Our homemade cranberry sauce has a hint of orange and is lightly spiced, and it saves stovetop space since it’s made in the Instant Pot! This is naturally gluten free and allergy friendly.
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One of my favorite things to do on our website is go back to our older recipes and tweak them and re-make them to see if we can make them even better tasting and easier to make.
With the holidays approaching, I decided to revisit our Instant Pot cranberry sauce recipe and make it even better!
Our pressure cooker cranberry sauce recipe is super easy to make and it will help you save stove space during holiday cooking. It’s very easy to make your own cranberry sauce from scratch, and this is the perfect recipe to make ahead for holiday meals.
This recipe is also naturally allergy friendly: no nuts, dairy, or gluten in this one.
Why you’ll love our cranberry sauce recipe
Our cranberry sauce recipe is sweet, tart, and has a hint of orange and spice so it is perfect for the holidays.
Since it’s made in the Instant Pot, it won’t take up space on your stovetop, making it great for the holidays when you need space. This recipe is also best made a day ahead, or at least several hours ahead so it can be served chilled or at room temperature.

How to make Instant Pot cranberry sauce
Our recipe for pressure cooker cranberry sauce is super easy, here are the steps (this is just an overview, the full recipe card is at the end of the post):
- Measure out 1 pound of fresh cranberries and wash them, removing any that are mushy.
- Add the cranberries to the Instant Pot, and add the sugars, orange zest, orange juice, dash of salt, and the spices.
- Stir everything together, then close and seal your Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 5 minutes.


- Once the cooking is done, allow natural pressure release for 15 minutes, then quick-release the rest of the pressure.
- Open the pressure cooker and stir, it will look runny at first but will start to thicken as soon as it starts cooling and you stir. Stirring will also help to crush any cranberries that have not split open yet.
- Allow the sauce to cool for about 15 to 30 minutes then put in a covered dish in the fridge to completely chill.
- This tastes best chilled, or at least at room temperature, so this is best cooked 1 day ahead for chilled, or at least 6 hours ahead for chilling time or room temperature serving.
- Garnish with orange slices, orange zest, or sugared cranberries.


Our cranberry sauce recipe might seem a little runny when you first open the pressure cooker, but trust the process: it will thicken a lot as it cools.
This recipe works great doubled as well for big batches of cranberry sauce for holiday gatherings.
I love the light flavors of cinnamon and ginger with the orange in this sauce. Our sauce is lightly spiced, but if you want more spice you can double the cinnamon and ginger if you want.
If you aren’t a fan of having a little bit of cinnamon and ginger in the sauce, you can skip one or the other of them (or both).
How to make this sauce less thick and more saucy
As written, this sauce gets very thick once it is cooled completely and chilled.
I made this recipe several times and I was able to make this sauce both thick and a little thinner/saucier with the same exact ingredients, just slightly different methods of cooking the sauces.
In our recipe video, the sauce is the less thick version. And in the post photos, I’m sharing the very thick version.

Here’s how to make this same recipe thick or thinner:
- For a very firm/thick sauce: cook as directed, with all the ingredients cooked in the Instant Pot.
- For a less firm and “saucier” sauce: add only 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar into the instant pot with the rest of the ingredients, leaving out 1/4 cup of the white sugar and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and setting it aside. After cooking the cranberry sauce and allowing it to cool a bit (10 minutes or so), stir in the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar while the cranberry sauce is still warm. This results in a less firm and more saucy cranberry sauce with the same sweetness as the original.
Check out our other Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes:
- Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce (Naturally Sweetened)
- Garlic Roasted Rainbow Carrots
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Stuffing
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Sweet Potato Casserole
- Gluten Free and Dairy Free Holiday Pies
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Thanksgiving recipe roundup
- Crustless Pumpkin Pie (Gluten Free and Dairy Free)
- No Bake Pumpkin Pie (Gluten Free and Dairy Free)
- Ginger Apple Sparkling Cider

Easy Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
Cranberry sauce
- 1 pound fresh cranberries
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- zest of 1 small to medium orange
- ½ cup fresh orange juice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- Dash salt
Sugared cranberry garnish
- 5-10 fresh cranberries washed and dried
- 1 teaspoon pure maple syrup
- 1-2 Tablespoons sugar
Equipment
Instructions
Cranberry sauce
- This recipe is best served chilled, so made it's best made 6 to 24 hours ahead.
- Measure out 1 pound of fresh cranberries and wash them, removing any that are mushy.
- Add the cranberries to the Instant Pot, and add the sugars. Zest the orange into the pot then juice the orange and add the orange juice, dash of salt, and the spices. You may need juice from more than one orange for this sauce.
- Stir everything together, then close and seal your Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 5 minutes.
- Once the cooking is done, allow natural pressure release for 15 minutes, then quick-release the rest of the pressure.
- Open the pressure cooker and stir, it will look runny at first but will start to thicken as soon as it starts cooling and you stir. Stirring will also help to crush any cranberries that have not split open yet.
- Allow the sauce to cool for about 15 to 30 minutes then put in a covered dish in the fridge to completely chill.
- This tastes best chilled, or at least at room temperature, so this is best cooked 1 day ahead for chilled, or at least 6 hours ahead for chilling time or room temperature serving.
Sugared cranberry garnish
- For the sugared cranberries, I took a small handful of washed and dried cranberries and added them to a small container with a little bit of maple syrup (only enough maple syrup to cover the cranberries, maybe 1 teaspoon).
- Shake the container to coat the cranberries with maple syrup, then add the syrup-coated cranberries to a different container with some white sugar (or unbleached sugar) and shake them with the sugar to coat.
- Add the cranberries to a cocktail pick and garnish your drink.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Pin for later!

Our older recipe for lower sugar cranberry sauce
This recipe was originally posted back in November 2019. I recently remade this recipe to be better, but if you’re still looking for the older recipe that is lower in sugar, here it is below:
Lower Sugar Instant Pot Cranberry Sauce
- 4 cups fresh cranberries
- Zest of 1 medium orange
- ¼ cup fresh squeezed orange juice
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup powdered Stevia for baking* (I used Stevia in the Raw for baking)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Stevia drops, to taste
- The cooking directions are the same as our new/updated recipe in the recipe card above.


Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.