The first time I made cranberry sauce, I was surprised that it was so easy. Why bother with the canned stuff when you could have your own done in less than 10 minutes?
For this recipe, I used the zest and juice of a blood orange and brown sugar. The flavors of both took the edge off of the tartness of the cranberries without needing to add too much added sugar. While I loved the flavor the blood orange brought to the sauce, regular oranges will work, too.

Blood-Orange Cranberry Sauce
This recipe makes ~3.5 cups of cranberry sauce, and can easily be doubled if you're feeding a crowd. Bonus: this can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge!
What You'll Need
- 1 bag fresh cranberries (12 ounces)
- 2 small blood oranges zested, then juiced
- 1/3 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 pinch salt
What to Do
For this recipe, you will need 1 cup of total liquid — add as much water as needed to your blood orange juice.
Place all ingredients except for the orange zest into a sauce pan, and heat over medium-high until the cranberries start to burst and break down, about 6 minutes.
Continue to cook until the sauce reaches your desired consistency, then remove from the heat. Stir in the orange zest, and allow the sauce to cool. Serve cold or at room temperature.
[…] 2/3 cup leftover cranberry sauce […]
[…] Cranberry sauce is one of the easiest things to make, so every Thanksgiving, I make a batch and try to put a little twist on it. It is almost always a huge hit, but I almost always have a lot of sauce leftover. […]