How to Tell if Cranberries are Bad?

Find out how to know if the cranberries you got are bad and need to be tossed, or kept and used up in your favorite recipe. Does if a cranberry float or sink a determining factor if they are still good?

🚌 What You'll Learn In This Post

A pile of fresh cranberries on a blue and white plate with some small leaves on top.

What things to look for to tell if your cranberries are bad.
Under what circumstances you should still use wrinkly berries.
A method for testing the freshness of your berries.
How long cranberries last when frozen.

Did you realize that you have forgotten about the cranberries you bought in the fall. Maybe you got some extra for Thanksgiving or Christmas and didn't get around to using them.

Now you are wondering if they are any good anymore.

Let us talk about the various issues you can find with fresh cranberries and talk about whether you should keep them or toss them.

Jump to:

🚌 What You'll Learn In This Post
❓ Can Fresh Cranberries Go Bad?
🔴 What Does Color Look Like?
🐘 Are the Berries Wrinkly?
🍄 Do You Find Mold in the Bag?
🦨 Do the Cranberries Smell Bad?
⚓ Do Bad Cranberries Float? Or Sink?
🥶 Can You Freeze Them?
🍴 Cranberry Recipes
🥔 More Produce Tips

Bags of Bluewater Farms Cranberries at the grocery store.

❓ Can Fresh Cranberries Go Bad?

First off, do we even ever after to worry about fresh cranberries going bad? While they certainly last much longer than other types of berries, particularly raspberries, they still don't last forever. It is likely going to take several years before you see any signs of them going bad. But when they do, here are some things you might look for to test freshness.

🔴 What Does Color Look Like?

The telltale sign of a fresh cranberries is bright, red color. When they get older, the color of the berries begin turning darker to a dark red or dark purple color.

If your berries are looking a little dark it's time to consider these other things -

🐘 Are the Berries Wrinkly?

Most often the first thing you will see with cranberries going bad is they start to get wrinkly. I don't think that means the berries are bad, just getting old and drying out. Since I don't know anyone that just pop them into their mouth as a snack, the texture isn't going to matter when you cook or bake with them.

I have made cranberry sauce in January from cranberries I had bought a month or more earlier and it was still good. Some of the berries were wrinkled.

Verdict - Keep! You shouldn't notice a difference when you cook or bake with them.

🍄 Do You Find Mold in the Bag?

For me this one is a no brainer. If you see mold on your berries, it's time to toss them. No need to mess around.

Do you need to toss the whole bag? If you find a couple berries that have gone bad, you could remove them and give them a rinse before using. If you are seeing fuzzy mold growing that is connected to multiple berries I would toss them all out.

Verdict - Probably best to just toss them all out unless it's just a couple and that it isn't fuzzy mold. Use your best judgment.

🦨 Do the Cranberries Smell Bad?

If the berries really shouldn't have much of a smell. So if they are smelling bad, then it's time to toss them. I have not experienced this issue myself. If they smell like wine, it's not a good sign!

Verdict - Toss them all out.

Fresh cranberries floating in the water in a cranberry bog.

⚓ Do Bad Cranberries Float? Or Sink?

I have heard people to employ the sink or float test. When cranberries are harvested, the bog is flooded, and the berries are harvested off the top of the water. That means fresh off the plant they are floating.

A berry that sinks is a sign that it's not fresh. Does that mean you should for sure toss them? I wouldn't say so for sure. I would look at the other things we talked about as a test whether or not you should toss or keep the berries.

🥶 Can You Freeze Them?

If you are worried they will go bad before you use them up, you can always freeze them. Also cranberries are only available for a small window each year, so freezing them to use in recipes throughout the year is always a good idea.

You can freeze them directly in the bag they came in. You should get 3 months at least out of them. If you want to take it a step further I would seal them in a vacuum sealed bag. You could then get 6-12 months in the freezer.

🍴 Cranberry Recipes

Need some recipes to use up the rest of your cranberries? The most common use for them is cranberry sauce and of course I got plenty of those recipes on the blog including my Ultimate Guide to Homemade Cranberry Sauce.

But if you are looking for a couple other uses that aren't just cranberry sauce, give these two a try:

Not enough? I have a list of 47 Different Uses for Fresh Cranberries featuring recipes from my fellow food bloggers.

🥔 More Produce Tips

Here are some tips on whether or not to toss or keep these fruits or vegetables.

We also talk a lot about these topics on our podcast, Eat Shop Waste Not. You should check that out too.