Beyond Thanksgiving and Christmas, we don’t see much of the ruby red cranberry. It’s a shame, really, especially when you consider how high in antioxidants cranberries are. Growing up, cranberries have always been that bowl on the side of my holiday table that I never gave much thought to. I mean, beyond being awesome on your leftover turkey sandwiches, what was there to think about? They were cranberries.
After buying a large bag of fresh cranberries to prepare the sauce for my vegan meatloaf, I started to think about cranberries for the first time in my life (well, actual cranberries). With the enormous amount I had leftover, I knew that I needed to come up with ideas of what I could do with them since eating them plain was out of the question. Have you ever tried a plain cranberry? It is TERRIBLE. I am a person that likes tart things too, so I figured ‘what’s the worst that can happen.’ Never again. Never. Again.
As I was clearly not going to eat them plain, I wanted to make something innovative and different from the traditional cranberry recipes out there, and after a few days of pondering it, I came up with this little gem. While I am not totally sure how this particular idea came to me, I do know that this cranberry salsa turned out pretty awesome, and that I am excited to share it with you and see what you think. This is definitely different compared to any other salsa I have tried in the past, but it is really good with tortilla chips, and would be great in place of traditional cranberry sauce if you’re looking for something with a little more edge.
Click for the cranberry sauce recipe
- Prepared cranberry sauce (click the link above for the recipe)
- 1 jalapeno; seeded and finely chopped
- 1/2 cup red onion; finely chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro; finely chopped
- 1 lime; juiced
- 1 tsp. lemon zest
- 3 Tbsp. 100% pure honey
- High quality sea-salt to taste
- Finely chop jalapeno, red onion and cilantro and add to a medium mixing bowl.
- Add in prepared cranberry sauce, lime juice, lemon zest, salt, and honey. Mix thoroughly.
- Place cranberry salsa in a sealed container in the fridge, and cool for at least 30 minutes.