Name: Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Ingredients: 1 cup orange juice; 1 cup brown sugar; 12 ounce bag fresh cranberries

Make this easy homemade cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries for a delicious from-scratch side dish for your Thanksgiving dinner.

Serving bowl full of fresh homemade cranberry sauce.

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Homemade cranberry sauce is super easy to make! All you need is a bag of real whole cranberries and a few other ingredients. This recipe is great for beginner cooks, even if you’ve never made cranberry sauce or cranberry relish before.

I grew up eating the canned cranberry jelly at Thanksgiving. You know the one – slide it out of the can and cut it into slices. It’s pretty good, but if you really want to wow your dinner guests without much more effort, make this cranberry sauce from scratch.

Once you’ve tried this recipe, you’ll never go back to the can.

Homemade cranberry sauce tips

This homemade cranberry sauce recipe can be made in advance and, in fact, is better when made at least the day before you’re going to eat it.
Cooked cranberry sauce will last in the refrigerator for about a week and in the freezer for about 6 weeks. Make sure it is covered tightly.
This sauce (technically a relish) is pretty sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. Taste it while you’re cooking it and add more sugar while it’s still bubbling if needed.
You can substitue raw or white sugar instead of the brown sugar. I have not tested this with other sweeteners.
If you want to make cranberry sauce without orange juice, you can swap the orange juice for any type of juice – or even just water – but it will affect the final flavor a bit. The type of OJ also doesn’t matter, so feel free to make it from concentrate, go organic, pulp or no pulp, and whatever you like.
Make this homemade cranberry sauce with fresh or frozen cranberries. Frozen berries may just need a few minutes longer to cook.

Closeup of cranberry sauce with burst berry texture.

How to make homemade cranberry sauce

Ingredients

1 cup orange juice
1 cup brown sugar
12 ounce bag fresh cranberries

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients.

Heat the orange juice and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat on the stove. Stir to dissolve the sugar. When it’s dissolved, add the cranberries.

Cranberries bubbling and foaming in a saucepan.

2. Simmer cranberry sauce.

Simmer the sauce over medium heat, stirring frequently until all of the berries have popped. This should take about 10 minutes.

It’s a bit like popcorn – you just need to watch and listen for when it stops making popping sounds. A few unpopped berries are fine, especially if they burst when you press on them with a spoon.

It is also helpful to watch the liquid. When it starts simmering, there will be a lot of foam and bubbles. As it gets close to being done, the foam will disappear.

Cranberries finished cooking in a saucepan.

3. Cool and chill to serve.

When the berries are all popped, turn off the heat and pour the cranberry sauce into a serving dish. Set it aside to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes or so. Then cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, at least 1 hour, but overnight is even better.