What’s Thanksgiving without a bowl of colorful, sweet-tart cranberry sauce on the table? This Three Ingredient Cranberry Sauce balances fresh, tart cranberries with orange and maple syrup AND requires only 10 minutes to make!
Do you make your own cranberry sauce for holiday meals?? If you’ve never tried your hand at this holiday classic, you’ve been missing out! It’s quick, easy, beautiful, and tastes so much better than store-bought varieties, in my humble opinion.
And if the canned jiggly stuff is your jam? No judgement here! There’s a canned cranberry sauce lover in every family!
(In my family, it’s my brother.)
To be honest, my entire family used to eat a slice or two of canned cranberry “sauce” each Thanksgiving.
The tradition finally changed when I was in college and took a Cooking 101 class. It was a requirement for nutrition students, where we learned and practiced essential kitchen know-how, like knife skills and how to make a roux.
Come November, the professor taught us how to make lump-free gravy and fresh cranberry sauce. When I went home for the holidays, I made the cranberry sauce again for my family’s Thanksgiving feast and a new tradition was born!
My family, minus the brother, are now fresh cranberry sauce converts.
My late grandmother was especially fond of this cranberry sauce. She looked forward to it each year, exclaiming how much she loved the sweet-tart flavor combination and the pretty red color. This will be our first Thanksgiving without her, but I know I’ll think of her each Thanksgiving when I place a bowl of homemade cranberry sauce on the dining room table.
Food and recipes helping us to remember good times, good places, and good people. Just one of many things to be grateful for.
In the spirit of giving thanks, thank YOU for being here and reading (and cooking!) along with me. It means the world.
Wishing you and yours a very joyful Thanksgiving!
- 12 oz fresh cranberries, rinsed and picked over (remove any stems or too soft berries)
- 6 tbsp maple syrup
- zest and juice from 1 orange
- extra orange zest for garnish, if desired
- Combine cranberries, maple syrup, and orange juice in a medium saucepan.
- Bring cranberry mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer about 10 minutes or until cranberries have popped and mixture begins to thicken.
- Let cool about 10 minutes, then stir in orange zest. If cranberry sauce tastes too tart for your liking at this point, stir in an additional 1 tbsp maple syrup.
- Transfer to serving dish and garnish with extra orange zest. Enjoy!
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