Year-round cranberry sauce alternatives

December 14, 2018 9:11 AM

I made homemade cranberry sauce for the first time this Thanksgiving and loved it so much I'm making it weekly for my morning oatmeal. Given that cranberries are not in season year-round, what are other easy homemade tart-sweet fruit sauces/jams/chutneys/etc can I make?

(I know you can freeze fresh cranberries and can get frozen cranberries, but I don't want to devote my entire freezer to cranberries and also know that at some point I will get tired of cranberry sauce. So take it for granted I want alternatives.)

What I like about the recipe is:
- It's tart, bright and not too sweet -- this is the main thing, I don't want something that's just sugar. I made it as directed for Thanksgiving, but dialed down the sugar for everyday breakfast and it's just perfect
- It's texturally interesting with the orange peel
- It's basically a dump-and-stir recipe. Chopping is 100% fine but I hate de-seeding or peeling individual fruits unless they're large like apples or something

I'm basically looking for other recipes along these lines! I don't plan to can or preserve them -- I'm happy to make weekly and refrigerate. I'm located in the US Northeast in terms of produce and seasonal availability.

Bonus points if your recipes are in metric units and weights!

posted by andrewesque to Food & Drink (22 answers total)

Marmalade! Grapefruit marmalade with vanilla bean is so, so good. I can eat it by the spoonful (like cranberry sauce, actually).
posted by fiercecupcake at 9:13 AM on December 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've started adding pomegranate seeds to my salads, and I love the tart/sweet flavor they add in addition to the little burst of juicy texture.
I haven't made a sauce from them, but here's a recipe that looks workable.
posted by FencingGal at 9:27 AM on December 14, 2018

So, I am not a cook at all, but it seems like rhubarb might hit the spot for you. Maybe a chunky strawberry-rhubarb jam? There's pre-made versions out there, and tons of recipes.
posted by backwards compatible at 9:28 AM on December 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Here's a recipe for Rhubarb Compote but basically any version of rhubarb jam will do you.
posted by platitudipus at 9:30 AM on December 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Start with 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries (typically sold in 12-ounce bags), 1 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Combine everything in food processor and pulse until well chopped.

Variations:

Mojito: Add zest and juice from 2 limes and 1/2 cup loosely-packed fresh mint leaves. Stir in 1 tablespoon (only 1?) light rum

Melba: Add 10-ounce bag of thawed frozen peaches and 6 ounces fresh raspberries

Smoky chipotle: Add 1 minced chipotle pepper and 1 tablespoon adobo sauce from a can of chipotles in adobo, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika and 2 cloves garlic

Ruby citrus: Add zest of 1 orange, 1 lemon and 1 lime. After processing, stir in 1 cup chopped segments of ruby red grapefruit

Herbed: Add 3 tablespoons each of chopped fresh chives, tarragon, basil, parsley and cilantro

I make the Mojito version. I have eaten the Chipotle version. Both are very good. With all variations, best to allow finished mixture to chill 24 hours so flavors blend.
posted by John Borrowman at 9:39 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Grilled Brie Cheese with Cherry Chutney, Please!

You'll have seasonality issues, too, but I believe cherries are generally more available and for longer time periods.

And if not, there's always brandied cherries.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:43 AM on December 14, 2018

Quince has a lovely tart-sweet flavor with an almost ethereal aroma. Food in Jars has a good recipe for larger, domestic quince. If you're like me and glean (with permission) from neighbor's ornamental quince bushes, do yourself a favor and toss them in a pressure cooker and run them through a food mill instead. The ornamental quinces are much smaller with a higher core-to-fruit ratio that makes coring nearly impossible. If you're not interested in canning, you can skip the water bath processing part and just store in the fridge or freezer.
posted by carrioncomfort at 9:48 AM on December 14, 2018

I am not sure if this is as specific as you want but you can make any fruit compote with as little sugar as you want, it just won't last. I have done something similar for my oatmeal and stashed it in cubes/lumps in the freezer.
posted by quaking fajita at 9:51 AM on December 14, 2018

Hi I do a lot of canning and preserving (I know this is not what you're looking for, just establishing my condiment cred).

The fact that you plan on making stuff weekly and putting it in the fridge means that you can probably play with adjusting the sugar content of practically any jam or preserve recipe to your taste. The reason a lot of jams include as much sugar as they do is because the sugar is itself part of what encourages some fruits to set for shelf-storage; so if you aren't gonna make it shelf-stable, you don't need to worry about that, so you can play with the sugar content.

In general: the kind of recipes you want to be searching for are for "compotes" or "preserves". That's where you're gonna find the chunkier stuff. In terms of specifically tart fruits: rhubarb is especially tart, and strawberry-rhubarb is a good combination. Grapefruits are also on the tart side (obviously). But most fruits have an element of tartness to them - fruit is naturally a little acidic, and it's the recipe's own sugar content that usually tones the tartness down. If a recipe tastes a little overly-sweet, you can also just add a little lemon juice to tart it up a little. Blueberry and lemon is an especially good combination.

Or you could free-form it: the French blogger and food writer Clotilde Dusolier has a really simple fruit compote recipe that involves simmering the fruit in tea.:

You need 2 cups of water, a tablespoon of tea of your choice (green, black, whatever you want), about 1/4 cup honey (or to taste) and 2 pounds of whatever fruit you want (a combination, all one kind, whatever's available). Boil the water and then drop in the tea. Turn off the heat and let that steep for a few minutes (follow the tea maker's instructions for making a cup). Meanwhile, wash the fruit, and peel or cut up if necessary. Strain the tea into a larger pot, add the honey and stir until it melts in, then dump in half the fruit. Bring to a simmer and let simmer until the fruit is just soft (depending on the fruit you use, and how ripe it is, this could take anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes). Scoop out the fruit into a container, then repeat with the rest of the fruit. Strain the leftover tea into a bottle, too, for a bonus iced-tea beverage.

Let the simmered fruit cool before sticking it in the fridge; it will last for about 3-4 days in the fridge.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:51 AM on December 14, 2018

(Hit post too soon)

Clotilde's fruit-in-tea recipe says to "peel if necessary", and I realize you don't want to do that; you could easily just select fruit you don't have to peel, or decide you will leave the peels on because you don't want to be bothered.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:53 AM on December 14, 2018

Tamarind has a similarly tart and tannic flavor, but richer and more savory, and you can get it in paste form which makes it very easy to make compote out of.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:04 AM on December 14, 2018

I would just like to thank you for saving me from posting the question “what can I use my delicious leftover cranberry sauce on?”
posted by corb at 10:08 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I forgot that this recipe was online, so I'll share it now:

Vanilla Grapefruit Marmalade
posted by fiercecupcake at 10:21 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Rose hips are magnificently tart/sour and can be added to lots of things for entartening purposes. They are cheap as hell to buy in bulk as well. I don't know about the texture of them for eating as I only use them for teas, but I know that they are reasonably popular for jellymaking.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:25 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Don't miss sour cherry season in the summer! (You can buy frozen tart cherries, but they are not the same at all.)
posted by BibiRose at 12:56 PM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Apricots hit some of that sweet-sour note for me, and make excellent chutney. I had some mustard with herbs that I didn't love added it to apricot jam and it became good chutney.
Trdaer Joe's has graprefruit marmalade and it's tasty.
posted by theora55 at 12:58 PM on December 14, 2018

I just put frozen raspberries in my oatmeal (sometimes with coconut milk to add some fat) and they serve a similar purpose.
posted by needs more cowbell at 3:08 PM on December 14, 2018

Currants are another lovely tart fruit. I picked a gallon or so of currants this past fall and made a nice simple jam that I stirred into oatmeal.
posted by abeja bicicleta at 4:39 PM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

We make strawberry-rhubarb jam in the summwr: one year we made a hundred got-damn jars. It also makes an amazing pie, and these can be frozen, too.We often freeze some bags of chopped rhubarb to thaw mid-winter and put into a pie.

RHUBARB
posted by wenestvedt at 6:06 PM on December 14, 2018

Sour cherry preserves! I put them on everything. You can make your own or find them in fancy grocery stores.
posted by rhiannonstone at 6:29 PM on December 14, 2018

Lingonberry jam
posted by gemutlichkeit at 6:38 PM on December 14, 2018

If you're willing to do some picking yourself, crabapples are free and abundant and have a taste similar to cranberries. (People are often really happy if you offer to pick them, because otherwise they'll fall and rot.) I run them through a food mill and use them in anything you might use applesauce in; if you can't borrow a food mill, you can use a jelly bag to make jelly.
posted by metasarah at 8:57 AM on December 17, 2018