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Meat with cranberries: healthy recipes

Medical expert of the article

Gastroenterologist
, medical expert
Last reviewed: 06.07.2025

To prepare such a tasty and healthy dish as meat with cranberries, fresh, dried or cured cranberries are suitable. The sour taste of the berry goes well with meat and gives the dish unique flavors.

The easiest way to combine meat and cranberries is to make a sauce from the berries and add it to the meat dish.

Cranberries are also used as a stuffing for poultry or meatloaf. You can make minced meat for meatloaf or meatballs.

Cranberries are also added to the container in which meat is stewed in the oven or simply on the stove. The American large-fruited variety of the berry is most suitable for these purposes.

Dried cranberries should be soaked in wine before being added to a meat dish, and then added to the sauce being prepared along with the liquid that covered them.

Cranberry juice is also used in cooking, for example, as an ingredient in marinades. Or you can rub meat with cranberry juice mixed with spices before baking it in the oven. In this case, the surface of the baked meat is constantly greased with cranberry juice during the cooking of the meat.

Pork with cranberries

Pork with cranberries is a tasty and nutritious dish that can be served at a festive table or for a Sunday family dinner.

You will need to take one and a half kilograms of pork neck, three hundred to four hundred grams of frozen or fresh cranberries, one head of garlic, pepper and salt to taste.

The meat is washed, cut into pieces, salted and peppered. The garlic is pressed into the garlic mass. In the pork, using a knife, indentations are made, into which the berries and pressed garlic are placed. The remaining cranberries are minced, frozen berries must be doused with boiling water before the procedure. The meat must be coated with the berry mass and left overnight in the refrigerator in an enamel bowl.

The next day, the meat must be wrapped in foil and done in such a way that the liquid does not leak out during cooking. The oven is heated to a temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees, and the meat is placed there for an hour. After which the pork is taken out of the oven, the foil is opened, and the meat is then placed back in the oven. The temperature is increased to two hundred and thirty degrees, and the pork is cooked from forty-five minutes to an hour. After which the dish is taken out of the oven, cooled and served chilled. The pork is stored in clean foil, in which it must be wrapped after cooking and cooling.

Beef with cranberries

Beef with cranberries will add variety to the family's meat menu and allow the hostess to show off her culinary skills.

To prepare the dish you will need three hundred ml of meat broth, three tablespoons of cranberry sauce, one kilogram of beef, three onions in the peel, four tablespoons of olive oil, three hundred ml of red wine, two tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper to taste.

Pieces of beef are placed in a plastic bag, flour, salt and pepper are added to them. The meat needs to be thoroughly rolled in dry ingredients. The onion is cut into thin half rings. After that, olive oil is heated in a large frying pan, the meat is put in there and fried on all sides. Then the beef needs to be put on a plate.

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan, add the onion and fry for five minutes until brown. Add the meat to the cooked onion, pour in the broth and wine, and bring everything to a boil, stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper. Reduce the heat, cover the pan with a lid, and simmer for an hour and a half. Once the beef is tender and can be easily pierced with a fork, add the cranberry sauce. Then taste the dish and add spices and salt if necessary. Simmer the meat for five minutes and then serve with mashed potatoes as a side dish.

Chicken with cranberries

Chicken with cranberries is a delicious and unusual poultry dish that will decorate a festive table for guests or any family celebration.

To prepare the dish, you need to take eight hundred grams of chicken fillet, one hundred grams of hard cheese, a little margarine (to grease the container for cooking the poultry), fifty grams of butter, four hundred grams of cranberries, one onion, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, three tablespoons of sugar, half a teaspoon of starch, one hundred grams of lettuce, salt and pepper.

The fillet is cut into halves and beaten a little, then rubbed with salt and pepper. The oven is heated to one hundred and eighty degrees. The baking dish is greased with margarine, the fillet is placed in it, and a piece of butter should be placed on each piece of chicken. The dish is sent to the oven for fifteen minutes, after which it is taken out, and the chicken is sprinkled with grated cheese and sent back for five minutes.

Meanwhile, it is necessary to prepare the sauce for the bird. The onion is cut and fried in a frying pan. Cranberries and sugar are added to it, everything is covered with a lid and stewed for five minutes. Starch is diluted in two tablespoons of cold water, poured into the frying pan and cooked over low heat until the whole mass thickens. After which the frying pan is removed from the heat.

The chicken is taken out of the oven, placed on lettuce leaves, which have already decorated the capacious dish, and the fillet is poured with cranberry sauce on top.

Turkey with cranberries

Turkey with cranberries is a traditional dish of North American cuisine. This delicacy is usually served on Thanksgiving Day and Americans cannot imagine their holiday table without it.

The ingredients you need are five and a half kilograms of turkey (keep the giblets separately), one hundred and seventy-five grams of butter, one onion, four oranges, six sprigs of thyme, two hundred and fifty grams of cranberries, six pieces of bacon, and two tablespoons of liquid honey.

One orange is cut into pieces, and the onion is also chopped. The bacon is cut into strips and fried. The oven is heated to one hundred and ninety degrees. The turkey is placed in a deep dish, spread with soft butter and seasoned with spices. The onion, orange and half of the prepared thyme are pushed inside the turkey. The container is placed in the oven and baked for an hour until a brown crust forms on the turkey. After which the turkey is covered with foil and sent to the oven for another three hours. Every half hour it must be poured with the resulting juice.

During this time, you need to prepare the sauce for the bird. To do this, you need to cut the cranberries, peel the oranges and grate their zest, and separate the pulp into segments. After that, you need to mix the berries with the orange ingredients, fried bacon, thyme and honey. The turkey is taken out of the oven, and the sauce is placed on it. Then the bird is covered with foil again and placed in the oven for ten minutes. Then the container with the turkey is taken out of the oven, the foil is removed, and the turkey in the container is again placed in the oven for ten minutes until a crispy crust forms. After which the bird is taken out of the oven, covered loosely with foil and transferred to a dish. The juice from the dish in which the turkey was cooked should be used to prepare gravy for the side dish (along with the giblets of the bird).

Duck with cranberries

From the variety of duck recipes with cranberries, we chose stuffed duck with cranberries and croutons.

To prepare the dish, you need to take a duck weighing one to one and a half kilograms, one hundred fifty to two hundred grams of cranberries, one hundred to one hundred fifty grams of sugar, one hundred fifty grams of rye croutons, thirty grams of butter, spices and salt to taste.

The duck is rubbed with salt and spices. Instead of spices, you can use a mixture of honey and mustard as a marinade. The duck is left for six to eight hours.

Before cooking, cranberries are ground with sugar using a blender. Croutons are fried in butter until a golden crust forms on them. They must be stirred constantly, and the fire must be monitored. After the croutons are cooked, they are added to the cranberry mixture and everything is thoroughly mixed. The duck is stuffed with this mixture. The bird carcass is placed in a duck pan, and then filled with water. Before this, the oven is heated to 240 - 260 degrees, the dish with the duck is placed in it, which is cooked at this temperature for two hours with the lid tightly closed.

After that, you need to check how ready the bird is. If the duck is covered with a golden crust, then the dish can be taken out of the oven. If nothing like this is observed, then the lid of the duck pan should be removed, the heat should be increased to maximum, and the duck should be kept in the oven for another ten minutes.

Cranberries taste great with vegetables and fruits such as beets and apples. They can be used as a side dish for cooked meat.


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