Give Your Canned Cranberry Sauce An Upgrade With Cocktail Ingredients

Cranberry sauce – the sweet, tangy, Thanksgiving side dish that somehow pairs well with gravy-soaked turkey and stuffing. Americans have been eating cranberry sauce for well over two centuries now, with cranberries themselves having roots in Native American culture (via Insider). The first "official" recipe for cranberry sauce appeared in the 1796 cookbook "American Cookery," which described serving it alongside roast turkey with "boiled onions." While cranberry sauce may not have been present on the very first Thanksgiving, the side dish is now a common staple at Thanksgiving tables across America.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, Marcus L. Urann, a lawyer-turned-cranberry bog farmer, introduced the first canned cranberry sauce to the market in the early twentieth century under the title of "Ocean Spray." By canning the product, Urann was able to sell cranberries almost year-round. 

While canned cranberry sauce isn't exactly "homemade," you can give that canned red log of jellied cranberries a little help with some simple cocktail ingredients.

As Food & Wine explains, despite canned cranberry sauce's unfortunate reputation in the eyes of some Americans, it's actually a versatile canvas to experiment with different tastes and textures. These ingredients can include citrus, nutmeg, serrano pepper for gentle heat, and even a splash or two of alcohol. Spirits are suggested to be in the form of fortified wines or other cooking-based alcohols, such as sherry or bourbon. 

Although no official measurements are used, Food & Wine suggests adding a teaspoon of liquor to your canned sauce at a time, taste-testing in between until you find the flavor that you think guests would be most comfortable with. If you're worried about guests tasting the trademark burn of alcohol, simply warm the sauce over medium heat while adding the spirits, allowing the alcohol to burn off while leaving the flavors intact.

Other additions for canned cranberry sauce can include pineapple, chopped berries, mandarin oranges, and chopped toasted pecans for a bit of extra crunch in an otherwise soft and jelly-like texture (via Insider). If you find your cranberry sauce having a bitter, tart, or overly tangy taste, Redditors suggest adding alternate ingredients like lemon or orange juice, or fats like butter or cream.

There are plenty of things you can do to make your canned cranberry sauce taste homemade. But if you just like serving it up plain for nostalgic reasons, that's fine too.