The Best Citrusy Apple Cider Cranberry Sauce
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 to 6 servings 1x
- Category: Sides, Thanksgiving
Description
Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Are you ready? I’m prepping some stuff early so I don’t have a kazillion things to do tomorrow. One of the easiest things to make ahead of time is cranberry sauce!
So, to be totally honest, I am a diehard Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce woman. I’ve loved it since I was a girl. I raised my son with it and he’s a diehard jellied cranberry teenager! BUT, my husbands LOVES homemade cranberry sauce. Usually his mom makes it. But since we’re having a small quaran-team Thanksgiving, his mom will not be coming over. So, I figured I would take my hand at making homemade cranberry sauce and OMG this is definitely delicious!
I read a bunch of recipes online and they’re mostly pretty simple: orange, cranberry, sugar. That seems to be the most common recipe out there, to be honest. But as I noodled on it, my first thought was to add some mint in there. Then I kept noodling and thought, hmmm, I just used apple cider in the hot toddies I made last week. Why not use apple cider instead of water?
But I hemmed and hawed because I wasn’t sure how orange would jive with apple cider. So, I swapped the orange for lemon. After that, all the other pieces just fell into place. The ingredient list may seem like a lot and it may seem like all of these flavors will not work together, but trust me, this is fantastically delicious. It is so flavorful and all the different spices fuse so nicely together.
Listen, I’m still going to be eating my jellied cranberry sauce tomorrow, but this cranberry sauce is so delicious, it’ll be awesome on top of ice cream. I even used some of it to make mojitos today, which I’ll post up in a couple of weeks!
Oh, and this all comes together in just 15 minutes with virtually no prep time! It’s nice having a couple of easy dishes for Thanksgiving!
Stay safe tomorrow!
Ingredients
12 oz fresh cranberries
zest & juice of 1 lemon
2 slices of lemon
1 cinnamon stick
10 to 12 whole cloves
2 TB fresh mint, minced
¾ cup apple cider
¼ cup Martinelli’s sparkling cider (or champagne or Prosecco)
½ cup maple syrup
¼ cup honey
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Rinse and dry the cranberries, picking through them to pick off any stems or remove bad ones. Separate 1 cup of cranberries.
Take the 2 lemon slices and stick them with the cloves around the rim.
In a medium saucepan, add the apple cider, lemon juice, maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla extract. Stir to combine (the honey will fully absorb once you heat it). Turn the heat on medium and add the cinnamon stick, lemon slices, and cranberries. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often. Add the remaining cup of cranberries, mint, and lemon zest. Stir to combine. Continue to cook an additional 5 minutes, stirring often.
Remove from the heat and add the sparkling cider. Discard the lemons, cinnamon stick, and any cloves that fell off of the lemons. Allow to cool then refrigerate until it thickens.
Serve hot, cold, or at room temperature!
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Enjoy!
Keywords: Cranberry sauce, cranberry sauce with lemon juice, cranberry sauce with mint, apple cider cranberry sauce
