Cranberry-orange-nut sauce - The most flavorful and interesting cranberry sauce I've ever made

By: Tom Cloyd (Published: 2025-11-25; reviewed: 2025-11-25:2109 PT)

cranberry sauce served in small glass dish

Cranberry-orange-nut sauce / Photo by Tom Cloyd

 

This is not your ordinary cranberry sauce. The original version of this came from a woman I dated briefly in the mid 70’s. Until then I had no idea that cranberry sauce could be so interesting. But…it can.

This recipe assumes the sauce will be frozen. These days, I can it instead, as my freezer isn’t working. Sadly, this means the nuts must be left out. Adding nuts means the sauce must be pressure canned if it is not to be frozen. Boiling water canning is just simpler and quicker.

I have experimented with reducing the sugar, and the amount in the recipe seems best.

 

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 12 oz cranberries (standard size package - about 3 cups)
  • 2/3 cup raisins
  • 2/3 cup walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped (unless sauce is to be canned)1
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ginger, fresh, finely minced or grated
  • 1/3 cup orange juice concentrate, frozen (or 3 tablespoons orange zest) - or both: 1/4 cup OJ concentrate + 4 teaspoons minced orange zest
  1. Add salt and sugar to water, in medium (1 1/2 - 2 quart) sauce pan, bring to boil.
  2. Add berries and raisins; cook until most of the berries pop open.
  3. Remove from heat; stir in nuts (if used) and spices, then orange juice concentrate or zest.
  4. Allow to cool, then refrigerate or freeze. May be frozen for at least a year with no loss of quality.

  1. Adding nuts to the sauce while it’s warm allows them to soak up some cranberry juice. But cooking the sauce with the nuts, much less canning it with the nuts, extracts some oil and soluble parts of the nuts into the sauce and changes the color in ways that you may not like. ^

 

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