I don’t know whose picture this is, but how unappetizing is this!?
There is no good reason to buy cranberry sauce in a can. Really. This…is not…cranberry sauce.
This gelatinous bland goop is just masquerading as cranberry sauce.
Seriously, it takes less than 20 minutes to make your own. All you have to do is throw all the ingredients in a pot, and stir…occasionally. If you can make toast, and boil water, you have the culinary mastery to make your own cranberry sauce, and actually impress your friends and family with it. The basic recipe (you can find everywhere) is a 12 oz. bag of cranberries, and 1 cup each of sugar and water. Even if you did that, you’d save a fortune over the packaged stuff, and feel a smug sense of accomplishment.
Today is the third in a series of Thanksgiving posts. This is a particularly easy recipe. Marc and I like to make it a little more interesting with orange juice, pineapple juice and meyer lemon zest. You could add ginger, raisins…heck you could add tamarind for something really exotic. But, I find that cranberry and orange are a natural partnership. They play well together, and the meyer lemon brings another subtle flavor to the party. The pineapple juice does too, but it also adds natural sweetening so you can use half the sugar. See? You really can make an easy, tasty cranberry sauce. As I always suggest, please use as many organic/local/sustainable ingredients as you can.
Citrus Cranberry Sauce with Pineapple
12 oz. fresh cranberries
zest of 1 meyer lemon
1 C. pineapple juice
1/2 C. orange juice
1/2C + 1 Tbs. sugar (I use evaporated cane juice which has a blond color and retains it’s natural minerals)
It’s so simple. Throw all the ingredients in a pot, stir occasionally and watch it go through these four stages. When it looks like jam, you are done. Yum!
20 thoughts on “Citrus Cranberry Sauce with Pineapple”
Wow, I love cranberry sauce adn pineapple. So this is my fav. Should give it a try.
Rina – Yes, the two together are wonderful! The pineapple doesn’t stand out very strongly, but helps deepen the sweetness without being treacly. Let me know if you try it out. Thanks for your comment!
It really comes in a can?? I thought that was just made up for one of the Simpsons Thanksgiving episodes.
Interesting idea to use pineapple juice instead of orange; might give that a try at Christmas.
I haven’t had it with pineapple but it sounds really good – I love homemade cranberry sauce!
Angela – It’s true, not just a Simpsons episode. Horrifying huh? It’s good with both, but the pineapple adds a nice depth.
Nic – So yummy! I love homemade cranberry sauce too. Well worth the little bit of effort.
Great cranberry sauce! I like the addition of pineapple. Oh, and thanks for stopping my Chew on That 🙂
Well sure, if you present the sauce like someone’s tower of gelatin soup, it’s not that great!! Haha, I agree, natural is best. We never get fresh cranberries here. though, only dried and the canned sauce.
Hillary – Thanks! The pineapple is tasty. Sure, thanks for your comment
Manggy – It IS a tower of gelatin. Yuck! Better to just do something with the dried ones if you would have to resort to canned. But, I’m sure you have enough fabulous food in the Philippines that you don’t even need cranberries 🙂
I like the canned jellied cranberry sauce 🙂 We always do both, the canned jellied kind (served in a more attractive way, of course) and then a homemade cranberry relish. I’ll have to try it with pineapple juice sometime!
Nicole – Thanks for stopping by. It really is tasty with pineapple.
“If you can make toast, and boil water, you have the culinary mastery to make your own cranberry sauce, and actually impress your friends and family with it.”
AHAHAHAHAHA!
love this idea of making the traditional sauce with pineapple. I know mandarin oranges are not exactly organic but I do like them contrasting with the tarter cranberries and a shprinkle of pecans on the top…
your recipes are just so delicious sounding, bri. i just hope i can recreate them as well as you make them! 🙂
Gigi – Happy to give you a laugh 😉
Actually, I think I have found organic canned mandarin oranges in Whole Foods before. They are actually one of the very few canned fruits/veggies I think are worth having around. And yes, a good shprinkling of pecans on top is awesome. My hubs is rather particular about when nuts can and cannot be part of a dish, and my sense, is he’d vetoed them on cranberry sauce. I sneak them into other things though.
Awww shucks (shuffles feet and grins broadly), I bet with some patience, great ingredients and good music to dance to, you’ll make some awesome dishes. Let me know what you do for the holiday. Always fun to hear what people are making. 🙂
I saw this recipe on Craftster and just knew I had to make it.
Long story short I have everything but the cranberries, the major grocery chain I went to does not have cranberries. I think this is a job for a co-op which I prefer anyway.
No cranberries! What is the world coming to?
Thanks for the recipes.
Diana – Hmmmm, no cranberries, eh? What IS the world coming to. If you don’t find them this week, maybe you could go out on a limb and do a pear and dried cranberry relish instead. Playing with this same recipe with pineapple juice. Just a thought. Good luck, and thanks for stopping by!
This recipe looks so good that I will be making it for Thanksgiving dinner! One of my children was just complaining about not having good cranberry sauce, so, even though I’m not crazy about the stuff, I am going to give yours a go. I’ll let you know how it goes… Thanks for the recipe!
Loralynn – Thanks! Glad to be of service. I’d love to know what your family thinks. Happy Thanksgiving!
Just wanted to let you know that my family absolutely loved your recipe! Thanks you so much again for sharing this with us!
Loralynn – I’m thrilled to hear your family loved the cranberry sauce recipe. What’s not to love with fresh cranberries, sweetening and fruit, huh? Thanks so much for your feedback. 🙂
I made this yesterday (Thanksgiving) and it was great! The pineapple juice was an amazing addition to the cranberry and lemon!
Stephanie ~ Glad you liked it! It’s quickly turning into one of our family’s holiday classics. Thanks for coming by.