Making cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving? We have three recipes you need to see

While cranberries are all but inedible on their own, adding sweetener and boiling them down rounds out their bitterness, allowing their tart and unique berry flavor to shine through magnificently.

If it were up to us, we’d vote cranberry sauce as the Best Supporting Actor for every holiday spread, which is why it kills us to see so many people serve cranberry sauce in its canned form.

Please put down the can-opener. It’s super simple to make your own cranberry sauce. So if you want to level up your cranberry sauce game, today we are sharing our recipes for easy three-ingredient cranberry sauce, three ways.

More: Great cranberry recipes to try for the holidays

Classic cranberry sauce recipe

Ingredients:

• One-12-ounce bag cranberries (fresh or frozen)

• Juice of 1 orange

• Zest of 1 orange

• 1/2-1 cup sugar (sweeten, to taste)

• 1/2 cup water

Instructions: 

1. Zest the orange completely using a microplane or the smallest side of a box grater.

2. Once completely zested, cut the orange in half horizontally and squeeze out the juice using a juicer or your hands.

3. In a medium saucepan, heat the zest, orange juice and cranberries over medium-high heat until the cranberries begin to pop. You will hear and see the cranberries bursting open.

4. Once they’ve popped, add the water and sugar and stir until completely dissolved. In terms of sugar, you can decide how sweet you want the cranberry sauce to be. We recommend starting with 1/2 cup and tasting the mixture once the sugar has dissolved. If it doesn’t taste sweet enough, add sugar little by little until you have achieved your desired sweetness.

5. Bring to a boil and boil until the liquid has reduced by half (about 3-5 minutes).

6. Once reduced by half, turn the heat to simmer and simmer for 10 minutes.

7. Remove from heat and allow it cool.

Mint cranberry sauce recipe

Ingredients:

• One 12-ounce bag cranberries (fresh or frozen)

• 1/3-1/2 cup agave nectar (sweeten, to taste)

• 2 tablespoons (separated) fresh mint, finely chopped

• 1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons water

Instructions: 

1. Begin by finely chopping 2 tablespoons of fresh mint and separate them into 2 equal parts.

2. In a medium saucepan, heat the cranberries, 1 tablespoon of mint and 3 tablespoons of water over medium-high heat until the cranberries begin to pop.

3. Once cranberries have popped, add water and agave nectar and stir until combined.

4. Check for sweetness. Usually, recipes require less agave than regular sugar, but because there is no juice or fruit in this variation, you might want to add more agave.

5. Bring the mixture to a boil until it has reduced by half, and then simmer for 10 minutes.

6. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining tablespoon of mint, then allow to cool.

Pineapple cranberry sauce recipe

Ingredients:

• One 12-ounce bag cranberries (fresh or frozen)

• 1 can crushed pineapple (1/4 cup juice from pineapple, 1/4 cup crushed pineapple)

• 1/2-1 cup coconut sugar (sweeten, to taste)

• 1/2 cup water

Instructions: 

1. Open the can of crushed pineapple and separate out 1/4 cup juice and 1/4 cup of the pineapple, then save the rest or discard.

2. In a medium saucepan, heat the cranberries, pineapple and pineapple juice over medium-high heat until cranberries begin to pop.

3. Once the cranberries have popped, add the coconut sugar and water and stir until dissolved.

4. Adjust coconut sugar, to taste. You may want to add a little more given it is not as sweet. Bring to a boil until the liquid has reduced by half, and then simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Check out these recipes to up your kitchen game: 

• Hard-boiled eggs:  Two easy ways to hard boil eggs to perfection

• Creamy risotto: Pearl couscous is the trick ingredient for creamy risotto

• Fried rice: The secret to making great fried rice at home

• Jambalaya: How to make Cheesecake Factory's Cajun jambalaya pasta at home

• Mustard makes it better: How to use mustard not as a condiment but as an ingredient

• Pasta salad: Perfect every time: The only pasta salad recipe you'll ever need

• Cranberry sauce: Three cranberry sauce recipes you need to try

• Sugar cookies: 'The best sugar cookie I've ever baked.' Here's the recipe.

• Kale can be tough: Raw kale can be tough. Here's how salt can help

This article originally appeared on Grateful: Three cranberry sauce recipes to up your Thanksgiving game