Take Your Cranberry Sauce To The Next Level With One Candied Ingredient

For many, cranberry sauce is a holiday staple. However, this jammy spread deserves more than its brief holiday heyday, and remixing the original recipe with added ingredients might just be the key to making it the star of every season. Enter candied ginger, the sweet and spicy secret weapon that jazzes up cranberry sauce for both Thanksgiving and your average Thursday.

Unlike raw ginger, which is sinewy, tough, and too spicy to enjoy as a standalone ingredient, candied ginger is made by cooking the root in sugar before drying it to create a crunchy, crystallized, candy-sweet treat that's palatable enough to enjoy as a snack. Introducing candied ginger to cranberry sauce embellishes the tart flavor with a trim of fragrant spice that's tempered but not totally washed out by the glacé taste of the hardened sugar syrup. Candied ginger's brittle and crunchy texture is the perfect counterpart to the jellied consistency of cranberry sauce, enhancing not just the flavor of the spread, but its otherwise one-dimensional mouthfeel too.

Although it's just as delicious for a homemade batch, candied ginger is especially transformative for canned cranberry sauce (so says Duff Goldman), giving it a deceptively homemade and downright sophisticated flair. You can use candied ginger as an edible garnish that crowns your cranberry sauce or finely dice and mix it into the condiment for texture and a more integrated flavor. Candied ginger works well alongside orange zest, which is common in cranberry sauce recipes, but consider adjusting your table sugar ratios in your favorite recipe to prevent cloying flavors.

Although candied ginger-infused cranberry sauce flaunts a dynamic flavor profile, it's still a versatile ingredient that marries well with many other provisions. While it adds a sweet, aromatic spice to classic holiday platters, balancing their starchy, umami-packed flavors, this snappy cranberry sauce has plenty of creative uses that go far beyond the usual suspects.

Use candied ginger cranberry sauce as a sweet accompaniment to a roasted chicken sandwich topped with sharp cheddar cheese and peppery arugula to achieve a full-bodied, handheld meal that balances garden-fresh goodness with savory, sweet, and sharp notes. Take a toasted baguette and lather it with brie or goat cheese before adding a dollop of candied ginger cranberry sauce for a jazzy appetizer that's tangy, rich, spicy, and, of course, sweet. For sweet treats, pipe this peppery cranberry sauce into flaky pastries, drizzle it over a scoop of pistachio ice cream, or add it to a stack of basic buttermilk pancakes.

Feeling adventurous? Think outside of the box by introducing additional ingredients that will reshape how you use cranberry sauce altogether. Combine with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and citrus juice and use candied ginger cranberry sauce to create a glaze for tofu or roasted Brussels sprouts. Or, thin it out with olive oil and lemon juice to create an unforgettable salad dressing. Dare we suggest adding your cranberry sauce to a bourbon cocktail? Whichever way you put it to use, candied ginger cranberry sauce is a show-stopping take on a classic holiday recipe that turns an ordinary condiment into a year-round kitchen essential.