When did ‘craisins’ become a thing?
I’m pretty sure if you had asked me if I wanted dried cranberries on my salad as a kid, I would have looked at you like you had three heads and protectively pulled my salad bowl closer.
But these days, dried cranberries are everywhere.
Now, of course, I love craisins on my salad. And I enjoy them in my oatmeal and yogurt and mixed in with homemade granola or trail mix.
I think I use dried cranberries when I’m cooking and baking more than I use raisins. Because raisins are like the beige paint of the baking world.
What I don’t love about dried cranberries is how sugary sweet they are.
When it comes to store-bought craisins, there’s so much added sugar that you lose the lovely natural tartness specific to these berries.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve purchased unsweetened craisins before, and that natural tartness nearly turned my face inside out.
As so often happens when I’m frustrated with the quality of manufactured goods, I head back to my homesteading roots with a resolute, “I’ll bet I could make this myself.”
Nearly every time this happens, the result is always much tastier than anything sitting on the supermarket shelves. Yet another reason to lean into being more self-reliant.
After a little trial and error (ok, there was a lot of trial and error… poor little cranberries), I stumbled on the easiest way to make homemade dried cranberries that are the perfect combination of sweet and tart.
And I did it without dumping in a ton of sugar or artificial sweeteners.
And they’re insanely easy to make.
At this point, you’re probably rolling your eyes and thinking, “Great! What is it already? What did you do?”
Apple Cider.
Yup, that’s the magic ingredient that adds just the right amount of sweetness while reducing some of the pucker-power of unsweetened cranberries.
Timing, apple cider, and fresh cranberries will give you delicious dried cranberries to sprinkle on salads to your heart’s content.
All in all, it takes a day to make these, but it’s nearly all inactive time (my favorite kind of recipe). Start them in the morning, and by the next day, you’ll have perfect dried cranberries.
Cranberry Season
Now is the perfect time to make enough dried cranberries to last you all year. Cranberries come into season in the late fall, and they’re only here for a month or two. Grab a few bags, and let’s get craisin!
(Sorry, that was bad.)
While you’re grabbing cranberries, be sure to get a couple of extra bags and try making our Honey Fermented Cranberry Sauce or my Sparkling Orange Cranberry Hard Cider.
Ingredients
- 1 12oz bag of fresh cranberries
- 4 cups of apple cider
Directions to Make Dried Cranberries
- Rinse cranberries and remove any that have gone bad.
- In a medium saucepan, combine the cranberries and apple cider. Bring to a simmer over med-high heat. Once the cider is bubbling, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes. You want all of the cranberries to pop open so that they can soak up the cider.
- Remove from the heat and cover the pan. Once the pan is cool enough, place it in your fridge. (I put a silicone hot pad down and put the pan in right away.) Let the cranberries soak in the cider for eight hours or until you’re ready to go to bed. (Weird Recipe Instructions 101)
- Next, go do something more interesting than watching cranberries soak up cider.
- Before you turn in for the evening, preheat the oven to the lowest setting. (Mine only goes down to 170, but 150 would be better.) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Pour the cranberries and cider through a colander and let them drain for five minutes.
- Spread the cranberries out on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Try to keep them from touching as they will stick together as they dry.
- Pop the baking sheet in the oven on the middle rack, and let the cranberries dry overnight (around 8 hours).
- (Sweet dreams, nice jammies. I hope you don’t have one of those weird dreams where you’re back in high school, and you have to take a test, but you don’t know anything on the test.)
- After eight hours, pull the cranberries out and let them sit for 20 minutes. They’ll continue to dry as they cool, so you have to wait to test them.
- After twenty minutes, the cranberries should be easy to tear in half and have the consistency of fruit leather. If they are still too moist, pop them back in the oven for another twenty minutes and then pull them out, let them cool, and try again.
Store your finished cranberries in a jar. Leave them on the counter for a week and keep an eye on them. If you see moisture in the jar, the cranberries still have some drying to do. Pop them back in the oven for a bit. If there is no moisture after a week, they are good to go. Store the cranberries in a cool, dark place.
Like in a salad.
Perfect Dried Cranberries
Tired of sugary dried cranberries? I've got the secret for perfect sweet and tart homemade dried cranberries. And they're easy to make too!
Ingredients
- 12 oz fresh cranberries
- 4 cups apple cider
Instructions
1. Rinse cranberries and remove any that have gone bad.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the cranberries and apple cider. Bring to a simmer over med-high heat. Once the cider is bubbling, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes. You want all of the cranberries to pop open so that they can soak up the cider.
3. Remove from the heat and cover the pan. Once the pan is cool enough, place it in your fridge. Let the cranberries soak in the cider for eight hours or until you’re ready to go to bed.
4. Before you turn in for the evening, preheat the oven to the lowest setting. (Mine only goes down to 170, but 150 would be better.) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
5. Pour the cranberries and cider through a colander and let them drain for five minutes.
6. Spread the cranberries out on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Try to keep them from touching as they will stick together as they dry.
7. Pop the baking sheet in the oven on the middle rack, and let the cranberries dry overnight (around 8 hours).
8. After eight hours, pull the cranberries out and let them sit for 20 minutes. They’ll continue to dry as they cool, so you have to wait to test them.
9. After twenty minutes, the cranberries should be easy to tear in half and have the consistency of fruit leather. If they are still too moist, pop them back in the oven for another twenty minutes and then pull them out, let them cool, and try again.
10. Store your finished cranberries in a jar.
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