For cooks and hosts, the week leading up to Thanksgiving can be a real roller coaster—fun on some days and a little terrifying on others. There are turkeys to defrost, groceries to pick up and old family recipes to track down, not to mention tidying up the house before your guests arrive. It makes sense that some parts of the meal might start to slip through the cracks.
So if you’ve found that you forgot to nail down a fun cocktail for folks to sip on while they wait for dinner, have no fear—Giada De Laurentiis is here to help.
The cookbook author and television host recently shared one of her classic holiday hosting recipes, an Apple Cider Sangria that first appeared on her Food Network show Giada’s Holiday Handbook. And since sangria is a hands-off, set-and-forget cocktail that won’t take up much of your time, the hardest part of making this recipe will be finding room in your fridge for the pitcher.
All you’ll need is apple cider, orange liqueur, pinot grigio, club soda, raspberries, an apple, an orange and a few cinnamon sticks. In a pitcher—or a bowl, if you want to serve it up like a punch—combine a few cups of apple cider, about a ½ cup of orange liqueur, a bottle of pinot grigio and club soda. Stir everything together, then add your fruit to the liquid. Giada opts for a cubed apple, orange wedges and a heaping handful of raspberries. Tuck in a few cinnamon sticks and pop the sangria into the fridge for at least four hours—though you could also make it up to two days in advance.
What we love about this simple sangria is just how adaptable it is. You could easily dial back the orange liqueur for lower alcohol content or shake up the assortment of fruit to suit your tastes. If you want to give the drink even more festive fall flavor, add cranberries to your fruit lineup. You could toss in some pretty pear slices to complete your drink.
The main change you might want to make is multiplying the recipe to satisfy a thirsty crowd. “I always have to double the recipe because it’s a hit on the holidays,” one fan wrote in the recipe comments. That doesn’t shock us one bit.
As long as you give the flavors time to mingle and meld in the refrigerator, you’re bound to have a crowd-pleasing drink on your hands. And if your guest list includes a mix of drinkers and sober folks, you can always use your spare cider and club soda to whip together a batch of our three-ingredient Sparkling Cranberry Cider Mocktail.
However your Thanksgiving menu comes together, you’re bound to have a happy holiday as long as you share it with family and friends—and maybe a few of our favorite recipes.
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