Cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries, dates, and an orange – that’s it!
Hey, it’s Thanksgiving Day and it may (or may not!) be too late for you to use this sugar-free cranberry sauce recipe I just invented.
But then again, maybe it’s not too late! And even if it is, it’s still in plenty of time for the rest of the holiday season – and beyond.
Heck, I even had it on my pancakes this morning. It was my first project in the kitchen today and it was so good, I just had to use it as a hotcakes topper.
Oh, I did start soaking the dates last night, so that made things perhaps go a bit faster.
Here you go! I even snapped a photo for you, to inspire. The used is the only one I have around today – thus the slice through its gorgeous middle!
Lani’s Cranberry Sauce with Dates and OJ Recipe
- 2 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
- juice and zest from one orange
- 8 – 10 pitted dates, depending on sweetness desired (doesn’t matter what variety, I used a mix of medjool and deglet noor)
- 1/4 + cup water
-
- soak the dates overnight in the orange juice (you can probably skip this step if in a hurry – if so, maybe cook them a little to soften!)
- blend the dates with the juice and water
- put the dates/juice/water in a pot with the cranberries, bring up the heat quickly to get it hot and then and cook over medium/low heat for 15 minutes.
There you have it! You may need more or less water, depending on how juicy the orange, dates, and cranberries.
Yummers! Let me know if you have any suggestions for my recipe in comments below. And if you make this cranberry sauce, let me know how yours came out!
Lani–
You rock! I was totally looking for something like this for Christmas dinner—so this is perfect! Thank you SO much for providing this!
Thankful for all you do.. Happy Thanksgiving!
Karen
Woohoo! Thanks Karen – and in plenty of time for Christmas! Have a good holiday!
Lani, I made this for Christmas yesterday, and it was delicious! I had it on my oatmeal this morning, as well as with my sweet potatoes last night.
I lost my long-time recipe for cranberry-orange juice-sauce this year, coincidentally, which called for brown sugar instead of dates. I added cinnamon to your recipe, because there was cinnamon in the lost recipe.
The only downside to this recipe is that I missed the brilliant red that cranberry sauce brings! The dates made it very brown. But the flavor was wonderful!
Cloudy, great idea with the cinnamon! Hmmmm on the brown. I didn’t even notice! In my picture it looks quite vibrant as you see, yet I guess if I put it side-by-side with a non-date batch it would look different. Didn’t even think of that.
I’m putting it on everything too – actually will post about that soon. thanks so much for your post and let me know if you come up with a work-around on the color!
Lani
Your picture does look brighter than mine–I wonder if it’s because I used a Vitamix to blend the dates? The mixture came out quite shake-like, and maybe the brown of the dates was made more prominent by that…next time I’ll try a food processor to see if the date mix is less brown.
Cloudy, did you blend the dates in with the cranberries?
No, just the date-orange juice mixture. It could be that the 12 medjool dates were more than I needed–they were Costco-sized! I will experiment with fewer dates as well.
Could be Cloudy. I’ve made it less sweet depending on the mood and think less dates work great.
Thanks for this recipe! So simple!
It would be great to be able to get the “printer friendly” recipe on one page — just the title, recipe, and source will do, as the FatFreeVegan website does. Thanks!
Julia – It’s already there! Look for the green “print friendly” button at the bottom of each post. Let me know if that works for you, OK?
Thanks!
Lani
I’m going to try this on Thursday (Thanksgiving) – thanks!
Martha – you’ll have to let me know how it came out! I made a big double batch but I’ve been eating it on my morning oatmeal and need to make another!
Lani
This is great, Lani. I’m going to try it this weekend! Thanks!
Hi Tyler,
Yay! Let me know how it comes out!
Lani
A hit at our CAD (Standard Canadian Diet ) family Christmas Eve dinner.
I doubled the recipe…and have left overs for my oatmeal for the next few days!
I will freeze some and see how it turns out!
Merry Christmas!
Susan – thanks for letting me know – and I think the freezer idea is great! I always just use my leftovers on oatmeal and leftover potatoes! I made a huge batch today too – about a quart left!
Best of holiday seasons to you,
Lani
You have wonderful knowlwdge in this article.
It’s that time of year again! All of my cooking for the holidays start here! Thanks, Lani 😘
xoxo
LaVonne
It’s a perfect recipe, great for year round. Thanks!