Pickled cranberries with cider is a perfect make-ahead dish for the holiday season. Use them as a garnish on salad, brighten up brussels sprouts, or muddle into a creative cocktail. It's the perfect thing to have in the fridge for just about any holiday moment. Once you're done with the cranberries, use the liquid to brighten up everything from a salad dressing vinaigrette to giving poached pears some beautiful color and tang!
We adapted SAGEGREEN's recipe on Food 52, but tweaked it a bit to include cider.
Ingredients:
- 12 oz bag of cranberries, washed with stems removed and any particularly soft cranberries tossed out.
- 1 12-oz can of Treehorn Ginger cider (our Dry would work well here too)
- 1.5 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1.5 oz maple syrup — we used Canadian grade 1/light, but a medium or dark grade would work well also to give depth to the pickle
- 1.5 cup cane sugar
- 1-inch piece of ginger, sliced thin
- peel of one orange
- one lemon, sliced thin with pits removed
- 1/2 tsp. coriander berries (not ground)
Make It!
Bring all ingredients besides cranberries to a boil in a large saucepan.
Add cranberries, cook until skins just start to pop. Recipe calls for less than 10 minutes, but our cranberries popped fast, don't leave them too long. Remove cranberries and fruit from liquid, let cool completely, and cover liquid in the meantime.
Once fruit is cooled, bring liquid back to a boil. Add cooled fruit to jars (recipe called for (3) 8-oz jars, but we filled a 24-oz and 8 oz jar to the brim). Pour liquid over berries, cap and let cool. Refrigerate and let flavors mellow for at least a few days.
- NOTE: this recipe can be adopted for proper shelf-stable canning and long-term storage, but is intended for refrigeration and consumption within a few weeks. If it lasts that long -