This homemade cranberry sauce is sweetened with seedless raspberry jam and a bit of sugar, and subtly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Whole berry cranberry raspberry sauce is quick and easy to make, wonderfully tart and not too sweet, and is just the perfect holiday side dish to balance out the richness of all the other Thanksgiving dishes.
You might also love this chocolate cranberry upside down cake, no bake cranberry cream cheese pie, and cranberry pecan shortbread cookies.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Quick and Easy. From start to finish, cranberry sauce only takes about 20 minutes to make.
Make Ahead. You can make the sauce in advance and keep it refrigerated or frozen until Thanksgiving, so there’s one less dish to make the day of the big holiday.
Better Flavor than Canned. Cranberry sauce has always been one of my favorite Thanksgiving side dishes. As a kid, I always begged to have the honor of opening the can. I loved watching that bright red cylinder of jellied sauce slide out with a juicy plop onto a plate. Then I’d slice it into circles, which I’d arrange as artfully as I could. But ever since I began making homemade cranberry sauce, I haven’t been able to enjoy the canned stuff anymore. I love the texture of the whole berries, the tart flavor of the cranberries and raspberry jam, and the warmth of winter spices.
Versatile Recipe. You can make today’s recipe with either raspberry jam or orange marmalade, and I love both versions so much. And if you have too much leftover sauce after Thanksgiving, use some of it on top of this cranberry cream cheese pie, as a filling in these cranberry almond shortbread bars, as a topping on chocolate cake, or just as a delicious sauce to spoon over vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Why do we eat Cranberries at Thanksgiving?
So while we can’t know for sure what was on the menu for that first Thanksgiving harvest meal that the Pilgrims and Native Americans shared together, there’s good reason to believe that they might have eaten cranberries. Cranberries are one of the only commercially grown fruits that are native to the United States. And Native Americans were known to eat cranberries, as well as to use them as a natural dye for clothing. Sugar was not widely available in the 1600s, though, so the sweetened cranberry sauce we serve today for Thanksgiving wasn’t invented until much later.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Cranberries. This time of year, you can buy bags of cranberries in the produce section at your grocery store. I always put them straight into my freezer, where they will keep indefinitely, until I’m ready to use them. Cranberries are extremely tart, and they need sugar to make them palatable. Cranberries are also high in pectin, which is released when they’re cooked, helping to thicken the sauce.
- Cranberry Juice. Your sauce needs some liquid, and I like to use cranberry juice, but you could also just use water. When I make my cranberry orange compote, I use orange juice.
- Seedless Raspberry Jam. Since fresh raspberries (as well as frozen) are hard to come by in the fall and winter, I use seedless raspberry jam to add raspberry flavor to my cranberry raspberry sauce. If you can only get raspberry preserves with seeds, just warm the jam a little and press it through a strainer to remove the seeds. The jam also contributes sugar to sweeten the cranberries.
- Spices. The spices should complement your cranberry sauce, but not overpower it. I like to use cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, and they add wonderful warmth and depth to this recipe.
- Sugar. Since there is sugar in the jam, as well as in the cranberry juice, I’d suggest tasting your cranberry sauce before adding additional sugar. Of course, if you use a tart, unsweetened cranberry juice, you’ll probably want to add a little sugar.
Instructions
- In a saucepan, combine the cranberries, raspberry jam, cranberry juice and spices.
- Over medium heat, bring to a simmer; reduce to medium low and simmer for about 20 minutes. As the cranberry sauce cooks, the berries will burst and the sauce will thicken. There’s no need to mash the berries, and the sauce looks prettiest if you stop cooking it while there are still some whole berries.
- Taste the sauce; if it’s too tart, add 1/4 – 1/2 cup granulated sugar, stirring until dissolved. If you used unsweetened cranberry juice, then you will likely need to add sugar, but if you used a sweetened cranberry juice cocktail, then you can add less sugar.
- Remove from the heat, and let cool slightly. Serve warm, or at room temperature.
Recipe Variations
Cranberry Orange Sauce
Substitute sweet orange marmalade for the raspberry jam, and orange juice for the cranberry juice. It’s sweet, sticky, and simply delicious.
Maple Syrup
Instead of the granulated sugar, add pure maple syrup to sweeten the sauce, as well as a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Serving Ideas
- For Thanksgiving, I like to serve this sauce slightly warm, or at room temperature. It looks gorgeous in a compote bowl. Most people eat the cranberry sauce on the side with bites of turkey. Oh, it’s so good!
- Spoon it over vanilla ice cream.
- Serve it with slices of pound cake and whipped cream.
- Use the leftovers as a cake filling or in a layered shortbread cookie bar.
- Serve it on top of chocolate cake or cream cheese pie.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Refrigerate leftover cranberry sauce in an airtight container for up to 1-2 weeks, or freeze the sauce for up to 3-6 months.
If you can’t find seedless raspberry jam, simply press the jam with seeds through a mesh strainer to get all the jam through, then discard the seeds left behind in the strainer. Straining the jam will be easiest if you warm it slightly first.
You can find my seedless cranberry jelly recipe here.
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Homemade Cranberry Raspberry Sauce
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Ingredients
- 12 oz fresh or frozen cranberries
- ⅔ cup seedless raspberry jam (see note)
- ½ cup cranberry juice
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ – ½ cup granulated sugar (sweeten to taste)
Instructions
- In a saucepan, combine the cranberries, raspberry jam, cranberry juice and spices.
- Over medium heat, bring to a simmer; reduce to medium low and simmer for about 20 minutes. As the cranberry sauce cooks, the berries will burst and the sauce will thicken. There's no need to mash the berries, and the sauce looks prettiest if you stop cooking it while there are still some whole berries.
- Taste the sauce; if it's too tart, add 1/4 – 1/2 cup granulated sugar, stirring until dissolved. If you used unsweetened cranberry juice, then you will likely need to add sugar, but if you used a sweetened cranberry juice cocktail, then you can add less sugar.
- Remove from the heat, and let cool slightly. Serve warm, or at room temperature.
Notes
- Refrigerate leftover cranberry sauce in an airtight container for up to 1-2 weeks, or freeze the sauce for up to 3-6 months.
- If you can’t find seedless raspberry jam, simply press the jam with seeds through a mesh strainer to get all the jam through, then discard the seeds left behind in the strainer.
- For a Cranberry Orange Sauce, substitute sweet orange marmalade for the raspberry jam, and orange juice for the cranberry juice. It’s a delicious alternative to the raspberry.
- Make a double batch if this sauce if you want leftovers after Thanksgiving to use for these Cranberry Almond Shortbread Bars.
I used to love Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry gel. Ocean spray does not make it anymore. Could I get basically the same thing with this (your) recipe, but to use my food processor, or blender to make the gel, & to can it, getting same results, as the now unavailable
” Cran- Raspberry gel?
I do not like whole cranberries but loved the Cran-Raspberry gel
Combination
Thank you, Karen
I’d use this cranberry jelly recipe instead, to get the results you’re looking for. I’m sure you can add raspberries to it, too.
https://curlygirlkitchen.com/homemade-seedless-cranberry-jelly/
Wowza! I wanted to make the cranberry crumble bars, so I started with this sauce. Yum! It’s so easy to make. I didn’t have raspberry jam so I used cherry and that worked great! Only needed a 1/4 c of sugar. Did a splash of lemon juice at the end and I love it! I’ll definitely make this just to have in the fridge to go with turkey meatballs!