Quite honestly, I prefer to make my own cranberry sauce to buying the canned cranberry sauce that’s available in the stores, particularly at this time of year. They’re too full of sugar, and they clearly have some sort of agar or something in them to stablize them, which I’m not crazy about, but to each their own.
Homemade any day.
Actually, the two are different enough that if I were Food-Word Emperor I would deprecate the term “cranberry sauce” in favor of “cranberry relish” and “cranberry jelly.”
I enjoy food that looks basic food more than industrially-processed food products. I also find that knowing that someone I know put effort into preparing something for me (or a group including me) enhances my appreciation of it. Plus I prefer foods with texture. Someday I may find myself on a Jell-O and liquids diet, so carpe diem.
That said, cranberry jelly isn’t going to ruin my feast. And I do like a schmear on my turkey sandwich the next day.
I won’t turn down either, but I chose homemade out of deference to a confection I’ve been introduced to in the past few years. I mostly hang out with the international students, who by and large have book-knowledge of what Thanksgiving is, which makes for interesting traditions. One of them heard of cranberry sauce, and decided to combine it with something from her native Russia. Basically, it’s a beverage, not something that goes on the plate, and you make it like gravy, only using fruit juice instead of broth. So you end up with a glass full of thick, hot cranberry juice.
I don’t think there is any agar in the canned stuff, but cranberries naturally have a lot of pectin. Isn’t it strange that I’ve always felt the homemade stuff was too sweet.
I love it canned, but my aunt used to make some kind when I was a kid. It had nuts and coconut and pineapple with cranberries. There may have been mini marshmallows added but I could be mixing that up with the sweet potatoes.
That was good stuff.
Thanksgiving isn’t right without the cranberry log. I don’t care what you say, it looks awesome on fine china.
NOBODY knows to slice the canned cranberry sauce with a serrated knife so you get ridges on the flat sides as well as can ridges???
I would have to vote for both.
Mom had a recipe for cranberries cooked with water and sugar, then added (after it had cooled )chopped apples, mini-marshmallows and nuts. There may have been orange juice concentrate in there at some point, but now I know that I am allergic to citrus, I leave it out… Sometimes I get really weird and add cherry jello powder to the hot, cooked cranberry.
This year I’m trying a recipe for chipotle cranberry relish, but after reading this thread, I’ll be sure to have some regular pucker-sweet style, too. Now, canned or homemade, that is indeed the question.
The canned cranberry sauce must have something in it to stablize it and make it hold its shape, unlike homemade cranberry sauce, which I make with only the right amount of sugar and that’s that.
I have a can right here. It’s just cranberries water and corn syrup. If you do it right, I’m sure you could get it to hold it’s shape. Maybe you add too much water. I don’t know. It would be awesome if I could make my own can shaped cranberry sauce.
I agree. Only bad people like whole berry cranberry sauce. I kid. mostly
what TWDuke said! I wanted a “both” option! :eek: (I did not answer poll.)
I always have a can of jelly and a bowl of relish (which I make of whole berries, a bit of sugar, and mandarin slices 
) so everyone is happy.
One year, I made my own jelly by straining the cooked cranberries into a bowl. It was not translucent… but it DID quiver properly in its’ upturned bowl-shape! 
I have a cousin whose job on T-day since she was about four years old has been to slice the cranberry sauce into discs.
Eventually we all grew up, and I became a foodie and took over the Thanksgiving cooking. I consider the canned sauce to be an abomination, so I usually have both a cooked sauce and a relish (which take about ten minutes to make, combined). But said cousin (now a 28-year-old mother of three) always insists on having a can to slice. She does so, it sits on a nice dish through the meal, and is typically thrown away untouched after dinner.
She’s not coming this year. I hate that we won’t see her, but I’m glad we can dispense with the charade.
It may be too late, but I think I’ll try this some day. Finding an appropriate mold will be tough. Maybe I’ll save the can from this years Thanksgiving.
You can pick up slices of the canned stuff with your hands. The homemade, you have to use a spoon. Much more involved than I want when I’m running back and forth, trying to avoid the game.
Add too much water? Nope. 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar per package of (fresh) cranberries has proven just right. The sauce kind of gels naturally, which is OK, and I prefer homemade cranberry sauce to canned store-bought cranberry sauce.
I actually like the canned sauce on turkey sandwiches, but that’s it and only when no one is looking.
I like both. My grown-up palate that now not only tolerates but enjoys mushrooms and blue cheese likes the homemade kind and notices how it balances the sage in the stuffing and…
But the canned kind gets sliced into beautiful jewel-like semicircles that fan out oh so gracefully on the silverplate tray that I inherited from my great-aunt that exists for no other reason. I have the box. It’s labeled “Cranberry Set” and has a beautiful illustration of a shimmering shimmying cylinder on the box. The jellied stuff makes me nostalgic and soothes my homesickness. I alos like it on my leftover turkey sandwiches.