I know. I know. Bloggers usually share their Thanksgiving recipes BEFORE Thanksgiving, but I didn’t think of it at the time. We had a wonderful holiday at my parents’ house. My Dad smoked a turkey in the backyard, which turned out awesome. And we had about a thousand side dishes, all made from scratch.
All from scratch, except the cranberry sauce, which was going to come from a can. But when my son arrived from college, and discovered that I wasn’t planning on making my famous fresh cranberry sauce, he protested. So at 3:30pm on Thanksgiving Day, he drove me to the store (which was pretty empty by then) for the ingredients. And in about 45 minutes, my cranberry sauce was made, chilled, and perfectly jelled.
Here’s my secret recipe. This is based on a recipe I got years ago from Gourmet Magazine, but because I never cut it out, this version is what it has evolved into over the years.

Recipe: Cranberry Sauce with Raspberries
Ingredients
- 1 16oz bag of fresh cranberries
- 1 bag/box of frozen raspberries
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (approximately one medium lemon)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup of water
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in small saucepan. Stir occasionally (so the bottom doesn’t burn). Simmer until all the cranberries pop.
- This can be made a day in advance, and chilled over night in the refrigerator.
- If you don’t have time to chill in the fridge, place the sauce in a bowl, and place this bowl in a larger bowl with ice, salt, water. Stir occasionally, until the sauce cools and jells.
Quick Notes
The cranberries can be purchased fresh, then frozen. I usually pop a few bags of fresh cranberries into the freezer so that I can make this again, after cranberry season.
If you have any sauce leftover after dinner, this tart cranberry/raspberry sauce is great over vanilla ice cream. Yum!
Culinary tradition: USA (Traditional)
My rating:






That sounds really good. How about the recipe on the cranberry bag? Has anyone tried that?
Mommy Blogger
The recipe was great. Here in Australia it can get up to 35 degrees C on Christmas Day so I will be using it on ice cream!!! Thanks.
Thanks for the recipe. It’s soooo good. I still have a little leftover from Thanksgiving. I put a little cream cheese on a bagel and topped it with the cranberry sauce. It was yummy and it looked very pretty, too. Tonight I told my friend about how delicious it was and she asked me for the recipe. Excellent timing. (I’ll never be able to use canned again!) Lois xo
Thanks Barbara,
Wonderful recipe. Will add it to my list
of favourites.
Wish you health and happiness during the
festive seasons.
Best wishes
Lynne