Cranberry sauce is one of my favorite holiday dishes. I’ll take it any form, even the jellied canned stuff (sans high fructose corn syrup, of course). I like it straight up or flavored with orange, extra sweet or extra tart. But I really love playing with the cranberry flavor by adding spices and this year I also wanted to stick to natural sweeteners, which this recipe does through a combination of fruit and honey, making it a healthy cranberry sauce that everyone will love.
Notes on healing diets:
- This recipe is AIP friendly, even if you are avoiding seed based spices because both cinnamon and cloves are not from seeds.
- Because this recipe uses honey, it is SCD legal. However, that also makes it high in FODMAPs. If you need a low-FODMAP cranberry sauce, omit the apples and use maple syrup or cane sugar instead of honey.
Naturally Sweetened Spiced Cranberry Sauce

This spiced cranberry sauce is sweetened with a combination of real fruit and honey.
Ingredients
- 1 12-ounce package of fresh or frozen cranberries
- Zest from one orange, chopped
- Juice from one orange
- 1 cup water
- 1 apple, chopped
- ¼ cup of honey (or more if you prefer a sweeter sauce)
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ¼ teaspoon cloves
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, combine all the ingredients.
- Simmer over medium-low heat until berries have all popped, the fruit is very soft, and the sauce has thickened (about 30 minutes).
- Remove cinnamon stick and serve hot or cold.
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