Cranberry Salsa
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Cranberries aren’t just destined for cranberry sauce! This fresh cranberry salsa combines tart cranberries with lime, orange, and a kick of jalapeño for a vibrant, spicy twist. Serve it as a festive dip, a standalone side dish, or an unconventional topping for your main protein.
FROM YOUR HOLIDAY TABLE TO MINE
One of my favorite parts of being a food content creator is developing holiday recipes. No matter which holidays you celebrate, they all share the same spirit: spending time with loved ones, honoring traditions, and, of course, enjoying the food that makes the day special.
In our family, the biggest celebrations are non-secular Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We don’t have strict “traditions,” but we do have our “usuals,” and as a food content creator, I love hearing what dishes make it onto other families’ menus, too.
Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday to create recipes for. I love the cozy, comforting flavors of the season, the excuse to make sugared cranberries for everything until Christmas, and the chance to remix classics like cornbread stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, and pumpkin chiffon pie. After every holiday season, I find myself inspired by what I see on other families’ tables, and that’s exactly where this cranberry jalapeño dip came from.
GRAB THESE 7 INGREDIENTS
This recipe’s original bones came from one of my college teammates (hey, Ritt!) when I asked over on Instagram for folks’ “nontraditional” Thanksgiving dishes. As a lover of not only cranberries but also of any excuse to eat a dip, I took the basics of this family’s staple and created my own version.
And let me just tell you– this dish has no business being as good as it is for as easy as it is to make. And honestly, the hardest part of making it is washing and chopping some of the ingredients.
Here’s a visual of the ingredients you’ll need, but be sure to visit the recipe card to find the exact measurements and quantities.
VARIATIONS & SUBSTITUTIONS
While this isn’t a baking recipe where one swap can throw everything off, I still recommend sticking pretty closely to the ingredients listed here. The flavors balance each other perfectly, so if you want to tweak it, try adjusting the amounts rather than making full substitutions.
Want a little more heat? Leave in the jalapeño seeds.
Prefer a milder onion flavor? Use a bit less green onion instead of skipping it altogether.
And if you’re one of those people who just can’t with cilantro… I get it (kind of). But if possible, keep a small portion of the salsa with cilantro– you might be surprised by how much it adds to the overall flavor OR your cilantro-loving guests will get to enjoy the recipe as intended.
HOW TO MAKE CRANBERRY SALSA
This is crazy easy to make, because there’s no cooking or baking involved. Score!
Prepare the cranberries: start by finely chopping the cranberries, which is most easily done in a blender or food processor. Just be sure you’re not puréeing them as you want different size chunks.
Combine the ingredients: start with the sugar, lime juice, and orange juice. Toss this all together to get things started, then add in the jalapeños, onions, and cilantro to bring it all together.
Chill + serve: while this dip is technically ready to eat, it’s one of those foods that gets better as it sits, so the longer you can hold out, the better it will taste.
Honestly, we had the hardest time resisting this dip. In fact, we ate the entire batch in 2 days. We had it with chips, we put it on roasted chicken, and we ate it by the spoonful because it really is that good.
You may be a cranberry sauce purist, and that’s totally fine. I don’t necessarily think this cranberry salsa needs to replace it, but if you want a way to bring another cranberry dish to the table or don’t like cranberry sauce but still miss the cranberries, this easy cranberry salsa recipe is one you should definitely have on your list for the holidays.
Round out the rest of your Thanksgiving dishes: turkey tenderloin, easy yeast rolls, traditional bread stuffing, green bean casserole (without mushrooms), Instant Pot garlic mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie And be sure to check out my best Thanksgiving recipes for a full picture.
Cranberry Salsa Recipe
Ingredients
- 12 ounces fresh cranberries rinsed and drained
- ½ cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon (15mL) fresh lime juice
- 1 Tablespoon (15mL) fresh orange juice
- 2 jalapeño peppers ribs and seeds removed; minced
- 1 bunch green onions finely sliced; about ¼ cup
- ¼ cup finely chopped cilantro
Instructions
- In a blender1 or food processor, pulse the cranberries until they are finely chopped. Be sure not to purée them as you want different size chunks.12 ounces fresh cranberries
- Transfer the chopped cranberries to a medium size bowl, then add the sugar, lime juice, and orange juice and stir to combine.½ cup (50g) granulated sugar, 1 Tablespoon (15mL) fresh lime juice, 1 Tablespoon (15mL) fresh orange juice
- Add the jalapeños, green onions, and cilantro, then stir again until everything is evenly distributed. Taste2 and add salt, if desired.2 jalapeño peppers, 1 bunch green onions, ¼ cup finely chopped cilantro
- Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve cranberry salsa as a dip with chips or crackers, as a topping for meat, on top of a block of cream cheese, or as a simple side dish.
Video
Notes
- Blender: if using a blender, pulse the cranberries in two batches to ensure all of them get chopped. You may want to shake the blender around after every few pulses so the larger cranberries fall to the bottom.
- Salt to taste: though my taste testers and I did not think this salsa needed salt, you may think otherwise! Start with ¼ teaspoon of salt, stir, and taste again. You might also consider serving the salsa with extra salty chips.
Nutrition Disclosure
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.