Slow Cooker Cranberry Sauce With Port and Orange

It was quite booze-y with the port. I did it again without, and much prefer it that way. It's a nice, easy option for prepping cranberry sauce without taking over a burner on the stove-top. The third time I made this (for Christmas), I mixed chopped apple (2 apples, 1 inch pieces) with the cranberries and used maple syrup and a cinnamon stick - voila! it was perfect.

I liked the consistency of these berries a lot! Used a pot w/ lid in oven v crock-pot for less time. Already had oven on to roast chickens and veggies anyway — be energy efficient and fill it up! The cranberry flavor mellowed and turned them into a thick, delicious compote. Since I don’t care for overly-boozy cranberry sauce, for liquid I mixed med dry red wine w/ orange juice. Along with the chopped uncooked berries, I like to toss in some dried cranberries too.

MOST excellent. Needs several hours in the slow cooker to gel and I cut back some on the sugar, but the combination of sweet/sour/port is really good!

I made these 2 days before T-day. I double the recipe and used tawny port. I took the suggestion on cutting back the sugar. Didn't have cinnamon stick so substituted a good pinch of 5 spice mix. Also, they did not seem to be getting done on the slow cook setting on my instant pot so I ended up using the pressure cooking setting. I never had so many people rave about the cranberries.

So much easier and quicker to do on the stove top. I used a good 10 year tawny port and the sauce was not "boozy." I also cut the sugar back a small amount (to 2/3 cup for a half recipe since we were only 4 for T-day.) It could be cut further if you like your sauce tongue-ticklingly tart. I increased the orange zest and that flavor came through beautifully. It was so good I was eating it right out of the pot. This would be great over cheesecake or vanilla ice cream.

For two: 2 c. cranberries, 1/4 c. dried cranberries, 1/4 c. maple syrup, 1/4 c. red wine, orange zest, cinnamon stick, pinch of salt. Bring to boil, 20 min. on low, last few minutes covered, cool, remove cinnamon stick and add 1/4 c. chopped pecans, more orange zest. Makes about 1 1/4 cup. Excellent!

Why take all this time? Cooking on the stovetop does the same result in MUCH less time!

I basically followed the recipe except I didn’t have quite enough port so I made up the diff with OJ. The biggest change I made is that I started by sweating a medium shallot, chopped fine, in Cointreau for a few minutes before following the recipe. It may be the best cranberry sauce I’ve ever made!

I did not have port, so I substituted blackberry brandy (not many opportunities to use that!) with a bit of water—it brought out the fruit flavors and does not taste boozy.

I stuck to the recipe and used the slow cooker method, and I was very satisfied with the results. The port adds a not-too-boozy depth (be sure you crack the lid as specified in step two), and although I considered adding a cinnamon stick as some others have mentioned here, I was happy with the choice not to do so--I think that would have made it more dessert-like than I want from a side dish that's more about bringing something tart to the table.

Just put all these ingredients in my crockpot and it feels like Christmas. Port, oranges, cranberries, plus the addition of chopped apples per another cook, as well as some grated fresh nutmeg, a couple cinnamon sticks, and the juice from the zested orange - these things all say holiday to me. I can’t wait to try it, and plan to cool and freeze my batch for use at (Canadian) Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks.

Don't agree with my friend Janice, this sauce is spectacular, I put the zest of two oranges and we were all delighted with its tangy flavor. In fact it was soooo good, that I intend to do it as the filling of a baked brie. Thanks Sarah for this great recipe!

I've made a similar Cranberry Relish, but found a REALLY Nice replacement for the Port, - 'Orange Liquor'! - Tastes 'Orange-Y", is Sweet, Thick-ish, and fits right in with the other Orange flavors of the Relish! Always gets Rave Comments!