Healthy Cranberry Sauce

Healthy Cranberry Sauce for your holiday table replaces the traditional sugar laden condiment!  This four ingredient sauce cooks in less than 15 minutes!

Who is cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year?  Do you have a huge feast that takes days to prepare or do you prefer to order pre-cooked meals?

The temptation to buy ready made meals from the grocery store is tantalizing, but there are some family favorite dishes that we make year after that can’t be replicated by any store!

Every year individual sweet potato casseroles are on the menu, and once I learned how simple it is to make cranberry sauce it has also become a staple on our Thanksgiving table.

Although making our favorite dishes have become a tradition, this year I tweaked an easy condiment turning it into a healthy cranberry sauce that is sugar-free and low carb!

A while back I bought a collection of lemon, lime, and orange citrus oils at a baking supply store. You can use them to enhance flavors in sauces, dressings, soups, and sweet treats like frostings.

The technique used to make the oil is pretty intense.  The rind of these fruits are processed in a way that squeezes the natural oils out creating super strong natural flavors.  It takes about 44 oranges to make one ounce of oil!

Luckily, when you use such a powerful oil, only a small amount is needed when adding it to foods.

Using essential oils (a great low carb hack) will give you all the flavor without the extra sugar that you get from fruit juices, which is ideal for a low carb side dish.

In this case, instead of adding orange juice to my cranberry sauce I substituted it with 1/4 teaspoon of orange oil and a cup of water.  That small amount of oil with cinnamon is so darn fantastic with the cranberries!

Cranberries on their own can be quite bitter, so to sweeten the sauce up I used Swerve sugar replacement which adds sweetness without the calories like granulated sugar.

Win-win on this re-creation of a favorite traditional Thanksgiving cranberry sauce!  Don’t limit this to sauce to just turkey.  Top it on yogurt, on pork or try this baked brie with cranberry sauce!

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Healthy Cranberry Sauce

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Prep Time 5 mins Cook Time 10-15 mins Serves 8

Healthy Cranberry Sauce for your holiday table replaces the traditional sugar laden condiment!  This three ingredient sauce cooks in less than 15 minutes!

Ingredients

• 12 ounce cranberries
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup Swerve
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Wash Cranberries and set aside.   In a medium saucepan heat the water and Swerve over medium heat until the sweetener dissolves.  Add the cranberries and cook until the berries start to burst and begin to soften (about 10 minutes).  Remove from heat and add orange essential oil and cinnamon until well combined.  Cool in the pan at room temperature, then refrigerate.  

by Sandra Shaffer

Recipe Notes

Adjust the sweetener to your preference.  You may want to add up to a half cup or more if your berries are sour.  

Food grade citrus oils are much stronger than extracts.  Adjust according to the manufacturer's recommendation.  

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