Homemade Cranberry Sauce with Recipe

This year I decided to try making homemade cranberry sauce and then canning it. (Have you seen the cost of canned cranberry sauce that doesn't have HFCS in it? Or some made with organic sugar? Yikes!)

I referenced Pick Your Own (see website here) as I do for all things before I can them. When canning, it is important to follow USDA guidelines to avoid poisoning yourself or someone you know!

I hit a sale on Ocean Spray Cranberries at Target for $1.99 per bag (cranberries are not on the dirty dozen list so I feel relatively safe buying regular ones). I used two $1 off coupons, and the cartwheel app to save 5% and got 5 bags for $7.55.

I got this for free at Walgreens a couple weeks ago. I like to coupon bottles of 100% juice that are flavors of things I would like to can and then save them to use for that purpose. Using 100% juice is a great way to replace sugar in jams, jellies and cranberry sauce!

Rinse the cranberries, pick out any slimy or mushy ones and then dump them in a large stainless steel pot. I had 5 bags of 12 ounces each so it came out to 60 ounces. 

I added 2 cups of 100% cranberry pomegranate juice, turned the heat to medium and stirred every few minutes until the berries were mostly popped and the sauce is mushy. Remove it from heat. 

I completely pureed half of it in my Food Processor until smooth. The other half I just puled a few times so that it was still very chunky. 

Put it back on stove and add 2 3/4 cups organic sugar, and 4 cups of juice (you can add more or less of the sugar and the juice to the taste and consistency that you prefer). You do not need to add pectin when you use sugar because cranberries have enough natural pectin to get a good set. Bring it to a full, rolling boil for 1 minute after you have added the sugar and juice. 

Ladle it into jars, put on your lids and rings (as you usually would canning, you know the drill ;) ), leaving 1/2 inch head space. 

Hot water bath (in pints) for 15 minutes. Then remove from hot water bath and let cool on the counter for 24 hours. Make sure the lids all pop before storing them. 

I got 7 pints plus 1 cup extra for us to enjoy that evening!

I ended up paying (including the lids I used) $1.55 per pint for delicious cranberry sauce where I know all the ingredients used and has organic sugar!