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This Cranberry Salsa is one of my favorite holiday appetizers because it’s fresh, tangy, a little sweet, and has just enough jalapeño heat. Packed with fresh cranberries, honey, lime, cilantro, green onions, and cumin, I love serving it over cream cheese with crackers or tortilla chips. The pretty red and green colors make it perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas, holiday parties, and game days.
5 Star Reviews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Great for the season and perfect for watching football!“ – Laurie
“Love a good cranberry salsa for the holidays and this is a great recipe!” – Nellie
“Took it to a party and everyone loved it!” – Nancy
Our readers especially love the fresh cranberry flavor, the little kick from the jalapeño, and how easy this salsa is to bring to holiday parties.
Why I Love This Cranberry Salsa
This recipe came from my mother-in-law, and it has become one of my favorite appetizers to make around the holidays. It is completely different from traditional cooked cranberry sauce because the cranberries stay fresh and uncooked, giving the salsa a bright, tart flavor and a slightly chunky texture.
What really makes this cranberry salsa work for me is the balance. Honey softens the tart cranberries without covering up their flavor, jalapeño gives it a little heat, and lime, cilantro, green onions, and cumin keep it tasting like salsa instead of cranberry relish. Then you spoon it over cool, creamy cream cheese and everything balances out perfectly.
The red and green colors are also so pretty on a Christmas appetizer table. We usually scoop it up with crackers or tortilla chips, but I’ve also served it as a relish with turkey at Thanksgiving and it was a huge hit.
🩷 Emily
Table of Contents
- 5 Star Reviews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Why I Love This Cranberry Salsa
- Ingredients in Cranberry Salsa
- Ingredient Additions and Substitutions
- How to Make Cranberry Salsa
- Cranberry Salsa Recipe Tips
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Make Ahead and Storage
- What to Serve with Cranberry Salsa
- More Cranberry Recipes to Enjoy!
- Cranberry Salsa Recipe
Ingredients in Cranberry Salsa
- Fresh cranberries: Fresh whole cranberries give this salsa its tart flavor and chunky texture. Frozen cranberries work too, but canned cranberry sauce will not give you the same result.
- Honey: I use honey instead of granulated sugar to balance the tart cranberries and give the salsa a little sweetness and shine.
- Lime juice: Fresh lime juice adds acidity and helps bring all the flavors together. Add a little lime zest if you want even more lime flavor.
- Jalapeño peppers: Remove the ribs and seeds for a milder salsa, or leave some in if you like more heat.
- Cilantro and green onions: These fresh ingredients give the cranberries that savory salsa flavor. You can adjust the cilantro to taste if you aren’t a big cilantro fan.
- Cumin: Just a little cumin adds warmth and rounds out the tart, sweet, and spicy flavors.
- Cream cheese and dippers: I love spooning the salsa over cream cheese and serving it with Wheat Thins, Triscuits, tortilla chips, Club crackers, or Ritz crackers.
Ingredient Additions and Substitutions
One of the nice things about cranberry salsa is that you can easily adjust it to your taste.
- Granny Smith apple: Add a peeled, chopped apple for extra crunch and sweetness.
- Pineapple: Fresh chopped pineapple adds a sweeter, fruitier flavor.
- Red onion: Swap some or all of the green onion for finely chopped red onion.
- Sugar: If you don’t have honey, granulated sugar can be used to sweeten the cranberries.
- Maple syrup: Maple syrup can also be used in place of some or all of the honey.
- Frozen cranberries: Frozen whole cranberries work well when fresh cranberries aren’t in season.
- Extra lime: Add lime zest along with the juice if you like a stronger citrus flavor.
- More heat: Leave some of the jalapeño ribs and seeds in, or add another jalapeño.
- Less heat: Remove all the ribs and seeds and start with less jalapeño.
- No cilantro: You can leave it out if you really don’t like cilantro. The flavor will be different, but the salsa will still work.
- Dairy-free: Serve with your favorite dairy-free cream cheese instead of regular cream cheese.
How to Make Cranberry Salsa
- Prepare the Cranberry Salsa: Rinse and thoroughly dry the cranberries. For a milder salsa, remove the stem, ribs, and seeds from the jalapeño. Add the cranberries, honey, lime juice, jalapeño, cilantro, green onions, and cumin to a food processor. Pulse in short bursts until finely chopped but still slightly chunky. Avoid overprocessing into a purée.
- Chill and Serve: Transfer the salsa to a covered container and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend. Taste and adjust with additional honey, lime juice, or jalapeño if needed. Serve over softened cream cheese with crackers or tortilla chips, or enjoy it on its own as a dip or relish with turkey, chicken, or pork.
Cranberry Salsa Recipe Tips
- Use a food processor if you have one. A food processor makes it much easier to control the texture. One of our readers found that a blender chopped the ingredients less evenly.
- Don’t over-process it. Pulse just until you have small pieces. If you keep blending, you can quickly go from chunky salsa to cranberry purée.
- Using a blender? Work in smaller batches and use very short pulses.
- Give it time to chill. You can eat the salsa right away, but I think the flavor is better after it has rested in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Taste after chilling. Cranberries can vary quite a bit in tartness. If yours are especially tart, add a little more honey after the salsa has rested.
- Control the jalapeño heat. For mild cranberry salsa, remove the ribs and seeds. For more heat, leave some of them in.
- Stick with fresh jalapeño. One reader tried substituting canned diced jalapeños and found that the salsa became much hotter than expected.
- Drain excess liquid if needed. The salsa may release a little juice as it sits. Just stir it back in or drain some off before spooning the salsa over cream cheese.
- Soften the cream cheese. Let the cream cheese sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving if you want it softer and easier to spread.
- Use sturdy crackers for dipping. Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Club crackers, and tortilla chips hold up especially well. If you use Ritz crackers, I like to include a small spreader since they can break when dipped.
Frequently Asked Questions
It will stay fresh in the refrigerator for about 1 week.
We have two very tasty cranberry sauce recipes for Raspberry Cranberry Sauce and Orange Cranberry Sauce.
Yes. Freeze it in an airtight freezer container or freezer bag for up to about 2 months. Thaw it in the fridge, stir well, and drain off any excess liquid before serving.
Yep, frozen whole cranberries work well in this recipe. If they release extra moisture as they thaw, just drain off a little of the liquid before serving.
Yes, just be sure to use gluten free crackers for dipping.
It has a little kick, but I wouldn’t consider it overly spicy when the jalapeño ribs and seeds are removed. If you are sensitive to spicy food, start with less jalapeño. For more heat, leave some ribs and seeds in. One of our longtime readers asked this exact question, and we described the flavor as a good combination of sweet with a little kick.
Fresh cranberries and the other produce naturally release some liquid as they sit. Stir the salsa before serving. If there is more liquid than you like, especially when serving it over cream cheese, you can drain some off first.
I don’t recommend it. This recipe depends on the texture and tart flavor of whole cranberries. Canned cranberry sauce is already cooked and sweetened, so the finished salsa would have a completely different texture.
Yes. The cranberries in this cranberry salsa stay completely raw. Chopping them finely and combining them with honey helps balance their naturally tart flavor. This is also something readers have asked about several times over the years.
Make Ahead and Storage
Cranberry salsa is a great make-ahead appetizer. In fact, I prefer making it ahead because the flavors get a chance to blend together.
For the best texture, make the salsa at least 30 minutes ahead, or make it the day before and keep it covered in the refrigerator. I would wait to spoon it over the cream cheese until you are ready to serve.
Store leftover cranberry salsa in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 5 to 7 days. It may become a little juicier as it sits, so give it a stir or drain off the extra liquid before serving.
You can also freeze the salsa for up to 2 months. Thaw it overnight in the refrigerator and stir well before serving. Keep cream cheese and crackers separate.
What to Serve with Cranberry Salsa
I usually serve cranberry salsa as an appetizer over cream cheese with crackers or tortilla chips, but it also works really well as a fresh cranberry relish alongside turkey, chicken, or pork. It would be a pretty addition to any of our Christmas Dinner Ideas, and I especially like it alongside turkey and Cranberry Sausage Stuffing. You can even add a spoonful to a leftover turkey sandwich the next day.
Read Next: Christmas Dinner Ideas
More Cranberry Recipes to Enjoy!
If you have extra cranberries or just love cranberry recipes around the holidays, here are a few more of our favorites:
- Cranberry Almond Bacon Cheese Ball – A delicious take on a regular cheese ball recipe with a sweet almond crunch.
- Cranberry Almond Coffee Cake – Perfect for breakfast or brunch. This sweet cake is flavored with cranberry and almond, and then topped with an almond strudel.
- Cranberry Almond Bread with Cream Cheese Swirl – This sweet bread is like Christmas in a loaf pan. It is easy to make and so good!
There is so much to love about this Cranberry Salsa recipe. You can whip it up in just a few minutes or you can make it ahead. The combination of tart cranberries, honey, lime, jalapeño, cilantro, and creamy cheese is so good together. Plus, that red and green color always looks right at home on a holiday appetizer table.
If you make this cranberry salsa, I’d love to hear how you served it! Leave a comment and a star rating below and let me know if you went with crackers, tortilla chips, cream cheese, or used it as a cranberry relish. ❤️
Cranberry Salsa Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 1 package whole cranberries, fresh
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 Tablespoon lime juice
- 1 jalapeño, with seeds removed
- 1 bunch cilantro
- 1 bunch green onions
- 1 teaspoon cumin
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor.
- Pulse a few times, until ingredients are in small bits but not completely blended together. Serve over cream cheese with crackers or chips. You can also serve as a relish over meats.
Notes
Recipe Tips:
- Make sure to use fresh cranberries and not canned for this recipe. They’ll chop up easily in a food processor and gives the salsa a fresh, tart flavor.
- Remove the seeds of the jalapeño before tossing in the food processor. The seeds are where the heat lives, so you’ll want to tame that down a little.
- This recipe is sweetened with honey, which also gives it a beautiful glaze. But if it’s not sweet enough, you could add a teaspoon or so of sugar until it tastes how you like it.
- If you are using a blender, just do small pulses so you don’t make this into a smoothie! You want the cranberries to be small but not completely blended together. This is a chunky salsa!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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This is one heck of a Salsa with awesome ingredients and given variations to make it even more savory. They even tell you what chips etc to use. People have asked numerous questions and you get to read the answers, Whoopee!!!!
My favorite thing at thanksgiving is cranberries. It’s great to see different changes to cranberries and the recipe sounds yummy.
More than one way to use cranberries. I have only had cranberry jelly to accompany my sliced turkey dinner.
Great for the season and perfect for watching football!
How long will this “keep” refrigerated? Thinking of making ahead for a potluck.
It should stay good in the fridge for about 5-7 days!
Cranberry salsa is one of my favorite holiday snacks It is just so fresh and bright tasting. I love just a little kick of heat in mine!
Love a good cranberry salsa for the holidays and this is a great recipe!
This looks so delicious and tasty! I can’t wait to give this a try! My husband is going to love this!
Thanks for the inspiration to use cranberry for this recipe. I definitely don’t use It enough even at this time of year. This sounds amazing with the jalapeno in there too.
This cranberries salsa is such a perfect seasonal recipe! I love this use of cranberries in such a unique and delicious way. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Emily, thank you for sharing all these with us, the recipes, health benefits and other recipes about Cranberry. I can’t wait to give it a try and I believe my family will love it!
Wondering what is the size of the bag of cranberries? Definitely making this, and if I don’t hear from you in time, I will proceed by taste alone.
You can use a 12oz. or 1 Lb. bag… it won’t make much of a difference. Hope this helps!
This is somewhat reminiscent of the raw, fresh cranberry relish my mother makes for Thanksgiving dinner: put one bag of fresh cranberries, 1 cup sugar, and one, preferably organic orange, quartered, in the bowel of a food processor, and process until evenly chopped in small pieces (you do not want it pulverized or pureed). It is another case of a wonderfully vibrant, fesh tasting salsa featuring sweet/sour cranberries. Beautiful, lasts forever, so delicious, and so good for you.
Thank you for sharing this!
This is very good but I would not recommend making it in a blender. It didn’t chop up very well and I had to keep dividing it to get it evenly chopped. I would also leave some of the seeds in the pepper, needs a little more heat. Took it to a party and everyone loved it!
Thank you for sharing this, Nancy. These are great tips!
Loved trying different salsas. This one sounded great. I may have made a LARGE mistake, I used a 4oz. can of diced jalapeños, oops! It is SO hot. To correct this I added 2 apples, 1 orange, 1 more Tablesppon lime juice and 1/4 c. more honey. It is still hot. I will let the flavors marry. My second thought is to roll out cream cheese and put a layer of salsa on top, then roll it into a spiral. So much for my short cut using a can, instead of fresh jalapeño.
oh noo, sorry it is so hot– the cream cheese idea is a great one! Let us know how it turns out!
I HAVEN’T USED FRESH CRANBERRIES BEFORE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO COOK THEM???
No, you use fresh and uncooked for this salsa.
No, you don’t cook them. All fresh ingredients. I chop mine ‘chunky’ and serve with plain tortilla chips. I haven’t put over cream cheese before.
Do u have to put cilantro in it
You don’t HAVE to but it adds a great dimension of flavor! 🙂
I am really excited about this recipe (I’m going through the archives from before I followed your all’s blog) because it’s hard to find cranberry relish/salsa and my mother-in-law has got me hooked on thin sliced french bread topped with brie and cranberry relish/salsa. It’s incredible.
Do you add any sugar to this? Don’t understand where the sweet comes from.
There isn’t sugar, but there is honey.
I bet it is good made with dried cranberries.
I haven’t tried dried, I am not sure how that would turn out.
I’ve seen a few recipes floating around the web and recipe blogs for this kind of dip. It looks sooo yummy! But I must ask, does it have a “kicky” flavor to it, a sweet flavor, a good combination of both? I can’t handle hot things very well so I thought I better ask 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
It has a little bit of a kick, but definitely sweet- like you said, it is a good combination of both.