3 Ingredient Homemade Cranberry Sauce Made in 5 Minutes

The easiest cranberry sauce can be made in 5 minutes with 3 ingredients. A delicious side dish to any Thanksgiving meal.

Ditch the canned cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving.

Cranberries

I feel fresh cranberries are best but frozen can be used if fresh is not available.

Empty 1 12 ounce bag of fresh cranberries into a sauce pot.

Oranges

Zest 2 mandarin oranges or 1 large orange. Add the zest to the cranberries. I recommend using an organic orange because you are going to be using the zest of the orange. Once again I am putting to work my favorite Microplane Zester. I love that tool!

Be sure to zest just the outer, dark orange part of the mandarin.

Going too deep will get into the white of the mandarin and that is quite bitter.

Slice the oranges or separate the segments.

Add them to the cranberries and the zest.

Add 1/2 cup of sugar to the other ingredients.

Cook 5 Minutes

Over medium to medium high heat, cook the sauce. It should take less than 5 minutes.

First the juice from the oranges will start to steam, then the cranberries, will start to steam, then the sugar will start to melt, the sauce will start to come together. I give it a stir from time to time to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot.

There is no thickener or gelatin added because the cranberries have a natural pectin in them that makes the sauce jell naturally.