With the holidays coming up, I was trying to think of a unique gift addition that everyone would love. Juice isn’t always in our regular rotation but makes a wonderful drink every now and then. This is why canning this easy honey cranberry juice was a perfect solution so it can be on our shelves but we don’t have to be in a rush to use it. It’s so convenient doing the raw-pack method instead of preheating everything. Plus, it’s so cute and rustic seeing the cranberries floating around in the jar. It definitely shows that you truly made it yourself!
These are the organic cranberries I found at my local grocery store. I typically haven’t seen organic cranberries so I was thrilled to find these. I usually try to buy as many organic and Non-GMO products as I possibly can.
This bowl is about a solid half hour of sorting through all of the cranberries. I love canning, but this is the prep work I dread. It’s not a tough task, but always feels tedious. However, it does lead to a better product. It gave this easy honey cranberry juice a bright and beautiful color.
Given I was heating the contents of these jars, I didn’t want to use my excellent local organic raw honey. I like to save my local raw honey for raw consumption. For this purpose, I wanted to purchase honey from the store so I wouldn’t lose sleep if the heat killed some of the health benefits. Given recent health discoveries of my own, I’ve been leaning towards honey and maple sugar as my sweeteners instead of cane sugar. Cane sugar isn’t horrible, but using honey instead is an even more natural sweetener. I’ve seen this brand of honey at a variety of stores and was happy with the product for this recipe.
Easy Honey Cranberry Juice
A simple way to make a delicious shelf-stable drink.
Ingredients
- 4 12oz bags Cranberries (1 ½ cups per jar)
- 2.5lbs Honey (1/2 cup per jar, but can vary)
- Water
- Lemon Juice (2 TBSP per quart jar)
Instructions
- Find 8 clean quart canning jars. Clean and sterilize however you like. I usually wash and put them in some hot water.
- Get water boiling to add to the jars. Get your water bath or steam canner ready as well.
- Sort cranberries. You want them to be bright and/or dark red and good-sized. Wash what you’re using and compost/toss the scraps.
- Put 1 ½ cups cranberries into each jar.
- Add up to ½ cup honey. I did ½ cup to keep the juice on the sweeter side.
- Once water is fully boiling, add lemon juice and fill each quart jar with water to the ½ inch headspace. Wipe rims.
- Process in a boiling water bath canner or steam canner for 25 minutes*.
- Let sit for 5 minutes in the canner, then remove. Allow them to sit overnight or longer so the internal temperature cools down and you can ensure a seal.
Notes
*25 minutes (both pints and quarts) if under 1,000 feet in elevation. For 1,000 to 6,000 feet, process for 30 minutes. Above 6,000 feet process for 35 minutes