Quick 3-Ingredient Cranberry Sauce Recipe (2024)

A delicious take on the classic Cranberry Sauce side dish that requires only 3 ingredients, 3 steps, and 15 minutes! No more gelatinous canned cranberry sauce on the holiday table – this easy homemade cranberry sauce is about to become your family’s favorite!

The season of festivities, family gatherings, and special home-cooked meals is officially upon us! To prepare you for the ultimate day of feasting, here’s an easy homemade cranberry sauce recipe that you can include in your lineup.

Here in the Live Eat Learn world cranberries have been the talk of the town recently! They’re a pretty resilient little fruit. My favorite cranberry fact? The same vines can produce berries for over a hundred years!

But, back to the recipe. This cranberry sauce is made with only three ingredients, and you can use your choice of fresh or frozen crans! We’ll offset the bitterness with some sugar and finish it off with tangy orange juice. The three flavors combined taste delicious and are something that even the kiddos will enjoy.

Ingredients in this cranberry sauce recipe

For this dish you’ll need only three ingredients, which is pretty sweet if you ask me!

• Cranberries: First up are the cranberries. You’ll need about 4 cups, so a 12 oz bag should do. You can go with either fresh or frozen.
• Orange Juice: Next is 1 cup of orange juice. This adds a zesty, tangy flavor that pairs perfectly with the slight bitterness of the berries.
• Sugar: Finally, finish off the sauce with ½ cup of sugar. Not only does it add a sweetness, it offsets a good portion of the bitterness that cranberries usually have.

How to make cranberry sauce

Cranberry sauce is ready in just 15 minutes and requires only three simple steps: combine, cook, and cool!

Step 1: Combine the ingredients
To begin, add everything to a large pot.

Step 2: Cook the sauce
Cover the pot and cook, stirring occasionally. Cook until the cranberries burst (about 10 minutes). The cranberries will look something like this when finished cooking, and will continue thickening as it cools.

Step 3: Cool and let thicken
Remove the cranberries from the heat and let cool completely. It will thicken as it cools!

The perfect prep-ahead side dish

Homemade cranberry sauce is one of those dishes that tastes better with time. When you let it sit in the fridge overnight (or even for a day or two), it allows the flavors to really blend together! Feel free to make this a few days before you’ll need it. Just cover and stick in the fridge!

Mix and match ingredients

Something cool about fruit sauce is that you can use similar combos of the same ingredients for totally different flavors! For instance, you can actually sub in strawberries if that’s more your thing. You’ll just need less sugar because strawberries are already much sweeter than cranberries.

Additionally, you don’t have to use sugar for the sweetener! Honey tastes delicious, as does brown sugar! I recommend using a bit less to start, and then adding to taste if needed.

More cranberry recipes

Whether you’re looking for a breakfast, snack, or dessert option, there’s a cranberry recipe for that.

• Cranberry Orange Sweet Rolls
• Cranberry Smoothie
• Savory Roasted Cranberry Salsa with Pomegranate
• Cranberry Bliss Bites

And be sure to use this homemade cranberry sauce in our Loaded Sweet Potato Rounds (with Cranberry and Goat Cheese) or dolloped onto this Cranberry Orange Oatmeal!