Cranberry sauce is a holiday staple, but there’s no reason it has to stay on the dinner table. These Cranberry Bars turn that familiar sweet-tart flavor into an easy dessert with a buttery crust and crumbly topping. They’re simple, classic, and especially good when you’re looking for another way to use up a can of cranberry sauce.

The base starts with a buttery dough that does double duty in this recipe. Half gets pressed into the bottom of the pan to form the crust, while the rest is scattered over the cranberry filling to create a rustic crumble topping. There’s no need for any fancy techniques here, which makes these bars a great option for holiday baking.

Whole berry cranberry sauce adds plenty of flavor and a bright pop of color between those buttery layers. The combination of sweet, rich pastry and tangy cranberries is hard to beat, and the bars slice up beautifully once they’ve had time to cool.

Whether you serve them as part of a holiday dessert spread or make them simply because you have cranberry sauce on hand, these bars are an easy treat to keep in your recipe collection. They’re straightforward to make, packed with classic cranberry flavor, and just the kind of dessert that disappears quickly once the pan is sliced.