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This Keto Cranberry Sauce recipe is ready in less than 15 minutes and includes just four ingredients. It adds brightness to holiday main dishes like pressure cooker turkey breast or turkey tenderloin. Learn to make sugar free cranberry sauce (an alternative to Ocean Spray cranberry sauce) with an all-natural sugar substitute and a fruit extract using this easy recipe.
Why Make Keto Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry sauce is a staple on most people’s Thanksgiving tables. But, when you’re trying to cut carbs or reduce sugar, traditional cranberry sauce recipes (and store-bought cranberry sauce) present a problem because most cranberry sauces are equal parts refined sugar and water.
That said, whether you follow a keto diet (low-carb diet) or not, make this sugar-free cranberry sauce for a holiday meal (like Thanksgiving dinner) during the holiday season. Pair it with delicious, holiday side dishes like cauliflower mac and cheese, cauliflower mash, crockpot collard greens, keto green bean casserole, and more.
This Homemade Keto Cranberry Sauce recipe is perfect for people who want a low-carb cranberry sauce or those who want to know how to make a fresh cranberry sauce without ingredients like high fructose corn syrup or sugar.
Ingredients Needed
This Keto Cranberry Sauce recipe has less than five ingredients. To make this dish, you’ll need to gather:
- Whole Cranberries: I’ve made this easy keto cranberry sauce recipe with frozen and fresh cranberries. The steps remain the same.
- All-Natural Sugar Substitutes: Use a powdered sweetener or a granulated sweetener, an erythritol and monk fruit blend, a brown sugar substitute, or any sugar-free sweetener that you prefer from the grocery store. Be sure that your sweetener is a 1:1 sugar substitute.
- Water
- Orange Extract or Orange Zest: if you enjoy cranberry sauce with orange juice, orange extract adds orange flavor without the sugar or carbs from a glass of orange juice. You can also use orange zest.
The exact measurements can be found in the recipe card below.
How to Make Keto Cranberry Sauce
- Add all of the ingredients to a medium saucepan. Stir.
- Cook on medium heat until the cranberries pop (about 10 minutes).
Top Tips & FAQs
Why Use Orange Extract?
My go-to homemade cranberry sauce recipe uses equal parts of sugar and orange juice. Each serving of that recipe has nearly 30g of carbs and over 20g of sugar.
In this recipe, I’m using orange extract to get the flavor of orange juice while keeping the final dish low-carb. A little extract goes a long way to get a bold orange flavor and it has zero carbs.
If you don’t have orange extract in your pantry, you can get it in the baking aisle.
Benefits of Cranberries
Cranberries are a source of several vitamins and minerals like Vitamin C and E. They are a natural antioxidant. Plus, each cup has about 5g of fiber.
How to Store Leftover Keto Cranberry Sauce
If you have any leftovers from this low carb cranberry sauce recipe, the best way to store it is in an airtight container (or your sauce pan covered in plastic wrap or the lid) for next time (up to 5 days).
No. Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce includes corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. Plus, it includes 27g of net carbs per serving.
This sugar free canberry sauce thickens without regular sugar. But, you can make it thickener (think the consistency of jam) by adding xanthan gum or any of these substitutes for xanthan gum. I would start by adding 1/8 tsp to the pot with the cranberries.
Keto is about staying in ketosis and not a food. So, be sure to get dried cranberries without added sugar and monitor how eating small amounts impacts your ketones (you can measure this instantly with a ketone meter).
This keto cranberry sauce has 2g of net carbs per serving. Traditional Cranberry Sauce has 27g of net carbs per serving.
Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce has 27g of net carbs per serving. The Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce has 27g of net carbs per serving.
Recipes to Enjoy This With
As I mentioned, I tend to enjoy this recipe during holidays like Thanksgiving. So, when it comes to pairings, some dishes to make a meal are:
- Pressure Cooker Turkey Breast
- Air Fryer Turkey Tenderloin
- Cauliflower Mac and Cheese
- Keto Gravy
- Instant Pot Collard Greens
If you try this recipe, please stop back and leave it a star rating and/or a review in the comments. Stay connected & share photos of your creations with me & others on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!
Sugar Free Keto Cranberry Sauce Recipe
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Ingredients
- 10 oz Whole Cranberries, I used frozen, but fresh works well. You can use up to 12 oz.
- 1 cup Water
- 1/2 cup Granular Sweetener
- 1/4 tsp orange extract, optional, or 1 tbsp orange zest
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients to a medium sauce pan. Stir.
- Cook on medium heat until the cranberries pop (about 10 minutes).
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Details
The nutrition facts come from entering the recipe ingredients into Spoonacular API, a database of food ingredients. They may vary for any recipe based on the exact product used. The keto sweeteners I use have 0g net carbs & are not included because sugar alcohols do not impact most people. This is provided as a courtesy, but you can do your own calculations if you wish!
