Ina Garten Has the Most Brilliant Hack for Upgrading Canned Cranberry Sauce

Yesterday, Ina Garten introduced the world to a trendy new term called “hot rod” cooking, which involves upgrading store-bought items with high-quality ingredients to make them appear homemade. Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Be Ready When the Luck Happen author dropped an ingenius hack for sprucing up a $2 canned staple — and it’s the all-star side dish you’ll want to have on your table this year. 

“With so much to do for Thanksgiving, I’m always looking for shortcuts,” Garten said in a clip posted on her Instagram page. “When I say store-bought is fine, I don’t mean go to the grocery store, buy an entire Thanksgiving dinner, and serve it. That’s not great. What I do mean is go to the store, buy really good ingredients, and hot rod them by adding other ingredients that make the dish so good, nobody will ever know it wasn’t made from scratch.”

In the Instagram clip, the Barefoot Contessa host then applies this “hot rod” cooking technique by upgrading canned cranberry sauce.

Garten starts with a 14-ounce can of Ocean Spray Whole Cranberry Sauce. Then she grabs a medium-size pan and fills it with the canned cranberry sauce, half an apple grate, which is her secret ingredient filled with pectin that helps “gel the cranberry sauce.” Next she adds freshly squeezed orange juice and orange zest. She cooks everything on a medium simmer for about 15 minutes before adding raisins and roughly diced pecans to give the dish some crunchy and chewy components. At this point, she recommends letting it come to room temperature or chilling it in the fridge until it’s time to serve. 

The Barefoot Contessa host applies this “hot rod” technique to several Thanksgiving classics, including her Make-Head Roast Turkey and Gravy, Parmesan Mashed Potatoes, Mushroom and Leek Bread Pudding, and Fresh Apple Spice Cake. When it comes to using hacks to make holiday cooking easier, Garten reminds us that “if you don’t tell your secret, I certainly won’t.”