Homemade cranberry juice cocktail drink in the instant pot pressure cooker is a very colorful, festive looking, simple & delicious holiday drink that you can easily make from scratch! This is a non alcoholic cranberry drink made using fresh cranberries and the natural tart taste of cranberries is balanced with sugar and water. If you want to make this cranberry juice without sugar, you may skip the sugar and once the juice is prepared, you can add your favorite sweetener like honey to add sweeteness to the drink which is otherwise sour or tart in taste without sugar.
How To Make Cranberry Juice Cocktail Taste Better?
In this simple and easy recipe, we use sugar to sweeten the drink which will make it taste better!
Though this is a sweetened cranberry juice, no alcohol is used in the making of this drink, so you may also refer to this cranberry drink as cranberry mocktail which actually taste so better and good than fresh cranberry juice!
As I mentioned, if you want to make it better and still want to make it taste better, the best way is to use honey to sweeten the drink once it is prepared.
This homemade drink is so delicious you will want to make it again if you love cranberry flavor!
Homemade Cranberry Juice Cocktail Drink (Non Alcoholic) For Holidays:
Enjoy the tart and sweet flavors of the non alcoholic cranberry juice cocktail or mocktail with added ice cubes to make it perfect for Christmas holidays, birthdays, weddings, any special occasions or any day you want a delicious tart and sweet drink!
Cooking cranberries in the instant pot is so easy and I have already made cranberry sauce in instant pot and used the leftover cranberry sauce to make muffins.
And this homemade non alcoholic cranberry juice cocktail is also so easy to make and delicious if you have any leftover cranberries from Thanksgiving!
As I told, it makes a great drink for Christmas dinners if you are looking for a colorful, tart and sweet cranberry drink for Christmas.
I have used sugar in this cranberry juice recipe, but you may make unsweetened cranberry juice by making it without sugar too if you wish, so it will be more healthy as well.
You may also adjust the amount of sugar to your taste.
Personally, I prefer the cranberry juice with added sugar becasue it is too tart for me otherwise.
Is Cranberry Juice Good For You?
Cranberry juice without sugar is actually very good and has lots of health benefits. However, in this recipe we use sugar to balance the natural tart taste of cranberries.
Because cranberries have a lot of health benefits, cranberry juice too has a lot of health benefits, since the main ingredient used to make cranberry juice is cranberries (if you are concerned about sugar, you may skip and add honey or your favorite sweetener once the juice is prepared).
Cranberries are rich in anti oxidants and so is cranberry juice. It is also a very good source of Vitamin C and Vitamin E.
You can read more about the health benefits of cranberry juice here.
Making Cranberry Juice Without Sugar:
The best thing about this cranberry juice recipe is that you can customize it to suit your preferences and even make it without sugar if you want to make the cranberry juice for health reasons.
Just skip the sugar or you may reduce the amount of sugar to your preference.
I have a post on how to eat cranberries without sugar if you are looking for ways to eat cranberries without sugar.
Also you may use natural sweeteners like honey or stevia instead of sugar.
However, if you want to use something like honey, it is better to add the honey after you have made the juice and filtered it.
Just mix in the honey well with the prepared, filtered cranberry juice and then chill it and serve as usual along with ice cubes!
As I said, personally I prefer cranberry juice with some added sweetener, and that is why I have used sugar in this recipe, which I think is good to balance the tart flavor of the cranberries.
So here is how you can make delicious and easy cranberry juice cocktail drink with the help of instant pot much more easily and faster than stove top.
How To Make Cranberry Juice Cocktail Drink In Instant Pot?
Cranberry juice cocktail drink is super easy to prepare in an instant pot pressure cooker and you can make delicious homemade cranberry juice from scratch at home using the following ingredients.
Ingredients used
cranberries 1.5 cups
water 2 cups – may use more later as needed
lemon juice 2 tablespoons
sugar 1 cup (adjust to taste)
ice cubes – as needed!
Step by step instructions
Wash the fresh cranberries and add it to the instant pot.
Add the sugar and mix well with the cranberries.
Also add the lemon juice and 2 cups of water, mix well to combine.
Close the instant pot with lid in sealing position and cook in high pressure for 5 minutes.
Do a natural pressure release. If you are in a hurry, you may carefully do a gradual manual pressure release after about 15 minutes of natural pressure release.
Once the pressure is all released, carefully open the lid.
Stir the contents very well (you may gently mash with a ladle or spoon if needed, but do not mash a lot as it will make the filtering of the juice difficult).
At this point, you may taste (the contents will be hot, so do carefully) and see if the sweetness is enough. If needed, add little more sugar, stir well to mix with the cooked cranberries so the added sugar will dissolve well with the contents in the instant pot.
Let this cooked mixture sit for a while so it will cool down completely.
To make the cranberry juice:
Once the contents are cooled enough, filter the contents through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl.
You can use a spoon to gently mix and press the cranberries so the juice will filter down fast.
You may also add little water to the cranberry mixture in the strainer and mix again which will help make the filtering faster and easier.
You may discard the berry mixtre (or you may use it in any other recipes like muffins, breads, pancakes etc if you wish) after the juice is filtered.
If desired, you may add little more water (also more sugar and lemon juice if you wish) and mix well with the filtered juice to adjust to your preferred consistency.
Transfer the filtered cranberry juice to a jar or pitcher and chill the juice in the refrigerator.
When it is time to serve the juice cocktail, add ice cubes to glasses and pour the chilled cranberry juice to the glasses and enjoy!
Notes: Make sure always serve the cranberry juice cocktail chilled and with lots of ice cubes for the best taste!
Also, you can always modify the taste and consistency of the juice by adding more chilled water, lemon juice or sugar as needed based on personal preferences.
When I tested this cranberry juice recipe with just ½ cup sugar, the juice was too tart for my preference.
Then I added more sugar as soon as the contents were cooked in the instant pot, stirred well for the sugar to mix in with the juice and dissolve completely. Then gently mashed the cranberries and let it cool down before straining the juice and chilling.
This method works the best for me, but you may adjust the amount of sugar to your prefernce, as I have already mentioned in the post.
More Cranberry Recipes:
instant pot cranberry sauce without orange juice
cranberry banana bread moist and eggless
cornbread muffins with leftover cranberry sauce
More Juice Recipes:
Below you can get the recipe for cranberry juice cocktail recipe in detail.
Cranberry Juice Cocktail Drink (Instant Pot)
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups cranberries
- 2 cups water may use more later as needed
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 cup sugar adjust to taste
- ice cubes as needed!
Instructions
- Wash the fresh cranberries and add it to the instant pot.
- Add the sugar and mix well with the cranberries.
- Also add the lemon juice and 2 cups of water, mix well to combine.
- Close the instant pot with lid in sealing position and cook in high pressure for 5 minutes.
- Do a natural pressure release. If you are in a hurry, you may carefully do a gradual manual pressure release after about 15 minutes of natural pressure release.
- Once the pressure is all released, carefully open the lid.
- Stir the contents very well (you may gently mash with a ladle or spoon if needed, but do not mash a lot as it will make the filtering of the juice difficult).
- At this point, you may taste (the contents will be hot, so do carefully) and see if the sweetness is enough. If needed, add little more sugar, stir well to mix with the cooked cranberries so the added sugar will dissolve well with the contents in the instant pot.
- Let this cooked mixture sit for a while so it will cool down completely.
To make the cranberry juice cocktail:
- Once the contents are cooled enough, filter the contents through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl.
- You can use a spoon to gently mix and press the cranberries so the juice will filter down fast.
- You may also add little water to the cranberry mixture in the strainer and mix again which will help make the filtering faster and easier. You may discard the berry mixtre (or you may use it in any other recipes like muffins, pancakes etc if you wish) after the juice is filtered.
- If desired, you may add little more water (also more sugar and lemon juice if you wish) and mix well with the filtered juice to adjust to your preferred consistency.
- Transfer the filtered cranberry juice cocktail to a jar or pitcher and chill the juice in the refrigerator.
- When it is time to serve the juice cocktail, add ice cubes to glasses and pour the chilled cranberry juice to the glasses and enjoy!
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