Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce, An Easy 3 Ingredient Recipe

Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce in a blue bowl
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You can make this easy Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce recipe using 3 ingredients in less than 30 minutes. This recipe is free of the top 9 allergens and is a must-have sauce for your next turkey dinner. I’ve also included stovetop instructions in the recipe notes below.

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Making Cranberry Sauce in an Instant Pot

Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce in a blue bowl
This freshly made cranberry sauce is so gorgeous! I can’t wait to eat it with my turkey drumsticks!

My husband told me this morning that our friend asked for an Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce recipe so this recipe is for her (Happy Thanksgiving, Jodi!).

The Instant Pot cranberry sauce recipe will make a delicious condiment or side dish for your Thanksgiving turkey (or Roasted Turkey Drumsticks For Everyone) dinner. It’s so easy to make cranberry sauce in an Instant Pot, which will free up space on your stove for other dishes and free up your hands-on time because the Instant Pot will stop cooking and keep your sauce warm until you are ready.

This generous recipe makes approximately 2.5 cups. Since cranberries are a seasonal ingredient, you can easily double this recipe or make another batch of cranberry sauce to freeze some for later to enjoy with any dishes that needs some sweet and tangy flavors. Clean up is very easy which allows you to use your Instant Pot for another recipe with minimal effort.

Even though cranberries isn’t typically included in Chinese or Asian cuisines, I highly recommend making some cranberry sauce because it’s a very healthy ingredient that has a lot of antioxidants which I wrote about more in my recipe for Super Cranberry Orange Muffins, Dairy & Nut Free.

Preparation and Storage Tips

Wash: When you wash your cranberries, swish them around in a large bowl of water and feel for any cranberries that are soft and mushy and discard. Look for and discard any cranberries that are discolored and remove any stems attached to the cranberries.

Orange and Spices: I like cranberries and orange together, but you can leave out the orange juice and zest and use water instead. If you like fall spices, you can optionally add fall spices such as a cinnamon stick or 1-2 cloves to the Instant Pot but remove them before serving.

Adjust sweetness: After you cook the cranberry sauce and natural pressure release the pot, taste the cranberry sauce with a clean spoon, and add more sugar if you prefer it a little bit sweeter. The orange juice I added to the sauce wasn’t particularly sweet so I added a few more tablespoons of sugar one spoonful at a time and stirred it in while the pot and sauce were still hot so that the sugar could melt.

Make Ahead: You can make this sauce the day before if you want to save some time on Thanksgiving day. Transfer the sauce to a storage container and allow it to cool to room temperature before refrigerating. The sauce will thicken naturally as it cools.

Freeze Extra Sauce: Since cranberries are a seasonal ingredient, you can make another batch and freeze it to enjoy the rest of the year. If you want to freeze some of the sauce, wait for the sauce to cool down to room temperature before freezing in quart-size freezer bags. I like to freeze approximately a cup in each bag and freeze in a thin layer so that I can easily break off small amounts as needed.

Allergy Aware Cranberry Sauce

This recipe is free of the top 9 allergens as written.

Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce in a blue bowl
5 from 1 vote
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Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce

You can make this easy Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce recipe using 3 ingredients in less than 30 minutes. This recipe is free of the top 9 allergens and is a must-have sauce for your next turkey dinner. Allow about 5-7 minutes to come to pressure and 8-10 minutes to natural pressure release, 25 minutes total.

Course dinner, lunch, Side Dish
Cuisine American
Keyword cranberry sauce
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 2 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Servings 10 servings
Author Sharon Wong

Ingredients

  • 1 12- ounce bag fresh cranberries
  • ½ cup granulated sugar 1/4 cup more as needed
  • ½ cup orange juice

Instructions

  1. Wash cranberries in a bowl of water (check for soft, discolored cranberries and stems), drain, and put into the Instant Pot.
  2. Add the orange juice and ½ cup sugar. Lock the lid, program the Instant Pot to pressure cook for 2 minutes, and then allow the pot to natural pressure release (approximately 10 minutes).
  3. Open the lid and stir the cranberry sauce, use a clean spoon to taste and add more sugar one tablespoon at a time, as desired, and stir to melt the sugar.
  4. Transfer the cranberry to a serving bowl and allow to cool to room temperature to thicken. Refrigerate if making ahead.

Recipe Notes

Stove top instructions: Combine ingredients and cook over medium heat until the sauce bubbles. Lower the temperature and simmer on low until the cranberries are soft, approximately 20 minutes. Stir every few minutes.

This recipe makes approximately 2.5 cups, 1/4 cup per serving.

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About Sharon Wong 269 Articles
Welcome to Nut Free Wok, a blog about Allergy Aware Asian Fare. I hope that you will find my food allergy mom experiences helpful and enjoyable to read as I write about recipes, cooking techniques, Asian ingredients, and food allergy related awareness and advocacy issues. My professional experiences include education, teaching, and a little bit of science and computers. Thank you for visiting! ~Sharon Wong, M.Ed.

4 Comments

  1. Sharon,
    Thank you so much for posting this and for reminding me that I can make it the night before. I am eager to make it for the first time in my Instant Pot. I will report back how it comes out later tonight/tomorrow. I love cranberry sauce with turkey, in a sandwich, on top of yogurt and plain on a spoon. : ) Warmly, Jodi

    • You’re so welcome, Jodi! Cranberry sauce is an easy recipe made even easier when cooked in an Instant Pot, just what we need when we are juggling so much in one day (or two days!), Enjoy your time with everyone home. xoxo

  2. 5 stars
    I found this recipe and I gave it a try for making Thanksgiving dinner for family! It was a huge hit! We all loved it, SO tasty and rich and simple to a make! Highly recommend!

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