Lightly Spiced Cranberry Sauce with Apples

Looking for a cranberry sauce with apples? This easy cranberry recipe  gets a triple shot of apple goodness with apple cider, fine-diced apples and Calvados (or other apple brandy). This spiced cranberry sauce makes a great Thanksgiving side dish or spread for leftover turkey sandwiches.

 

Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce

I admit, that for a long time, I wanted nothing to do with spiced cranberry sauce.  Those cans of jelled goo were decidedly unappetizing to me and I could never fully embrace my grandmother’s cranberry relish (made of raw cranberries and unpeeled oranges) thus, I avoided the traditional Thanksgiving cranberry sauce and instead, doubled up on gravy. But then I started making my own Holiday cranberry sauce — and found that when I controlled the ingredients, I liked it a whole lot better.  Maybe it was the sugar and spice — or maybe it had something to do with the several cups of red zinfandel… {smirk}.  In any case, it’s been my go-to recipe for years.

 

The Best Cranberry Sauce

This year I’m switching it up.  Not because I don’t love my go-to recipe, but because I found myself with a bag of cranberries — and NO RED WINE… Most people would just hold off until the next trip to the store, but not me. The family was having a “Thanksgiving cranberry sauce craving” and I had to deliver. Poking around the kitchen, I found one ingredient that we had plenty of… Apples.  Apples in the form of fruit, apple cider and even apple brandy. I thought about it  for about 5 seconds before determining that cranberry sauce with apples seemed like a very good thing…

 

Ingredients For Cranberry Sauce With Apples:

 

• Fresh Cranberries
• Brown Sugar
• Sparkling Wine or White Wine (remember, I was out of red)
• Apple Cider
• Cinnamon Stick
• Whole Cloves
• Apples (I used honey crisp)
• Calvados or other Apple Brandy

Making The Sauce

1. Heat the sugar, spices, apple cider and wine together until the sugar melts and the liquid reduces a little to become syrupy.
2. REMOVE THE WHOLE CLOVES. If you forget this step, you’ll have whole cloves floating around in your cranberry sauce. If you ever accidentally bitten into a whole clove, you’ll know it’s not an experience you want to repeat.  Remove the cloves BEFORE adding the berries.  You can continue to cook with the cinnamon stick in the pot — I mean, you’ll be able to SEE the cinnamon stick — and you’ll know NOT TO EAT IT.
3. Add the cranberries and apples and bring to a rolling, frothing boil.
4. The cranberries will pop and maybe splatter — that’s good. Stir the pot occasionally until all the cranberries are burst.
5. Remove the pot from the stove and fish out the cinnamon stick.
6. Stir in the Calvados or brandy.
7. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate.

 

The cranberry sauce with apples will thicken a bit as it chills. Above is a photo of the spiced cranberry sauce right after pouring it into the bowl — you can see it’s still a bit loose. Below is a photo of the sauce after it’s been refrigerated.

It tastes phenomenal right from the pot — but also directly from the fridge, where I may have dipped my spoon for a sweet-tart bite {strictly for quality control purposes}. Let me say that this recipe has created some stiff competition for our traditional Holiday cranberry sauce.

 

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