The Best Ever Homemade Cranberry Sauce

To can your homemade cranberry sauce:

Make the cranberry sauce according the recipe on the previous page. Do not cool the sauce though.

As I mentioned on the previous page, you can double or quadruple it, depending on how much sauce you’d like to preserve.

Wash your jars in hot soapy water, rinse thoroughly and then keep them in hot water until you’re ready to fill the jars.

Place the canning lids in a bowl, pour boiling water over them and allow to sit for 10 minutes to soften the rubber rings.

In the meantime, fill a water bath canner with hot water. You’ll want enough water to cover the jars with 2 inches of water once they are lowered into the canner. Begin to heat the water.

Ladle the hot cranberry sauce into the hot jars leaving approximately 1/4 inch head space.

Remove any air bubbles by running a bamboo skewer around the inside of the jar.

Clean the rim of the jar.

Add lids and rings and tighten finger tight.

Place on the rack in the water bath canner.

Once you’ve filled all the jars, lower them into the canner.

When canning pints or quarts, the jars will stay upright on the canning rack. But 1/2 pint jars have a tendency to tip over if there aren’t enough to fill the rack.

Here’s a simple tip to stop this from happening… place empty jars on the rack around the filled jars until the rack is full before lowering the jars into the water.

Place the lid on the canner and bring the water to a boil.

Once the water comes to a gentle boil, begin timing: 15 minutes for pints, 20 minutes for quarts if you are at sea level up to 1000 ft altitude. (Adjust timing for your altitude.)

Note:  When I can in the 1/2 pint jars I use the timing for pints.

When the time is up, lift the canning rack out of the water.

You can see how the rack rests on the edge of the canner.

Use a jar lifter to remove the jars, one at a time.

Allow them to cool in a draft free place for 24 hours.

Homemade Cranberry Sauce makes great hostess gifts for the coming holiday season, as well as wonderful Christmas gifts.

And don’t forget to check out these recipes… if you’ve got lots canned you can make them any time of year, not just when you have leftover cranberry sauce to use up.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Drop Cookies

Cranberry Coffee Cake

For a savory rather than sweet alternative for using it up, try my Crock Pot Whole Chicken Cranberry Bake

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