Sugared Cranberries

Sugared cranberries are a statement dish for your holiday menu. Serve them with a cheese board or as a cocktail garnish! Your friends will ohh and ahh over this easy recipe. 

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Sugared Cranberries recipe

Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Are you so excited? I sure am. It’s one of my favorite holidays. Arguably my favorite holiday, actually. It’s just so nice to gather around the table with family and friends enjoy food together.

These sugared cranberries are a new favorite for the holiday season! They’re a perfect, easy recipe to bring to a Thanksgiving or Christmas party as a snack, put out with a cheese board or use to garnish holiday cocktails.

The recipe for easy sugared cranberries is so simple. Juicy cranberries are coated in simple syrup, then dusted in granulated sugar. Can you say YUM?

Plus, the way they glisten in the bowl is so pretty. (I mean, they are nicknamed sparkling cranberries for a reason.)

More garnish recipes: Berry Ice Cubes • Cinnamon Sugar Rim • Homemade Sprinkles • Rosemary Ice Cubes •

Why you’ll love this recipe

• You can make this sugared cranberries recipe ahead of time and then focus on other holiday dishes that need to be made the day of your party!
• This recipe is naturally gluten free and even fits into many other dietary restrictions. Great to serve if you are hosting guests with specific dietary needs.
• Not only can you eat these as a simple dessert, but they can be served as a gorgeous garnish on any festive cocktail.

That last one is the best. You can serve sugared cranberries on cranberry mimosas and have the most festive holiday table around. There are so many uses for this yummy recipe.

Ingredients

You only need three simple ingredients to make this festive cranberry recipe. Such a snap to make! If you need a last-minute dessert garnish for all of your holiday desserts, just throw this together in time for Christmas dinner. Here are the basic ingredients you’ll need:

• cranberries: A bag of fresh cranberries always tend to do best with this sugar-coated cranberries recipe. You can use frozen cranberries; however, they will not retain their liquid and shape for as long as fresh berries. You could make this with dried cranberries, which would give them a Raisin Bran-like texture, which would be delicious on a salad or bowl of oatmeal.
• simple syrup: This recipe for simple syrup is quite easy. Much better flavor than anything you can buy at the grocery store.
• granulated white sugar: There are lots of different sugars, but I recommend finding one that is somewhere between a superfine sugar granules and coarse sugar.

Someone told me that these candied cranberries taste like natural Sour Patch Kids. I thought it was so funny, but so true! The contrast of the tart berries with the sweet sugar coating makes them taste a lot like the popular candy.

I made sugared cranberries a few weeks ago when I attended the Saveur Blog Awards in Cincinnati.* One of our afternoon activities was putting together a cheese board for a food styling workshop, so I picked up sugar and cranberries and got to work.

My pals Lauren and Mackenzie from The World in a Pocket shared an Airbnb with me, and they helped me make sugared cranberries.

Together we navigated our way through a VERY sparse kitchen. I actually made my sugared cranberries in a colander! So if we can do that, you can make these at your house.

Tools & equipment

Here’s a few tools you may need:

• A small saucepan will be needed to make the simple syrup.
• Make sure a wire rack on hand to let the simple syrup mixture dry on the tart berries before tossing them in a sugary coating. If you don’t have one of those, parchment paper and a baking sheet will work too.
• You’ll need a fine mesh strainer to drain excess syrup.
• Measuring cups and measuring spoons are always a necessary tool. Make sure you are measuring the perfect cup amount of cane sugar and simple syrup.

How to make Sugared Cranberries

Using a small saucepan, make your own sugary simply syrup. You can skip this step if you are using a store-bought syrup.

Then stir the cranberries into the syrup to coat them well. Drain off excess syrup with a fine-mesh strainer.

Keep the leftover simple syrup for cocktails if you like! If you do, you’ll need a glass food storage container or mason jar.

Then you’ll lay your cranberries out to dry. I use a wire baking rack but you can lay wax paper down on a cookie sheet. Just be warned they will be sticky! Let them sit for about an hour. 

Once the coated cranberries are dry, toss them into a large bowl of sugar so that each berry has an even sugar coating.

I used granulated sugar for these because it’s what I had on hand, but you can also use organic cane sugar. The grain of the sugar is going to give them that snowy, sugary look. 

Place into your favorite serving bowl to serve with other holiday treats or use as a garnish on your favorite cocktail!

Uses for sugared cranberries

Sugared cranberries would look perfect as a garnish for my yule mule cocktail or my poinsettia champagne cocktail. This vanilla cranberry old-fashioned can be jazzed up with some glittering berries too!

Make any other simple cocktail with cranberry simple syrup, and use these sparkling cranberries as a lovely addition atop each drink.

This Christmas charcuterie board would benefit from these tart, yet sweet, sugary cranberries too.

For a fun change, skip the cranberry sauce with your Thanksgiving turkey and serve these berries instead! They’d be a perfect garnish on your Christmas ham platter too.

You can even use these berries as a beautiful topping for cupcakes or dutch poffertjes.

Tips & tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for making this recipe:

• Make sure cranberries are spread out into a single layer as the syrup layer dries. You won’t want them to dry in one giant clump!
• If you are having trouble getting all of the cranberries dusted in sugar, toss them in the sugar in smaller quantities. Bit by bit, you can get through the whole batch.
• Don’t be afraid to use your hands when tossing berries in sugar. Sometimes a spoon just doesn’t do the trick.

FAQ

More cranberry recipes

• Cape Codder
• Cranberry Sauce Old Fashioned Cocktail
• Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
• Mini Cranberry Apple Casseroles

*I mentioned the Saveur Blog Awards above. My blog was a finalist in the Best Entertaining Blog category, and although it did not win, I am so humbled to have had this experience. I got to visit lovely Cincinnati with some of the other finalists, and I had the best time. Thank you so much for nominating Feast + West and for voting for me! It means the world.