The Best Jalapeno Cranberry Jam

This homemade cranberry jam is delightfully tart and delicious. Serve it on top of beef burgers with homemade caramelized onion buns for a delicious meal.

I love cranberries! But, here in Ohio, I feel like we only use whole cranberries during the holiday season for sugaring or sometimes to flavor a holiday cocktail. We are here to change that with this marvelous cranberry jam burger. 

We used frozen cranberries from Cape Cod Select, a family owned cranberry company that’s been harvesting these little gems for over 75 years in the heart of “cranberry country” on their 800 acre cranberry farm. The wonderful thing is you can order them directly off their website here! 

Ingredients for cranberry jam.

To offset the tartness from these yummy little morsels, we decided to add jalapeño and caramelized onion to our burger jam! We left the seeds in our jalapeños for a little bit more heat but if you prefer less spicy, I would leave it out.

As always with jalapeños, make sure you wash your hands after cutting them! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten residual heat in my eyeballs because I didn’t wash my hands like a dingbat. 

If you’d like a simple list, here are the exact ingredients you need for this homemade spicy cranberry jam.

• Cranberries. We used frozen cranberries and then thawed them out a bit so they wouldn’t put too much moisture into the jam.
• Sweet Onions. These are going to cook down and get real caramelized and delicious. The sweet onions balance out the tart cranberries.
• Jalapeno. Chopped fresh jalapenos are perfect in this fresh jam, adds a nice pop of flavor.
• Honey. A yummy and natural way to add some sweetness.
• Balsamic Vinegar. A little bit of this balsamic adds a complexity to the cranberry jam that you will love.

How to make cranberry jam.

First things first, you’re going to make your caramelized onions before adding all the other goodies. You’re going to chop them up so once your cranberry jam is finished up, you don’t have any weird slices in there and everything is uniform in size. 

Okay, but like how pretty are these cranberries? I love how beautiful the colors are when they are straight from the bag. I don’t love how they turn my fingers red, but it’s worth it for this cranberry jam. 

I might be biased but these Cape Cod Select cranberries might be the tastiest ones I’ve ever tried. They are grown to some of the industries highest standards and are non-GMO verified which is a wonderful certification. I also super appreciate their focus on sustainability practices, which you can read about here. 

The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it doesn’t create a ton of dishes! You can toss the cranberries straight from the bag into the pan and the onions/jalapeños straight from the cutting board to the pan. For those of us who hate doing dishes, that’s a god send. 

We used our favorite non-stick All-Clad frying pan to make this easy cranberry jam. We use it for just about everything and it’s probably the only actual non-stick pan that actually works like it’s meant to work. We are obsessed. 

Other ways to use cranberry jam.

We obviously are pairing on top of some juicy burgers, but there are so many ways to enjoy this jalapeño cranberry jam recipe. It’s super versatile and will stay good in the fridge for 2-3 days after it’s made. 

A few recommendations.

• Layer some of the jam onto two thick slices of sourdough and some white cheddar cheese. Make into the best grilled cheese you’ve ever had.
• Grill a bunch of chicken and add a dollop of cranberry jam on top.
• Whip up some French toast, top with the cranberry jam and finish with some powdered sugar.

I’d love to see how you use this delicious cranberry jam, share your creation with us on Instagram!

I didn’t put the instructions for the burger or the bun on this blog post because you can pick your favorite way to whip those up and I thought the cranberry jam really deserved it’s own blog post.

We made these onion buns using the same recipe for our jalapeño buns a few months ago, you can find the recipe here. We just swapped caramelized onions for jalapeños! 

A few other cranberry recipes.

If you have cranberries left over after you make this jam, we have some other uses for them.

• Dipping Sauce. These turkey and cheddar crescent rolls are delightful when dipped in a homemade cranberry sauce.
• Quinoa Salad. This healthy salad has fresh cranberries and feta in it! Serve with chicken for a protein rich entree.