Cranberry Sauce Recipe - Celebrating Sweets (2024)

FAQs

What takes the bitterness out of cranberry sauce? ›

"Instead, start by stirring in one tablespoon maple syrup and one teaspoon of a sweet drink like apple juice, orange juice, or fruity white or red wine. Add more to taste. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt (in small amounts, it intensifies sweetness)."

Cranberry sauce is often eaten in conjunction with turkey for Christmas in the United Kingdom and Canada or Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada, and it is only rarely eaten or served in other contexts there.

To use citric acid to save over-sweetened cranberry sauce, simply use it like you would MSG in a savory dish, and stir in little pinches until your sauce is as tart as you desire. But don't stop there. You can use citric acid in a cloying apple pie filling, a one-note turkey brine, or heavy, stodgy stuffing.

Add A Splash Of Vinegar

Their sharp tang counteracts bitter flavors without having to add extra sugar. While citrus is a natural pairing for cranberry sauce, bright, savory vinegars like sherry vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and apple cider vinegar play well with the bitter-tart berries.

But why? Ocean Spray says this is to get the cranberry sauce out in one intact piece. “The rounded part of the can that looks like the bottom has an air bubble in it,” Ocean Spray's representative explains. The bubble is there so you can “break the seal the sauce makes with the can.”

Adding a teaspoon or two of fresh lemon or orange zest, a tablespoon of chopped candied peel, or even a splash of juice to your canned sauce will brighten flavors and bring in some homemade flavor.

Cranberry sauce can be served either as a gooey liquid or as a solid jelly. The jellied version is solid enough to retain the shape of the container in which it's placed whereas the sauce version is much more fluid.

Sugar helps the thickening process, and while it's nice to try to keep your cranberry sauce from being too sugary sweet, you will need at least some sugar to make it work well (about 1/2 cup sugar per 12-ounce bag of cranberries).

But that's not the case for prepared cranberry sauces, where prices are up. Lochner pointed out that processors set those prices, not growers, and that there are higher input costs unrelated to berries — like “processing the fruit and getting it to market.”

An account from the American colonies in 1672 mentions the ways that both Native Americans and European settlers used cranberries, "boyling them with sugar for a sauce to eat with their meat." And one of cranberry's earliest documented appearances with turkey can be found in the 1796 cookbook American Cookery, where ...

Is it OK to eat a can of cranberry sauce? ›

It's perfectly fine to serve up cranberry sauce — whole berry or jelled — straight out of the can. But in my experience, heating the canned sauce up takes its flavor to the next level. Plus, it becomes a little more aesthetically pleasing.

Try reducing the sauce down even further so more of the liquid cooks off and the mixture thickens. If that doesn't work, add a thickener like gelatin, pectin or a cornstarch slurry (cornstarch whisked into juice or water). Let the sauce cool before refrigerating to completely set.

To help mellow some of the bitterness, add a small pinch of salt and stir into your cranberry sauce well. Salt actually helps with reducing the sensation of bitterness notes on our taste receptors.

Cranberry sauce is best served at room temperature or slightly chilled. (You've got enough things on the menu to warm up! Don't make the list longer!) I tend to make cranberry sauce a few days before Thanksgiving and then set it on the table about an hour or two before we plan to eat.

Try a pinch of baking soda.

Baking soda is very alkaline, which is a good way to correct overly bitter dishes. Sprinkle just a pinch into your food and mix it in well to see if that helps.

The Fix: Balance bitter flavors by introducing something salty, sweet, or sour. For naturally bitter foods such as kale, you can soften the flavor by add a lemony vinaigrette, Parmesan cheese, and pomegranate seeds. You can also elevate kale by tossing it olive oil and salt, then roasting it in the oven until crispy.

This bitterness is due to the high tannin content of cranberries.