the orange
Add enough water to the orange juice so that you have 1 1/2 cups of liquid
Put cranberries, liquid, zest, and sugar into a pot
Bring to a boil (the berries should start to pop after about 5 minutes)
Once the berries have popped, keep simmering for a few minutes until the sauce thickens
Allow to cool, pour into whatever dish you’ll be serving it in, and then refrigerate
As the sauce cools, it will set
Cranberry Sauce Recipe Variations
Because I grow my own citrus plants, I sometimes change the recipe to use whatever citrus I have on hand.
Ponderosa lemon zest, which has a unique flavour, is a nice addition to cranberry sauce
Yuzu zest and juice make a wonderful cranberry sauce (I like it sweetened with honey)
Add the floral taste of yuzu fruit to your cranberry sauce! I like to make a cranberry sauce using yuzu and honey.