~ An all-time, family-favorite cranberry sauce recipe – perfect for Thanksgiving and the holidays! It’s so quick and easy, and bursting with wonderful sweet-tart flavors and great texture! Plus, it takes just a few moments in your food processor and can even be made in advance! ~

This Recipe Is:   •  Ready in 30 Minutes or Less  •  Make Ahead  •  Vegan (and Vegetarian)  •  Gluten Free  •

Do you remember last week, when I revealed that I’m in love with two different salads? (Oh, my cheating heart!)

Well, I’ve actually fallen head-over-heels for two different cranberry sauce recipes, too.

But, honestly, one of them has officially edged out the other one, to win the key to my cranberry heart.

I didn’t think it could happen. When I first made the Cranberry and Dried-Cherry Relish recipe that ran in “Bon Appétit” back in 2001, I thought it was a love that’d last forever. So simple, and that cranberry recipe was filled with such cardamom-my goodness. Mmmmmmm …

I looked forward to Thanksgiving every year … my excuse for a little rendezvous with my cranberry sauce sweetheart. People requested that I make it for holiday meals, and then they requested a copy of the recipe. I never thought I’d find a truer love (at least as far as cranberry love goes).

But then … I did.

Last Thanksgiving, as we watched the Macy’s Parade and happily looked forward to our raucous day of extended-family shenanigans (as loyal THK readers know, my family doesn’t do un-fun holidays), I decided to throw caution to the wind and try a whole new twist on cranberry sauce … so I opened a little cranberry-sauce-recipe laboratory.

Oh fine. My “lab” pretty much only involved a knife and a food processor – simple but effective!

Now, we can discuss all day whether a true cranberry sauce has to be cooked, and whether a cranberry relish has to be un-cooked. After a bit of research, I can tell you there are recipes on all sides of this debate. Call it what you will … I was going for an easy, no-cook recipe with fabulous flavors and texture … so that’s what I made!

As my cranberry experiments began, I had visions of sugarplums pineapple dancing in my head. It seemed like the perfect sweet counterpoint to juicy, tart cranberries. Huh … why not?

I tinkered and adjusted, tasted and tinkered some more.

And ya know what? It was AWESOME!

How awesome, you ask?

So wonderfully, deliciously awesome that in a head-to-head showdown (as in: I took BOTH my new recipe and the old-fave “Bon Appétit” recipe to the Thanksgiving feast that day), this new cranberry sauce hands-down beat the tiny cranberry pants off my old true love. Kids … adults … all around the table, the votes poured in …

And this (super easy!) cranberry sauce was the clear winner!

The sweet, dried pineapple is a unique twist on traditional cranberry sauce, and it really does perfectly counter-balance the deliciously tart cranberries. The apples and pecans add a fantastic, crunchy texture, and the vanilla and cinnamon create a subtle, rich background.

Oh – and all you have to do is toss all the ingredients in the food processor! You’re done in just moments!

Seriously – what’s not to love!?!?

It stole my heart … and it’ll steal yours, too! (You’ve been warned!)

Looking for More Quick and Easy Thanksgiving Recipes? Don’t Miss Our:

• 53 Best Thanksgiving Recipes
• Salad with Goat Cheese, Pears, Candied Pecans and Maple-Balsamic Dressing
• Roasted Green Beans with Balsamic-Browned Butter
• Microwave Spaghetti Squash with Sage-Browned Butter and Toasted Walnuts
• 17 Healthy Instant Pot Thanksgiving Recipes

And don’t miss our Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes board on Pinterest – we’re stockpiling oodles of great ideas for you!