Rinse cranberries in a strainer and let them drain. If you are using frozen whole cranberries there is no need to thaw - just rinse with cold water.
In a medium saucepan mix water and sugar. Turn burner onto medium high and heat until the sugar is dissolved.
Add in the cranberries and lemon juice. Once they start to boil, reduce heat to medium and continue to boil stirring often for 8-10 minutes.
Once it is thickened and all of the cranberries have popped, remove from heat and place in a container or a bowl. see notes
Allow it to sit on the counter until it reaches close to room temperature before placing in the fridge covered until time to serve.
Notes
Nutrition and servings are estimated. It will make close to 2 and a half cups so it depends on what else you are serving with it.This has less sugar then other recipes. We prefer it with less but recommend you taste it very carefully (will be very hot) after 8 minutes to see if you need to add a couple tablespoons more sugar. It needs to be added before the cooking is done.Instead of lemon juice, you can use some orange juice. Or you can leave it out, we just think it turns out better with a little citrus in it. If you do orange juice, I would substitute some instead of the water. We do 1/4 cup orange juice and 3/4 cup water when we use orange juice. We make it both ways - with orange juice or with lemon juice. Both are great.Cranberry sauce needs to thicken most of the way in the pan during cooking, but it will thicken as it cools. If it isn't too thick at the 10 minute mark, cook a little longer to boil so more of the liquid evaporates.