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Need some leftover cranberry sauce recipes for the holiday season? Here’s a great recipe collection for your zero waste holiday kitchen! I’m sharing some of our favorite recipes for using up cranberry sauce, especially our leftover cranberry sauce sourdough bread recipe. We use this bread for delicious leftover turkey sandwiches!

This article was born out of a very real need I have every througout the year to find a way to use up leftover cranberry sauce. Because I love making it!!

–>>Here’s our Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce, if you’re new to making it.<<–

Cranberries are considered a seasonal food in that they’re only available once a year. We buy up extra bags and freeze or freeze dry them in order to use them throughout the seasons.

From smoothies to scones to coffee cake to leftover cranberry sauce sourdough bread, I’ve discovered myriad delicious ways to avoid wasting even a single teaspoon of cranberry sauce!

Homemade cranberry sauce is a delicious treat that should never go to waste but we sometimes end up with a bit left over. Instead of shoving it to the back of the fridge, try any one of these leftover cranberry sauce recipes!

5 Leftover Cranberry Sauce Recipes

As with most zero waste cooking endeavors, finding leftover cranberry sauce recipes to use every year is mostly a matter of being creative. Start thinking about cranberry sauce as you would jam, jelly, compote.

You can also find many things to do with surplus fresh or dried cranberries you might have laying around.

The following are some simple leftover cranberry sauce recipes and other cranberryc ideas.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Compote Recipe

Make a cranberry compote with leftover cranberry sauce for a quick sweet bread or ice cream sauce. You can also add 2 tablespoons of compote to one cup of hot water for a simple holiday fruit “tea”.

Add 2 tablespoons of maple syrup to 1 pint of sauce.
Warm them both in a pan over medium heat,
Add 1 tsp of powdered ginger and 1/2 cup of homemade raisins or candied citrus peel.
Stir and simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve warm or cold.

Leftover Cranberry Fruit Leather

To make fruit leather with leftover cranberry sauce, place the sauce into a saucepan to reheat it. Add 1-2 tablespoons of water to help hydrate the sauce and make it spreadable.

Add a bit of maple syrup or honey to add a little extra sweetness to the fruit leather. Sour cranberry sauce makes very sour fruit leather.

Once spreadable, place onto dehydrator sheets and dehydrate according to your unit’s instructions. You can use our Homemade Fruit Leather article for guidance.

Even if you don’t have a dehydrator, you can use an oven.

Cranberry Smoothies or Milkshake Recipe

I love cranberry and chocolate together, but you can omit the cocoa powder if you want.

Add 1 cup of frozen cranberries and 1/2 cup of ice to a blender.
Also, add 2 cups of fresh milk, 1/2 cup of fresh cream, and 1 Tbsp. of organic cocoa powder to the blender.
If you’re making a morning smoothie, add 1/2 cup of spinach or kale.
Sweeten with 3 Tbsp. of maple syrup or honey, or several drops of stevia.
Blend until smooth and taste test to see if you need to add more sweetener.

Drink immediately and enjoy!

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Mayonnaise Recipe

Get a great mayo recipe with quality troubleshooting tips by following the instructions here: Make Healthy Homemade Mayonnaise.

To each cup of mayo, add 1/4 leftover cranberry sauce and stir until incorporated.
Use this on leftover turkey sandwiches or turkey salad or potato salad.

It makes a fantastic condiment for your next hamburger, especially if you melt white cheddar on the patty.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Butter Recipe

For a great butter tutorial with troubleshooting tips, please visit: How to Make Your Own Butter.

For 1/2 cup of homemade butter, add 1/4 leftover cranberry sauce, 1 teaspoon of sea salt, and 1 tablespoon of raw honey.
Spread this onto crackers, shortbread cookies, Graham crackers, pizzelle cookies, or fresh sourdough bread.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Recipe: Sourdough Sandwich Loaf

This leftover cranberry sauce recipe for a delectable cranberry sourdough sandwhich loaf is the perfect pair for leftover turkey and cranberry mayo. It’s a very basic sourdough loaf bread with cranberry sauce mixed in – easy peasy!

leftover cranberry sauce sourdough bread cut in half on a cutting board

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Homestead Lady Tessa Zundel

This leftover cranberry sauce recipe for a delectable cranberry sourdough sandwhich loaf is the perfect pair for leftover turkey and cranberry mayo. It's a very basic sourdough loaf bread with cranberry sauce mixed in - easy peasy!

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 55

Ferment Time 6

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Ingredients

3 Cups Organic White Flour
2 tsp. Sea Salt
3 Tbsp. Raw Sugar
1/2 Cup Sourdough Starter
1/2 Cup Leftover Cranberry Sauce Make this a heaping 1/2 cup.
1/2 Cup Water

Instructions

Mix 3 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of sea salt, and 3 tablespoons of raw sugar in a medium sized bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix 1/2 cup of starter, 1/2 heaping cup of cranberry sauce, and 1/2 cup of water until incorporated.
Add the wet mix to the dry mix and mix well.
Cover the bowl and set it aside for half an hour. Then, perform 1-2 sets of stretches and folds. Repeat this process 2 more times, 30 minutes apart. Form the dough into a ball and let it rest in the bottom of the bowl and re-cover it.
Set aside and ferment the dough for at least six hours. The dough should swell and take on a smooth look. Use the fingerprint test to see if it is properly proofed.
Line a bread pan with parchment paper and form the dough into a log. Place the dough in the pan and invert an oiled bread pan on top to cover the dough. Let it rise until it doubles in size. Be patient because this can take several hours!
Remove the inverted bread pan and cut three slashes into the top of the bread dough. Return the pan to act as a lid.
Place the bread pan with the inverted pan on top into your oven and set the temperature to 425F/218C. Be sure the inverted bread pan has been oiled. Bake for 25 minutes.
Reduce the temperature to 400F/204C and remove the inverted bread pan. Bake for another 25 minutes. If the crust begins to burn, cover it with foil.
Take the internal temperature of the loaf - if it's between 200F and 205F (93C - 96C), it's done. If not, return it to the oven for another 5 minutes and check the temperature again.
Remove the loaf from the bread pan and allow it to completely cool on a bakers rack. This can take several hours or even overnight.

Notes

If you'd like to use maple syrup or honey instead of sugar, reduce the water by 2 tablespoons.

Some recipes that call for inclusions (things you add to the dough) in sourdough bread direct you to incorporate those after the fermentation (proofing) cycle. Thatwill work but with sauce it's a little harder to do because the gluten has been activated in the dough and doesn't want to make room for the inclusion.

For this recipe, I prefer to add the cranberry sauce in the initial mix simply because it's easier!

If you're new to sourdough and terms like "stretch and fold" and "finger test", please see the notes section of the article below.

Keyword cranberry, holiday, sourdough bread

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Stretch and Fold

Here are the basic instructions for a sourdough stretch and fold, which is usually done in place of kneading.

Mix the ingredients as described above, cover the dough in the bowl, and allow it to sit for 30 minutes to an hour.
Then, remove the cover and wet your dominant hand.
Use your dry hand to steady and turn the bowl as you use your wet hand to gather one side of the dough and pull it up, stretching it vertically.
Fold this side over the rest of the body of the dough. Turn the bowl a bit to the right.
Repeat the stretching and folding process until each side has been stretched and folded once or twice. Once will be sufficient for white flour dough.
Cover the dough and allow it to sit for a half hour to an hour. Repeat the stretching and folding process 1-2 more times.

There’s a discussion of the benefits of stretching and folding and a comparison to kneading that can be found in our Homemade Sourdough Marbled Rye Bread article.

For the fingerprint test, here’s this excerpt from our article Sourdough Beginner Bread Recipe:

During fermentation, look for the dough to bulk in size, slowly but not fully return a gentle finger print, and to have small bubbles beginning to form on the skin of the dough.

Cranberry Sourdough Swirl Bread

If you’d like to bake up a cranberry sauce swirl loaf, then do NOT include the cranberry sauce into the initial mix. Here’s what you do instead:

Follow the recipe except omit the sauce from the inital mix.
Set the dough to proof (ferment).
After it’s proofing time, roll the dough out into a flat rectangle.
Spread the cranberrry sauce over the rectangle of dough.
Staring at one end, roll up the dough like you’re making cinnamon rolls.
Tuck the ends under and fit it into a bread pan. Follow the rest of the recipe.

If you want to make a round loaf, roll up the dough, tuck the ends and simply turn the ends into each other to form a round loaf. Follow the rest of the recipe baking the loaf in a round pan.

More Sourdough Help

Here are several more recipes and articles that can help you make friends with your sourdough starter and baking bread:

Easy Sourdough Bread with active or unfed starter

Sourdough Bread Beginner Recipe

Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread

Healthy Bread & Natural Leavening

Leftover Cranberries (Not Sauce) Ideas

If you have leftover cranberries and are all “sauced-out” and can’t eat any more leftover cranberry sauce recipes, never fear! Here are some ideas for using up cranberries, both fresh and dehydrated.

Use this basic scone recipe and add fresh or dehydrated cranberries (like homemade Craisins®).
Similarly, use this Grape Coffee Cake Recipe and swap out the grapes for cranberries.
Try these Elderberry No Bake Granola Bars with dehydrated cranberries instead of elderberries. Or maybe use both!
Here are some Sourdough Berry Muffins that would do well with cranberries added – delicious!

5 Leftover Cranberry Sauce Recipes + Sourdough Loaf