I have made Thanksgiving, from scratch, for thousands of people. Even cranberry sauce. I thought I would share my recipe, which is a modified recipe of this: https://www.healthcastle.com/no-more-canned-cranberry-sauce/
So I did it a little differently and tweaked it a bit, and here’s my version.
(I use all organic ingredients- especially the cranberries as conventional are heavily treated with chemicals and you are cooking everything together - many of these chemicals are basically permanent in the food and cannot simply be soaked out)
3 - 8oz bags of fresh cranberries - rinse well, pick out any really mushy or moldy ones. There shouldn’t be more than a handful at most.
3 oranges. Juice and zest them. This should be about 1.5 cups of fluid - mine came out to about a cup+. If you need to add water, now is the time to do so. You can substitute apple/cranberry/grape juice also. The zest should be about 6 tsp - make sure not to zest the pith.
1.5 cups of granulated sugar. (I used 18 tbsp =1 cup and 2 tablespoons- we don’t like it so super sweet and really like the orange and bitter punch it has)
Combine all ingredients in a heavy bottom, stainless steel sauce pan. Put it all on medium heat and stir frequently. You’ll hear popping noises as the cranberries pop in the juice. Keep stirring gently until it gets thick and saucy and you can easily press a rubber spatula into a berry and it get smooshy.
Video of me doing this:
You can stop here - chill and serve.Or you can blend it in a blender (I do.)
And then you can stop there- with a semi smooth, still has pulp cranberry sauce. Store in fridge.
OR
Or you can pour the blended mixture through a fine mesh sieve and get all the seeds/skins out - this is what I do. I don’t care for the texture of the skin and seeds. I grew up on Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce ;) my brother and sister still won’t do homemade 🙃
And the result is this GORGEOUS pink color, with a punchy sweet-sour-bitter flavor, wonderful texture, and showstopper cranberry sauce that is sure to be a crowd pleaser! My mom and I could probably eat this whole bowl, but I guess we will share 🥰
Enjoy!
