Cranberry sauce is a must-have for the Christmas season, bringing tart sweetness to party canapés, roast turkey, and Boxing Day sandwiches crammed with leftovers.
While it's tempting to cut corners with cranberry sauce from the supermarket, it's so simple to make your own using this easy recipe – and you'll be rewarded with a sauce packed with festive flavours and no artificial additives. If you want to prepare ahead, we've included helpful tips on freezing and thawing your cranberry sauce ready for Christmas Day.
lg oranges, rind grated and flesh cut into segments
125g
(4oz) caster sugar
150ml
(5 fl oz (¼ pint)) port
Directions
Step 1
Gently cook the cranberries and the orange rind in a heavy-based saucepan over a low heat for 5min or until the cranberry skins begin to split. Using a draining spoon, remove the cranberries from the saucepan and place in a bowl.
Step 2
Add sugar and port to the saucepan. When the sugar has dissolved, bring to the boil. Bubble until reduced by half and pour over the cranberries. Allow to cool, then add the orange segments.
Prepare ahead: Complete recipe, then cool, cover and chill for up to four days.
To freeze: Complete the recipe, then cool, pack and freeze. Thaw overnight before serving.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).