Maple Cranberry Sauce Recipe
While store-bought cranberry sauce might seem simpler and save time, it’s often full of preservatives and refined sugars. Maple cranberry sauce is extremely quick to make and is a fresh and healthy alternative that still offers all the sweetness you need to complement the roasted dishes served on festive occasions like Christmas.
Ingredients
- 340 grams of frozen or fresh cranberries
- Grade A maple syrup. Choose dark robust or golden delicate to suit your taste.
- 1 fresh orange
- Mineral water for the cranberry sauce base.
Optional extras
Warming spices can add depth and festive notes to cranberry sauce. Try adding a generous pinch of spices like ground ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon or others you prefer. For a more indulgent sauce, consider adding a splash of port or brandy.
Instructions
Maple cranberry sauce is a two-step recipe involving some simple preparation and simmering.
Preparation
Take your cranberries and rinse them thoroughly. Remove any that appear wilted or discoloured. For a smoother texture, breakdown your cranberries in a bowl using a potato masher. Now take your fresh orange and collect some zest by scraping the surface of the skin with a grater, being careful to avoid the pith. Now, juice the orange.
Combine the cranberries, zest and juice with some water in a saucepan and add maple syrup to taste.
Gather any spices you wish to use in a small dish and any spirits you’d like to add close at hand.
Simmering
Heat your combined ingredients over a heat of medium to high until the mixture starts to simmer. Now reduce the to a medium to low heat, adding your spices before simmering for around 9 minutes. By this time the cranberries will have popped, while the sauce will have thickened to the right consistency. Now add your spirit of choice and cook for a final minute. The sauce will thicken further while cooling down.
Now complete, you can choose between serving your maple cranberry sauce warm, or refrigerate for chilled.
If you make more than you need, you can store sauce in the refrigerator for up to three days, or freeze it and it will be good for three months.
