You can make a traditionally cooked cranberry sauce for your holiday table—but why not take it to the next level? You can turn it into a probiotic-rich condiment that supports your gut health and helps you more easily digest rich holiday meals.
Timing It Right
When you ferment fruit, your fruit goes through three stages during the fermentation process: lacto-fermentation, alcohol, and vinegar.To enjoy your fermented fruit as a fruit and not as an alcohol or vinegar, you need to catch it in the lacto-fermentation phase. This is easy to do. During days one and two of the fermentation process, you will begin to see a few bubbles starting to form. And by day three or four, your fermented cranberries will begin to bubble generously in their jar. This level of bubbling means they’re ready to be enjoyed.
When you ferment cranberries, you don’t want to add any additional sweetener at the start of the fermentation process. Otherwise, the added sweetener will accelerate the fermentation, and you are more likely to make cranberry alcohol than lacto-fermented cranberries!
So how do you sweeten your cranberries to turn them into fermented cranberry sauce? Once your cranberries reach the lacto-fermentation stage, you will add a pourable sweetener to your cranberries, such as honey or maple syrup. Next, you’ll want to thoroughly mix the cranberries with your sweetener, decant your mixed cranberries in a jar, and refrigerate them.
You’ll want to eat your refrigerated fermented cranberry sauce within a few weeks of making it. Even though your ferment is at a cooler temperature, the fermentation process will continue in your refrigerator, but at a much slower rate than when your ferment was resting on your kitchen counter.
A Refreshing Bonus
Be sure to save the brine strained out of your cranberries. If you have any left over, you can add it to other fruit ferments, in addition to whey and salt, to jumpstart the process. Alternatively, you can use this brine to make a refreshing probiotic-rich beverage. Add 1/4 cup of the brine to a tall glass, stir in a tablespoon of honey or two tablespoons of a healthy simple syrup (recipe follows), and then top off your beverage with some sparkling water for a refreshing mocktail. Taste and add additional sweetener if desired.
Fermented Cranberry Sauce
Watch the step-by-step recipe video at MarysNest.com/how-to-make-fermented-cranberry-sauce/Prep Time: 10 minutes Fermentation Time: 4 days
- 3 cups raw cranberries
- 1/4 cup whey, strained from plain yogurt or plain kefir
- 1/2 tablespoon coarse ground sea salt or 1/4 tablespoon fine ground sea salt
- Filtered water, preferably chlorine-free
- 1/3 cup pourable honey (preferably raw) or maple syrup
- 1 quart-sized jar with a lid
- 1 four-ounce jar or glass fermentation weight
- Mesh strainer
- 2 medium or large bowls
Once the cranberries are chopped, add them to the quart-sized jar. Add the salt and the whey to the jar. Add the water to the jar until the cranberries are completely submerged.
Weigh down the cranberries in the jar with a second small jar or a glass fermentation weight.
Put a cap on the jar and place the jar in an undisturbed place out of direct sunlight where the temperature is approximately between 68 and 72 degrees F. (As a safeguard, I highly recommend placing the jar into a bowl to catch any fermentation brine that might bubble out of the jar, even with the lid on.)
Each day, release the cap on the jar to remove any buildup of carbon dioxide. If you use special equipment, such as a “pickle pipe” or another fermentation device, you do not need to do this step.
After a few days, you should start to notice a few bubbles accumulating in your jar. The bubbles indicate the fermentation process is moving in the right direction. The secret is to “catch” your fermentation when it is in the bubbling stage before it moves on to turn into alcohol. (This stage of fermentation usually occurs within 3 to 4 days.)
Within 3 to 4 days, you should see a lot of bubbles, and this indicates that your fermented cranberries are ready. Now is the time to move on to the next step.
Using a mesh strainer, strain your cranberries over a bowl to catch the cranberry brine. DO NOT throw this brine out.
Transfer the cranberries to a bowl and add a whole sweetener to your taste. I recommend between 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup honey. You’ve now created fermented cranberry sauce!
Recipe Notes
Keep in mind that fruit ferments very quickly. Even after you refrigerate your fermented cranberry sauce, it will continue to ferment, just at a much slower rate than it would at room temperature. However, even at this slowed fermentation rate, fermented cranberry sauce (or any fermented fruit) will begin to turn into alcohol and then eventually into vinegar. So be sure to consume all your fermented fruit within the first few weeks of making it.If you added honey to your fermented cranberry sauce, remember to never feed honey of any kind to babies/infants younger than 1 year old.
Healthy Simple Syrup
This healthy sweetener is perfect for sweetening beverages, cold and flu tonics, and more. Infuse it with herbs and spices to boost its health-giving properties.- 1 cup warm water, no warmer than 110 degrees F
- 1 cup pourable honey, preferably raw, or maple syrup
- 1/4 cup fresh ginger, grated, and/or fresh turmeric, grated, optional
- 1/4 cup fresh mint or other herbs, optional
- 1/8 teaspoon whole dried spices such as cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, etc., optional
- 1 lemon or other citrus fruit, zest only, optional
- A vessel large enough to hold at least two cups of liquid
Pour honey into the water and stir well until completely dissolved.
Add additional infusions to honey or maple syrup and water. For your infusions, you may use individual amounts, such as 1/4 cup of grated ginger or any combination of herbs, spices, or zest. Stir well.
Cover the honey or maple syrup and water mixture and refrigerate for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, strain out the infusions, decant the syrup into a bottle or jar with a lid, and refrigerate. When refrigerated, this syrup will stay fresh for 1 month.
