FOOD NEWS
Give Your Canned Cranberry Sauce An Upgrade With Cocktail Ingredients
By Chase Shustack
Canned cranberry sauce isn't exactly "homemade," but it's a versatile canvas that you can experiment with. You can easily take the canned sauce up a notch by adding ingredients like citrus, nutmeg, serrano pepper, or even a splash of spirits, which are suggested to be in the form of fortified wines or other cooking-based alcohols such as sherry or bourbon.
All you need to do is add a teaspoon of liquor to your canned sauce at a time, taste-testing in between until you find the flavor that you think guests would be comfortable with. However, if you're worried about guests tasting the trademark burn of alcohol, warm the sauce over medium heat when you add the spirits, allowing the alcohol to burn off while leaving the flavors intact.
Other additions for canned cranberry sauce can include pineapple, chopped berries, mandarin oranges, and chopped toasted pecans for a bit of extra crunch in an otherwise soft and jelly-like texture. If you find your cranberry sauce having a bitter, tart, or overly tangy taste, try adding lemon or orange juice and fats like butter or cream.