Cranberry Relish

15 Easy Last Minute Thanksgiving Side Dishes Recipes

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One of my favorite things to do with Thanksgiving and the holiday season is raw cranberry relish. No cooking is required, just use a grinder or food processor to grind and blend raw cranberries, tart green apples, one large seedless orange, and sugar.

Video: How to Make Cranberry Relish

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The sugar balances the natural acidity of the raw cranberries and helps the mixture macerate, releasing juices that hold everything together. The recipe is as sweet as you wish. 2 cups of sugar gives a very sweet result. 1 cup much less.

Cranberry relish

preparation time
20 minutes

total time
20 minutes

portions
12 servings

yield
3 cups

You can use either a grinder (old-fashioned or a KitchenAid attachment) or a food processor to grind the relish. We prefer using a grinder over a food processor as a grinder does a better job of squeezing the cranberries, oranges, and apples while crushing them. But either way will work.

2 cups rinsed raw cranberries
2 peeled and cored cake green applescut into thick slices
1 bigwhole (shell ON) seedless orangecut into sections
1 to 2 cups granulated sugar (depending on how sweet you want your relish to be)

grinder or food processor

Prepare your grinder:

If using an old-fashioned grinder, use the medium grinder plate and place the grinder on the edge of a table with a large bowl or pan to catch the fruit mixture as it’s ground. Old-fashioned grinders tend to leak juice at the base of the grinder, so you may want to place a bowl underneath to catch the drips.

If you don’t have an old-fashioned grinder, you can use the grinder attachment with a KitchenAid blender or food processor. If using a food processor, be careful not to pulse too hard! Or you have porridge instead of enjoyment.

You can also chop very finely by hand, but that’s difficult, especially with the cranberries.
Push fruit through grinder:

Push the cranberries, orange pieces and apple slices through the grinder. Add the orange zest! Alternate the fruits as you push them through the grinder so that different fruits are ground together. If you don’t have a grinder, grind the fruit in a food processor.
Add sugar:

stir in sugar. (Start with less than 1 cup and add another 1/4 cup until you reach desired sweetness.) Let stand at room temperature until sugar dissolves, about 45 minutes. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.