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This cranberry holiday beef brisket is seriously amazing. It’s a lovely dish for the holiday season, Jewish holidays or any time of year you’re feeling festive. A large brisket with fresh cranberries or cranberry jelly is a great recipe for any holiday, special occasion or simply because it’s delicious enough to have any day. Featuring the flavors of garlic, onion, Guinness, herbs, and more, it’s one of the nicest Christmas brisket recipes ever. Add this savory brisket to your dinner menu and you won’t regret it.
Literally bursting with incredible flavors in every mouthful, this Christmas brisket recipe makes a perfect holiday meal.
If you love tender brisket, you might also like mesquite smoked brisket, slow cooker brisket or some brisket sandwiches with red onions.
Cranberry Holiday Beef Brisket Ingredients
So what exactly do you need for this Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner beef brisket recipe? First of all you’re going to need the brisket itself.
Choose a flat cut, not a point cut. What’s the difference? Well, a flat cut brisket is thin and long as has a long fat layer on top. It slices more easily than a point cut brisket and the fat layer ensures your brisket dinner will be juicy and moist.
Garlic cloves, onion and shallot also go into this Christmas brisket recipe, along with potatoes. Even more flavour comes from the addition of thyme, rosemary, Worcestershire sauce, and Guinness. With ingredients this delicious, you can be sure your sliced brisket with pan juices is going to be incredible.
How to Make Holiday Brisket
You are going to find this wonderful brisket recipe easy to make. Make sure you’re starting with room temperature brisket so give it half an hour on the countertop before you begin.
Rub some oil over the meat and press some kosher salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powders, dried rosemary and thyme, to it. Coat it evenly on the fat side and lean side.
Next dice half an onion and slice the other half. Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the onions, shallot and garlic. Cook this mixture for a few minutes before adding the cranberry sauce, Worcestershire sauce and Guinness and cooking some more.
If you are looking for other Christmas beef recipes, you might like to try this Holiday Beef Wellington or this Cranberry Cream Cheese Stuffed Flank Steak
This next step in this holiday meal recipe is to preheat the oven and then pour half of the mixture from the pan into a large roasting pan. Add the onions then put the large brisket (fat side facing down) on top.
Next, add the rest of the sauce over the whole brisket then add the potatoes along with some fresh cranberries around the sides. Add some fresh rosemary and thyme also.
Cover with foil and roast in the oven for four hours or until you have tender brisket and fully cooked veggies. Slice with a sharp knife on a cutting board, serve with your favourite side dishes, and enjoy the incredible seasonal flavours in every mouthful. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the tasty brown bits off the bottom of the pan and stir into the sauce.
The fact you can pop this brisket for Christmas dinner into the oven and literally forget all about it for four hours makes it a great idea for Christmas or a dinner party when you have plenty of other things to do as well. It’s literally the perfect main dish for brisket aficionados. Holiday beef dishes are a nice change from turkey or ham.
How Can I Make This in a Crock Pot?
Brisket is full of connective tissue which means it requires a long and slow cooking process to come out tender rather than tough. Because of this, it’s definitely a good candidate for your slow cooker or crockpot. You will love the result when it slow cooks at lower temperatures. This really is the best slow cooker Thanksgiving brisket or make it a Christmas brisket dinner menu item that everyone will crave every Christmas.
So how long does it take to reach perfection? Well, the cooking time for brisket with cranberry sauce if you do it in a crockpot will be roughly 9 hours. The exact shape and thickness of the meat determines the exact cooking time, so it might be ready in 8 hours or it might take 10.
However, the long, slow cooking process does suit this recipe well so it will come out as the best holiday brisket recipe regardless of whether you choose the oven or the slow cooker.
What Do You Serve with a Christmas Brisket Recipe?
Christmas beef recipes are a great change from turkey or ham. So you’re making this brisket for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner – what are you going to have with it? Well bear in mind it already includes potatoes and onions. Consider pairing this cranberry holiday beef brisket with bacon-wrapped green beans or smoked asparagus. Beef brisket for Thanksgiving is also a great idea and this cranberry brisket is sure to be a holiday favourite.
Cranberry Holiday Beef Brisket FAQs
It’s no problem if you have some of this family favorite main course left because you can store and reheat it easily.
Keep leftovers in the roasting pan or transfer them into containers if you prefer (or if you’re short on refrigerator space!) You can reheat this Christmas brisket recipe in portions in the microwave or else in a warm oven. I recommend using any beef brisket recipe leftovers up within two to three days. Another option is freezing this holiday meal for up to three months.
This is already the best brisket but you can always change up the ingredients. Try adding in some mushrooms or swap the Guinness for your favourite dark beer. Try Irish Stout or Murphy’s. If you prefer not to use alcohol, some mushroom stock or even soy sauce would also be good in your Christmas brisket recipe.
Cranberry Holiday Beef Brisket Recipe
Cranberry Holiday Beef Brisket
Ingredients
- 3.5 Pounds brisket, flat cut
- 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Teaspoon black pepper
- 1 Teaspoon thyme, dried
- 1 Teaspoon rosemary, dried
- 1 Teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 Teaspoon onion powder
- 1 yellow onion
- 5 Cloves garlic, minced
- 1 shallot, diced
- 1 Can cranberry sauce, jelly, 14 ounces
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire
- ½ Cup beer, Guinness
- 1 Pounds red potatoes, petite
- 1 Cup dried cranberries
- 3 Sprigs rosemary, Fresh
- 3 Sprigs thyme, Fresh
Instructions
- Remove brisket from the fridge 30 minutes before you’re ready to cook. Combine Salt, pepper, dried thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, and onion powder in a small bowl or ramekin. Rub olive oil on the brisket, then season generously. Let the rest and come to room temp for 30 minutes.
- Slice the onion in half. Dice one half of the onion, and thinly slice the other half.
- Heat a saucepan over medium heat. Add olive oil and swirl to coat. Next, add the diced onions, shallot, and garlic cloves to a saucepan over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes, then add cranberry, Worcestershire, and Guinness. Stir to combine and cook for 10 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
- Pour half the saucepan into the roasting pan. Add sliced onions and place brisket fat side down on top. Pour remaining sauce over the top of the brisket.
- Surround the sides of the brisket with potatoes, dried cranberries, and fresh thyme and rosemary sprigs. Cover with foil.
- Place onto the oven on the center rack and bake for 4 hours.
- Slice brisket and serve with potatoes and sauce.
Nutrition
You simply can’t go wrong with this easy cranberry holiday beef brisket. It’s perfect for a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and you can cook it in your choice of the oven or crockpot. This cranberry brisket is easy enough for those making it for the first time. A brisket recipe with cranberry sauce is a festive main dish for your holiday menu. .
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Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a Canadian-based syndicated food, travel, and lifestyle writer, photographer, and creator at xoxoBella. She founded xoxoBella in 2015, where she shares her love for food, dogs, sustainability, fitness, crafts, outdoor adventures, travel, and philanthropy to encourage others to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places, and stand for a cause. Bella creates stress-free and family-friendly recipes for weeknight dinners and festive feasts.
I tried this even if it’s not yet holiday and it didn’t disappoint! Can’t wait to make this again on holiday season! ❤️
Such a delightful recipe! Loved every bite, definitely making again.
Made this for Christmas Eve. It was just so good! 10/10 recipe!
We couldn’t find a suitable sized brisket so we bought a tri tip instead. Other than cooking time, which should be less, are there any other changes to the recipe that you’d recommend?
You should just adjust cooking time for the meat that you have. Everything else can stay the same.
This sounds amazing and I’d like to make it for Christmas. However, I have a large family and would need to double the size of brisket. Would that change the cooking time?
Hi Brandi, great question. When cooked in the oven, brisket should take about 80 to 90 minutes per pound. However, it’s not that straightforward because the shape and thickness of the brisket also impact the total cooking time. The best thing to do is calculate roughly how long it will take and then check it a half hour before you expect it to be done. Use an internal thermometer to check the temperature of the thickest part. When it reaches 190 or 195⁰F, the meat is done. Tent it with foil and let it sit while you finish off the side dishes. Hope that helps! Enjoy your brisket!
I want to make this for Thanksgiving this year, but I’m wondering how to change it if my brisket is not flat-cut. I have a brisket from our last beef share, and if it is flat cut, it was rolled up to be frozen. Will a non-flat-cut be a problem/cook differently?
Hi Andy, it depends what cut you actually have. The point (as opposed to the flat-cut) is fattier and then you have the tip. From your description you might have a flat-cut or you might just have a “flat” piece of brisket. If you’re making this for Thanksgiving you might want to invest in a flat-cut brisket in case the timings are way off with whatever kind of cut you have.
We smoked a lot of brisket in the summer but this recipe is perfect for Thanksgiving. I know that’s a few weeks away so this was a kind of “trial run” and it came out so succulent and juicy, and the flavor was spot-on.
We made it for Christmas dinner – it was delicious and everybody had seconds! I added some white wine to the pan sauce and boiled it down, then added a flour and pan juice slurry to make a thin gravy that was delicious on the meat and potatoes. Great recipe!
So good to hear! Happy Holidays!
yum! i love brisket. will be trying this with cranberry