Leftover Cranberry Sauce Muffins
Updated March 26, 2019
We hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving filled with good food and fun. Is your refrigerator overflowing with Thanksgiving leftovers? If you are wondering what to do with your leftover cranberry sauce, try our cranberry orange muffins. Fresh cranberry sauce is the secret ingredient inside these delicious muffins.
The muffin batter is easy to whip up and leftover cranberry sauce is hidden inside each muffin. Before baking, you add a big spoonful of cranberry sauce in between the muffin batter. I also sprinkled the muffin tops with turbinado sugar to add sweetness and a sugary crunch. I love the deep cranberry red color that is in the middle of these marvelous muffins! They are tart, sweet, and delightful!
If you still have guests to feed this weekend or need a sweet treat after your Black Friday shopping, make a batch of leftover cranberry sauce muffins. And don’t worry if you didn’t make cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving this year, you can still make these muffins. Our fresh cranberry orange sauce is a breeze to make and these muffins are worth it.
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Leftover Cranberry Sauce Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1 large egg
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup fresh cranberry orange sauce about 2 tablespoons per muffin
Instructions
- 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or grease well. Set aside.
- 2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Rub in sugar and orange zest together. Whisk into dry ingredients.
- 3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk canola oil, egg, milk, and vanilla together.
- 5. Incorporate the wet ingredients into flour mixture. Add slowly and gently stir together. The batter will be thick.
- 6. Place half the batter at the bottom of six muffin cups. Spoon about two tablespoons of fresh cranberry sauce on top of the muffin batter. Top muffins evenly with remaining muffin batter. Sprinkle each muffin generously with turbinado sugar.
- 7. Bake muffins for 15-17 minutes, or until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the pan and let cool on a cooling rack.
- *Note-if you don't have leftover cranberry sauce, it is easy to make a fresh batch. This recipe makes only six muffins-if you need more, feel free to double it!
Have you tried this recipe?
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If you like these leftover cranberry sauce muffins, you might also like:
Yogurt Cranberry Coffeecake from Elle’s New England Kitchen
Cranberry Salsa from Savoring the Thyme
Cranberry Applesauce from Simply Recipes
Yum! I just made these and they were delicious! I used white whole wheat flour because it’s what I always have in the house. I also used canned cranberry (organic full berry version) because I had it in the house. And I used half brown sugar and half white. So yummy! Thanks!
You are welcome! Glad you liked the muffins!
Love this recipe! Will be linking back to this in my upcoming post 🙂
I just made these muffins for breakfast. I doubled the recipe and used coconut oil instead of canola. I found that only about half the dry ingredients were incorporated and had to add almost 1 more cup of milk. Even then the batter was still very thick (like paste), but since the recipe said it would be thick, I went with it. They turned out beautifully. I ate three 😉 I used coconut sugar to sprinkle the top, and it made it sweet and crispy. Will definitely be making again, maybe with a jam filling. Have you frozen them? Just wondering if they would taste the same after being frozen.
I am glad you enjoyed the muffins. Yes, you can freeze them! Just store in an air tight container or freezer bag.
Omg no way! What a unique leftovers recipe! These look super yummy!
What does “rub” mean in terms of the orange zest and sugar please? Someone….??? Im unsure of the Google results for the query…and I really want to make these.
Thanks
Jaime
This is such a cute and clever way to use up leftover cranberry sauce! These muffins look absolutely delectable.
Pinned!
Definitely needed more wet ingredients. I added more almond milk, but I would probably just do an equal amount of all wet ingredients next time. Very dense.
I made these muffins tonight. They are very good. I doubled the recipe and made 24 standard size muffins. I followed the recipe except that I folded the cranberry sauce into the batter. I’ll be saving this recipe for next year.
I just made these tonight for a breakfast tomorrow with my colleagues and I could not eat a full one but the little piece I had was tasty and moist. Batter will be thick as stated. I also gave a piece to my mom and she also liked it. Great recipe!
Is this recipe for 6 large muffins (like the kind you get at the deli), or 6 regular size muffins. If it is for the large muffins, how long would ou bake them for if you wanted to just make the standard muffins?
It’s the middle of summer, but I found a container of cranberry sauce in my pantry and was inspired to make these. They were delicious!!
The batter was really thick. I should have made it in my Kitchen Aide mixer. Maybe b/c I used coconut oil instead of canola oil which thickened when I added the cold milk? Next time I will warm the milk to room temperature. I added a teeny bit more milk and it was still thick but no longer dry, too. Tastes delicious!
There is no way this recipe as is worked. I tried it twice. The first time the batter was so dry it wouldn’t even stick together, even after adding more milk. The second time I was able to scrape what is more like biscuit dough into the tins, but man oh man were they the driest muffins I’ve ever had! I’m so sad I wasted the last of my delicious cranberry sauce on them 🙁 Pinterest fail!