Cranberry sauce is a beautiful accompaniment for holiday meals, and so much better than any of the canned varieties. Fresh cranberries are sweetened with raisins and apple juice and flavored with orange and ginger, to give it a fresh, zesty taste. There is minimal prep involved, and the recipe can be doubled if you are feeding a crowd!

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

• Author: Chef Rachel Z
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins
• Total Time: 30 mins
• Yield: 12 servings 1x
• Category: Side Dish
• Cuisine: American

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Ingredients

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• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 1/2 cups apple juice
• 2 cups cranberries
• pinch unrefined sea salt
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• ½ teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated (or more to taste)

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Instructions

1. In medium saucepan, cook raisins in apple juice for about 10 minutes. Add cranberries and sea salt.
2. Cover, turn down to low, and simmer until cranberries have popped.
3. Remove lid and reduce sauce to desired consistency. Keep in mind that sauce will gel more when refrigerated.
4. Remove from heat. Stir in orange zest and ginger juice.

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I like to use a microplane zester for both the orange zest and grated ginger. Be careful to very lightly zest the very outer portion of the orange peel, so that you don’t get the bitter white pith in your sauce. Sometimes I will squeeze the juice out of the grated ginger pulp and add that to the sauce rather than including the pulp.

Here is a meal using fresh cranberry sauce that I have been making for my students at The Natural Epicurean to demonstrate Fall Macrobiotic Cooking and Menu Planning. Clockwise from the top: millet-cauliflower mash with mushroom sauce, nishime style vegetables and pan-fried tempeh, fresh cranberry sauce, daikon pickle, and blanched greens with tahini-parsley dressing.

Enjoy!