20 Cranberry Sauce Recipes

A variety of cranberry sauce recipes, for Thanksgiving or Christmas...

image: OurFamilyEats

Roasted or Baked Cranberry Sauce

Simple Roasted Cranberries (Gluten Free, Grain Free, and Paleo) from OurFamilyEats. I love that this one really is simple, and that it uses maple syrup for the sweetener.

Bobby Flay's Baked Cranberry Sauce, which calls for finishing it off with a quarter cup of bourbon. Some reviewers substituted other liquor or liquers (orange being a popular flavor). 41 reviews, and every one of them 4-star!

Roasted Cranberry Sauce with Herbed Candied Walnuts, from Bon Appetit. Lots of sugar in this one!

Boozy and Baked Cranberry Sauce. Even though it has "boozy" in the name, its alcohol content is much less than Mr. Flay's. Also looks easy: just four ingredients.

Sugar-Free Cranberry Sauce

image: The Vintage Mixer

A sugar-free recipe that lets you use the sweetener of your choice.

And another "sugar-free" cranberry sauce recipe, but it uses honey. You could sub maple syrup or your preferred sweetener. It also includes crushed pineapple; interesting!

And another. This one calls for Equal, but a couple commenters said they used Splenda and it worked well.

Paleo-friendly cranberry sauce; uses apple juice and maple syrup for sweetener. (Listed as 

Paleo/GF/DF/EF/SF/NF)

Another Paleo cranberry sauce, from nomnompaleo, using sweet cherries and apple juice.

(Here's why I like maple syrup as a sweetener.)

Traditional Stove-Top Cranberry Sauce Recipes

image: Simply Recipes

Every recipe I've ever tried from Elise at SimplyRecipes has been great. Here's her traditional recipe. But she also suggest various add-ins. I might try blueberry! 

(And her recipe is the same as the most popular cranberry sauce at AllRecipes; more than 1200 reviews, and still five stars!) 

Another classic cranberry sauce recipe; this one from Pioneer Woman. Similar to the others, but uses maple syrup in place of sugar, and orange juice in place of white sugar.

Unique Cranberry Sauce Recipes

This page at Fun & Food Cafe features five different cranberry sauce recipes, with unusual ingredients. I like the sound of the second one, which has raspberries and walnuts!

Ginger Cranberry Sauce, via RecipeLion.

Another from the same source: Cranberry Sauce with Apples (and Mandarin oranges, and pineapple).

How about Cranberry Sauce with Jalapenos? I think that would be a big hit with smoked turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Multipurpose Spicy Asian Marinade Recipe

This (for now) is a recipe I haven't tried -- yet.

So why am I posting it? Since it got a 4-fork rating on Epicurious -- the highest possible -- I definitely want to try it. Also, it got great comments. Bonus: it's sugar-free! But there's no pinnable image on the original, so I can't post it to my "recipes to try" Pinterest board from there.

Various reviewers said...

"I ground chicken thighs in the food processor, marinated as directed, and then browned the meat for delicious and simple lettuce wraps. I think I will go to this marinade again and again."

"I marinated some shrimp in this for about an hour, and then sauteed them with the remaining marinade; they were so flavorful!"

"Used this over asparagus. Cut the spears into 2" long pieces, marinated it a bit and then sauteed the asparagus in oil, reserving marinade. After removing asparagus from pan, I added reserved marinade along with a cornstarch slurry to thicken for a sauce."

"I used this marinade with scallops and veggie kabobs. It was fantastic!"

The author comments...
"This all-purpose marinade can be used for chicken or turkey breast, pork cutlets, firm-pressed tofu, and seafood. If you prefer to omit the chile, use smashed fresh ginger instead."

Recipe: Spicy Asian Chicken Marinade

by Spices of Life, by Nina Simonds , via epicurious

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine or sake
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon dried chile flakes or hot chile paste (or 5 to 6 slices of smashed fresh ginger)
• 1 tablespoon virgin olive oil (or canola oil)

Combine all ingredients and use as directed in your recipe.

photo credit: formalfallacy @ Dublin (Victor) via photopin cc

Seven simple salad dressings

One of the easiest and most delicious things you can do to put healthier food into your body is to learn some recipes for homemade salad dressings. Once you start, you'll probably never buy the bottled stuff again! Homemade dressings just taste so much fresher. And you can be sure there's no corn syrup or {insert evil sweetener of your choice here} in it! I usually use Splenda, but use whatever you want. Most "Lite" salad dressings you buy in the store are low fat, but that just means a higher percentage of the product is carbs, and most likely, sugary ones.

Here are seven of my favorite homemade salad dressings I've posted here in the past. For a healthy body, happy taste buds!

Buttermilk Ranch (made with Greek yogurt)

Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Tex-Mex Dressing (three ingredients!)

Ginger-peanut Salad Dressing

Almost-Panera's Asian Chicken Salad Dressing

Lemon (or Citrus) Poppyseed Dressing

Caesar Salad Dressing

Update: bonus recipe...

Creamy Italian Dressing

How To Peel, Cut, Core, and Dice: Tips for Fruit and Vegetable Prep

The Kitchn has compiled a super-handy list of 20 tips and how-to's for prepping various fruits and vegetables. Some of the more interesting entries:

How to peel a head of garlic in 10 seconds. Two bowls, a solid surface, and you're 10 seconds away from a bunch of naked garlic cloves.
How to peel roasted red peppers.
How to cut a mango.
How to dice an avocado.
How to dice an onion.
How to core a head of iceberg lettuce.
How to seed a pomegranate.

See the full list of 20 items.

Ginger-peanut dressing

Here's a simple salad dressing that rivals any restaurant Asian salad! My favorite salad combo to serve it with -- and the one shown above -- is, for each serving:

- one heart-of-romaine head, chopped (I save the bottom 4" to use as dippers with hummus, etc.)
- one regular or two small green onions, sliced thin
- one or two handfuls of slaw mix with carrots
- chopped bell pepper to taste
- chopped nuts of your choice and to taste: peanuts, cashews or almonds
- chopped cilantro to your taste
- optional: 1/2 to 1 whole cooked chicken breast

Just toss all this together and serve immediately, or cover and chill till you're ready to serve.

Just before serving, drizzle on the dressing. This recipe makes enough for about four servings.

Recipe: Ginger-peanut salad dressing

1/4 c. rice vinegar
2 T. minced fresh ginger root
2 T. sugar-free peanut butter
1 T. honey
2 pkts. Splenda
1 small garlic clove
1/2 t. sesame oil
1/2 c. canola oil

Combine all ingredients except for canola in a blender and process till smooth. With the blender running, drizzle in the canola oil.

Best if chilled for a couple hours before serving.