Cranberry Sauce is Crazy Easy to Make! Ditch the Canned Stuff!

About 7 years ago I went to someone's house for Thanksgiving dinner and she had homemade cranberry sauce.  Wow! It was amazing! And spooning the sauce onto my plate was so much easier than trying to get that slippery, jiggling, jellied slice of canned cranberry sauce onto my plate.

I asked how she made it and I was astounded at how easy it was.  Three ingredients.  You can get fancy and add more, but for a basic sauce that everyone will love start with the basic three:

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice (I used Orange Mango)
1 12 oz bag of Cranberries

Directions:

• In a medium or large skillet or frying pan bring the sugar and orange juice to a boil. I prefer the wide flat pan because the cranberries cook more evenly.
• Rinse the bag of cranberries, remove any questionable cranberries (shriveled and/or mushy) and any stems.
• Add the cranberries to the boiling juice and sugar, return to a boil before reducing the temperature to a simmer.
• The cranberries begin to pop, simmer the cranberries for about 10 minutes or until all the cranberries have popped.
• Remove the cranberry sauce from the heat
• My family doesn't like whole cranberries in their sauce so I mash the cranberries or if I'm feeling particularly fancy, I throw the sauce into the food processor to puree it.
• Pour the sauce into a serving bowl.  I like to measure out 1 cup of sauce for my Cranberry Sauce Muffins and set it aside for later. 

And that's it, you're done. So super easy and you've just elevated Thanksgiving dinner!