Orange Cranberry Sauce

Skip the cans and make your own homemade cranberry sauce with only four simple ingredients. It can be made in the crockpot or on the stove.

I never liked canned cranberry sauce so I thought I didn’t like it at all. When I started cooking a Thanksgiving meal for my husband’s family I couldn’t bring myself to buy canned cranberry sauce. I didn’t want to serve high fructose corn syrup filled cranberry sauce after making everything else from scratch.

I did some research and found it wasn’t hard to make from scratch so gave it a try. Turns out I do like cranberry sauce, just not the canned stuff!

For most years I’ve made cranberry sauce on the stove. It’s quite easy and doesn’t take long at all. This year I wanted to try making it in a slow cooker. It takes longer but you don’t have to watch it closely and it works well if you don’t want to tie up the stove. I was able to run some errands and get other things done while it cooked.

I personally like the Instant Pot for a slow cooker. While it’s main function is pressure cooking, it has a slow cooker setting that is great for things like cranberry sauce. I love it because the inner pot is stainless steel making it very safe. Some slow cookers contain lead and it can be hard to find which ones are safe. It also has more functions making it a better use of space.

You can use the pressure cooker setting on an Instant Pot to make cranberry sauce but it didn’t seem any easier to me than stove top. it seemed to have more steps, who needs more to do around the holidays? Stove top or slow cooker seems to be the way to go. If you need if quickly, stove top is the best option. If you don’t need it quickly, don’t want to watch it closely, or just don’t have stove top space, slow cooker is a great option. Both taste amazing and are very easy.

I keep mine very simple, just cranberries, orange juice, sugar, and some orange zest. You can add lots of delicious things to it but I feel like it’s delicious in a simple form as well. I’m making a big effort this year to simplify the holidays and reduce stress. Keeping holiday dishes simple is a great way to reduce stress. I go more into how to have a less stressful holiday in Having a Stress-Free Christmas, be sure to check it out.

Helpful Tips

If you like a less chunky cranberry sauce simply let it cool and blend in the blender or you can use an immersion blender while it is still hot.

Cranberry sauce freezes really well. I often like to double the batch and use half for Thanksgiving and put half in the freezer for Christmas. You will be grateful for the time you saved when it’s time to cook Christmas dinner. If you have leftovers try this delicious cranberry cream cheese danish recipe.