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This remarkably easy maple bourbon cranberry sauce recipe is just a little bit grown-up, but not so grown-up that your whole family isn’t going to love it. The alcohol gets cooked off, so it’s suitable to serve kids and even folks in recovery. Plus, completely gluten-free, vegan, and white sugar-free, there’s just about no one you can find who’s not going to be super psyched about it!
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Ready for something a little bit more remarkable than usual to serve with your maple-roasted vegan ham, vegan turkey or (somewhat terrifying) human-baby-shaped tofu turkey? Let’s just say you want something less boring than canned cranberry sauce, but not quite as eclectic as Turkish cranberry relish. Well, this is all that, and it’s a gosh-darn foolproof recipe that takes very little time or skill to make. Perfect if you are a guest looking for an easy win to bring to the Thanksgiving you were invited to.
Unlike the canned stuff, this recipe is bold, flavorful, and best of all, it freezes like a dream, so you can make it a week or two ahead of time if you want! So, grab your ingredients and let’s rock this deliciousness out!
Jump to:
- 🥰 Why you’ll adore this Bourbon Cranberry Sauce recipe
- 🥃 Ingredients in this orange bourbon cranberry sauce
- 🤯Variations
- 📖 How to make this bourbon cranberry sauce recipe
- 💡 Vegan Thanksgiving Menu Ideas
- 👉Top tips
- 🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
- ✌️Other Thanksgiving sides you NEED to make this year:
- Maple Bourbon Cranberry Sauce Recipe
🥰 Why you’ll adore this Bourbon Cranberry Sauce recipe
✊ Vegan AF & GF: Like all of my vegan Thanksgiving recipes, this bad boy is kind to animals and completely cholesterol-free, while not holding back even a wee little bit on flavor.
🙅♀️🌾 You Hate Gluten So Much: Looking for gluten-free vegan recipes to share this holiday season? You hit the dang jackpot over here.
⏲️ Ready in Under 20 Minutes: With just ten minutes of simmering, this sauce is done, thickened, and bursting with flavor.
📍 Easy-to-Find Ingredients: No ordering stuff off the World Wide Web or specialty store runs required! All of the simple ingredients in this recipe can be picked up at an average grocery store.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all of my vegan recipes, after tweaking and perfecting, this bourbon cranberry sauce was tested and approved by a massive team of recipe testers across the globe before I published it.
🥃 Ingredients in this orange bourbon cranberry sauce
Cranberries
This sauce is best made when fresh cranberries are available, usually for a short time just leading up to Thanksgiving. But I’ve tested it with frozen cranberries too, and it turns out deliciously, with just a slightly different texture. I have found most cooked dishes with cranberries, like my vegan cornbread stuffing, are pretty unnoticeably different from one another when made with either.
Bourbon
Bourbon is an American whiskey made primarily from corn. It gives this sauce a woody caramelized flavor. As the alcohol cooks off, it leaves behind hints of vanilla, oak, and spice, adding complexity.
Although I've won awards for my vanilla bourbon crème brûlée donuts, I am not even a little bit of a drinker. So I can't point you in the direction of the absolute best bourbon to use. Since it does matter to me that it's vegan, though, I rely on barnivore.com as a resource to look up whether the brand I am planning to use is free from animal-based ingredients or processing.
If you prefer not to use alcohol, you can substitute apple cider in its place, but obviously, you will be missing out on the subtle complexity of the bourbon flavor.
Chopped Dried Figs (Optional)
Having a few massive fig trees at my house, I am all about adding red ones to my cranberry sauce. I made them optional in this recipe in case you want to keep it more basic. But these really are a lovely addition if you wanna mess with them.
Maple Syrup
If you have a choice, grade B maple syrup, which is a little more mineral-rich than grade A, is perfect for making this sauce. If you want, you can substitute agave syrup, brown sugar, coconut sugar, or palm sugar, which is my normal go-to in Southeast Asian desserts like Filipino turon, Vietnamese taro pudding, Indonesian biji salak, and Malaysian klepon.
Cornstarch
I wrote this recipe to be thickened with cornstarch because most people have it on hand. But if you are on team arrowroot, potato starch, or tapioca starch, those will all work fine in its place.
Tapioca starch is something I use a lot in the Southeast Asian cooking I do. From Filipino mochi donuts to khao pad (Thai fried rice) and Vietnamese kem chuối, tapioca has sorta become my ride-or-die thickener.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
Pear and Ginger Bourbon Cranberry Sauce
Adding peeled, diced ripe pears and a spoonful of grated fresh ginger is a great way to add even more complexity to this sauce that works beautifully alongside roasted fall vegetables.
Pomegranate and Orange Cranberry Sauce
Sub out the water in this recipe for pomegranate juice and add whole raw pomegranate seeds to the sauce while it cools. Save a few to garnish it with too. If you are scared about how to get the seeds out of the fruit—I have a whole guide you can follow about that in my shakarkandi recipe.
Bourbon Cranberry Mostarda
Mix in a tablespoon of whole brown mustard seeds and a teaspoon of ground mustard for a sweet and piquant Italian vibe that pairs beautifully with hearty plant-based charcuterie like my vegan sausage and vegan pepperoni with some of the cultured cheese I teach in my plant-based cheese school.
📖 How to make this bourbon cranberry sauce recipe
Was last year a nightmare? Flawlessly make your own cranberry sauce this year by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.
Step One
Cran Theft Auto:
Toss the tart cranberries, figs (if you are using them), maple syrup, molasses, orange zest, orange juice, water, bourbon, and salt into a saucepan. Stir the mixture together over medium heat until everything starts to come together and the cranberries are well-coated.
✅ Optionally, you can add a cinnamon stick in to cook with the sauce. Just remember to remove it when the sauce is cool before you place it on your Thanksgiving table.
✅ If multiplying the recipe for a larger batch, make sure to cook it in a large saucepan or a Dutch oven.
Step Two
Sim Simmer, Who’s Got the Keys to My Bimmer?
Keep cooking for 8 to 10 minutes over medium heat (a little longer if you’re using frozen cranberries), stirring every now and then, until the cranberries start to burst and the mixture thickens up nicely.
Step Three
Starchie and Jughead:
Mix together the water and cornstarch using a small whisk or the tines of a fork.
Pour the cornstarch slurry into the cooking cranberry sauce and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, until the sauce has thickened slightly.
Step Four
Berry Seinfeld:
Once thickened, take the pan off the heat and let it cool down to room temperature. The sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.
💡 Vegan Thanksgiving Menu Ideas
A holiday table set without the traditional cranberry sauce? It should be picked up at once and hurled into the roaring sea!
Serve this sauce with all the classic sides. Dairy-free mashed potatoes, dripping with either vegan brown gravy, mushroom gravy, or vegan sausage gravy? Chestnut and herb-spiked vegan stuffing, and vegan green bean casserole (or Turkish green beans if you are a little less basic)?
And then you have one of life's most important questions to answer. Are you gonna serve candied yams or a vegan sweet potato casserole this year? Choose wisely, m'dear love.
For real, these sides are the reason I am there 100% for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s one of the most fun holidays to cook for as long as you aren’t cooking up a dead bird.
👉Top tips
- Don’t Overcook the Cranberries:
Simmer the cranberries until they just start to pop. Overcooking will result in a mushy, jam-like consistency, without those burst-in-your-mouth berries that make this such a lovely sauce. - Let the Bourbon Cook Off (But Not Too Much):
Add the bourbon early enough in the cooking process to cook off the harsh alcohol flavor, but don’t let it evaporate completely. You want to keep that rich, caramelized depth it adds to the sauce without making it overpowering. - Zest in Class:
Grating some fresh orange or lemon zest onto the sauce before you serve it is a game-changer. Those raw citrus oils really brighten and enliven the flavor of the otherwise cooked condiment.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Yes, frozen cranberries work great, though you may need to cook them a bit longer to get the right texture. Either way, you want to let the whole cranberries pop and shrivel a little bit by the time you add the cornstarch slurry.
Yes, the alcohol cooks off during the simmering process, leaving only the rich, complex flavor behind. This makes it safe to serve to children or even most people in recovery.
You can replace bourbon with apple cider or cranberry juice for a completely non-alcoholic version that still tastes delicious.
For sure, the figs are optional. The sauce is still amazing without them, but they add a nice extra layer of flavor if you have them.
Fresh orange zest is best for adding a bright, vibrant citrus flavor to balance the sauce’s richness.
Unlike the canned variety, this homemade version doesn't contain any weird preservatives or stabilizers. So unless you are going to can it, I recommend just storing it in the fridge or freezer.
🧊 Refrigerating
Store the bourbon cranberry sauce in an air-tight container and refrigerate it for up to 5 days. It will thicken as it cools, so give it a quick stir before serving.
❄️ Freezing
For longer storage, you can freeze the Bourbon Orange Cranberry Sauce in a freezer-safe container. It will last for up to 3 months in the freezer.
🌬️ Thawing
To thaw frozen homemade cranberry sauce, move it from the freezer to the fridge. Let it thaw overnight, then stir before serving to bring back its smooth texture. You may serve it cold, room temperature, or warm.
✌️Other Thanksgiving sides you NEED to make this year:
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Get your hands on seriously crowd-pleasing vegan Thanksgiving menus, including detailed video guidance from Chef Adam Sobel.
Maple Bourbon Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 oz cranberries fresh or frozen
- ¼ cup chopped dried figs optional
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon molasses
- 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest
- ¼ cup orange juice
- ⅓ cup bourbon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup water
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch or arrowroot
Instructions
- In a saucepan over medium heat, stir together all ingredients (the cranberries, chopped figs, maple syrup, molasses, orange zest, orange juice, bourbon, and salt).
- Continue to cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes (slightly longer if you use frozen cranberries), stirring occasionally, until the cranberries begin to burst and shrivel.
- In a small cup, mix together the cornstarch and water with the tines of a fork.
- Pour the cornstarch slurry into the cooking cranberry sauce and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, until the sauce has thickened slightly.
- Remove the saucepan from heat and let the cranberry sauce cool to room temperature before serving. The sauce will thicken more as it cools.
Notes
Simmer cranberries until they just start to burst. Overcooking makes them mushy and jam-like, losing that satisfying pop that makes this sauce so good. 🥃 Bourbon in Balance
Add bourbon early to cook off the alcohol, but don’t cook the sauce so long that it fully evaporates. You want its deep, caramel flavor without overpowering the sauce. 🍊 You’ve Tried the Rest, Now Try the Zest
Grate fresh orange or lemon zest over the sauce before serving. It brightens the flavor and adds a burst of fresh citrus oils to the mix.
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Krisra says
Easy peasy and sure to a face around your future Thanks living feasts!
Nancy says
This was so so easy to make and so good. I liked that it was a little different in flavor because of the bourbon but it was definitely the cranberry sauce I crave at thanksgiving. I will now crave it more often. It is so quick and easy to make that I can make anytime I can find fresh cranberries. I have some cranberries in my freezer. I'm hoping I can use them for my next batch of this cranberry sauce
lisa buchanan says
Made this today for Thanksgiving, and it's an A++. Easy to make and everyone loved it. I did make with the figs.
Alison says
Amazing and delicious! And EASY!!!! I added chopped pears and grated fresh ginger, per the first suggestion. I was skeptical about the bourbon, because I dislike both the smell and taste, but Chef Adam is right, it cooks down to a lovely subtle background note, blending with the maple syrup and molasses to offset the tartness of the cranberries.
I'd give it 10 stars if I could!
Kelly McLaughlin says
This cranberry sauce is a grown up version of everyone’s fave holiday condiment! Amazing!