With Sharon Peterson
This is a no cook Cranberry Apple Relish Recipe I came up with.
I wanted to make a cranberry orange relish for our family. However I have no oranges! Bummer, we live too far out of town to just hop in the car and buy an orange so … to the internet I went. I have lots of apples so I thought I’d surely find a good cranberry apple relish recipe.
None seemed to suit what I wanted so I took the basics of a couple and combined my own creation. I thought it was delish!
This is not a canning or preserving recipe. It is just something I came up with that you might like for your dinner table.
Keep in mind I like things tart so if you wanted to you could add more sugar to this to make it sweeter.
- 4 cups fresh cranberries.
- 5 or 6 small apples. You’ll need enough to peel and chop 4 cups apples.
- ½ lemon
- ¾ cups brown sugar – to taste
- 1 cup whole walnuts.
The first thing I did was chop the cranberries with my food processor. I did this in two batches.
Then I peeled and chopped my apples. First I ran them through my apple peeler corer slicer, then chopped with the food processor. Go easy on this. You don’t want to create applesauce, just chopped apples. You should end up with approximately 4 cups. Give or take is fine.
Mix apples and cranberries together. Juice your lemon and pour the juice over the top of the cranberry apple mix.
Sprinkle brown sugar over the top. Chop 1 cup whole walnuts with the food processor and sprinkle that on top too.
Mix all this together and taste test. Too tart? Add a bit more sugar. Remember I like things tart so you want more sugar feel free to adapt.
Place in the fridge overnight to serve tomorrow! Delicious.
Remember this is not a canning recipe. I don’t have instructions for preserving this. It is just ready for serving at your dinner table.
Options for Cranberry Apple Relish
You could substitute orange juice for the lemon juice. I just used what I had on hand. You could substitute honey or even white sugar for the brown sugar.
Many of the recipes I found online had things like cinnamon or cloves so that might be a great addition. We don’t care for cinnamon much so I stuck with the flavors of the fruit.
I made this for Thanksgiving and will be making it again today. What a wonderful dish! At first I was hesitant to use raw cranberries, but I’ve always loved your recipes so I figured I’d trust your opinion. Am I glad I did! We absolutely love it! Sharon, thank you for all you do!
But, could you can it?
Not this recipe, because it isn’t tested. The USDA’s testing process looks at acidity, density, and other factors, which can’t really be replicated in a home canning environment, so best to keep this one a fresh use recipe. 🙂 It IS possible to can cranberries plain, however: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_02/cranberries.html
-Rachel (Sharon’s assistant)