Fermented Cranberry Topping (Recipe & Uses) - The Wild Gut (2024)

I’m a experimentalist by nature. I rarely follow a recipe to a T. I never take the time to read directions. And I will generally try anything once. And this might be why I’ve fallen in love with fermenting things. It’s pretty difficult to have something be a complete failure and it’s easy to adjust with time and temperature.

Today, I’m sharing a recipe for a fermented cranberry topping. This is actually the first time I thought I may have had a fermentation failure on my hands. I opened and tasted it at the seven day mark and boy was it not good. Unless you’re into cranberries that taste like rubbing alcohol. I almost threw it out, but figured I had invested in the ingredients, prep, and fermentation time so far. What did I have to lose by letting it ferment longer?

Fast forward a month and SUCCESS! I have myself a jar of fermented cranberry topping. It no longer smells of or tastes like alcohol. In fact, it smells like fall and Thanksgiving to me. The addition of cloves, cinnamon, and orange juice are aromatic!

You may be thinking, that sounds good but what would I use it for?

That’s a great question. And so far, I’ve used it two different ways.

The first is on top of yogurt. The creaminess of full fat greek yogurt mellows out the tartness of the cranberries, so you can really taste the orange, cinnamon and clove flavors.

I’ve also used it in my daily smoothies! Depending on the add-ins, sometimes I notice the cranberries and sometimes I don’t. It’s nice to know I am getting a little extra vitamin C by including them though. In my usual smoothie of spinach, water, greek yogurt, unsweetened coconut flakes, protein powder and ground flax seeds, I will get hints of cranberry and orange. If I add in blueberries, I don’t notice those flavors.

Now, anotherway I want to try it is on top of vanilla ice cream! I think that would be amazing. Please let me know if you give it a try. 🙂 Ok, on to the recipe.

For Fermented Cranberry Topping, you’ll need:

• 4 cups cranberries
• 1 cinnamon stick, cracked
• 1″ hunk of ginger
• zest of 1 small lemon
• juice of 1 large orange
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/3 cup raw honey
• filtered or spring water

First, add the cranberries, cinnamon stick and ginger to your food processor and pulse a few times. Just until everything is roughly chopped.

Then transfer mixture to a glass jar.

Next, add thelemon zest, orange juice, sea salt and honey to the jar.

Be sure to use a non-iodized salt and raw unpasteurized honey. This is important in ensuring the contents of the jar will actually ferment.

Fill the rest of the space with filtered water, leaving about 1″ of head room at the top.

Cap the jar and shake until everything is combined. Then remove the cap and add weights and an airlock device. I used the Pickle Pusher from Ultimate Pickle Jarfor this recipe. It’s an “all in one” weight and airlock device. It uses a plunger to hold everything under the brine plus a lid and airlock so you can get a true anaerobic environment for your ferment. It worked like a charm and I loved that I didn’t have to rig up any sort of weight. I will note that after posting this photo on Twitter, the maker of the Pickle Pusher reached out to me to let me know it’s generally meant to fit closer to the top of the jar. I just didn’t have quite enough “stuff” in the jar! It still did it’s job anyway.

Let sit at room temperature for approximately 30 days, then move to the refrigerator. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.

Don’t forget the vanilla ice cream!