Tag Archives: moms cranberry sauce

Dessert, Dips and Sauces, Holidays, Side dishes, Vegetarian

Mom’s Special Cranberry Sauce

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With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I am getting ready for cooking up all the associated goodies.  If you are lucky enough to have a mom, aunt, grandmother, etc who has special family recipes that have been passed down over generations, do yourself a favor and start to learn those recipes.  Instead of watching cartoons or football, get into the kitchen and help out.  You never know when it will be your turn to feed yourself, your family, or your whole neighborhood.

This recipe is passed down from my fiancee’s mother.  It is hands-down his favorite Thanksgiving dish, so much so that his mom usually makes a double recipe just so he can have one whole batch to himself.  I also doubled the recipe, and it was still all gone within two days.  You can easily multiply this recipe to make as much as you need, this makes about 10 cups of sauce.

It is a perfect blend of tangy cranberry and sweet from the sugar.  The orange juice and orange peel gives it a nice depth of flavor, and you can adjust the other spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, allspice, etc to your own liking.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 can crushed pineapple
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 16 oz bag cranberries
  • 1 cup orange juice
  • 1/4 cup grated orange peel
  • 2 tbsp cinnamon

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Step 1: Put the orange juice in a pan and bring it to a boil.  Rinse the cranberries and add them to the pot.

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Step 2: Add the sugars and the entire can of crushed pineapple.

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Step 3: Then add the spices.  You might want to make sure you use a pot that will be big enough to hold everything…

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Step 4: Grate the orange peel.  Try not to get any white pith in there. Add it to the pot,  mix well.

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Step 5: Simmer for at least 1 hour, until the cranberries begin to burst and liquefy.  It will thicken as you cook it down, and will thicken even more upon cooling.

This stuff is so good, I don’t even have a picture of the finished product! The recipe is great for doubling or tripling, and freezes well.  This can easily be made up to a month ahead of time, and simply reheated the day of, for an easy time-saver.