An optical receiver that uses a coherent optical quadrature-detection scheme to demodulate an amplitude-modulated optical input signal in a manner that enables the use of a free-running optical local-oscillator source. The optical receiver employs a signal combiner that combines, into an electrical output signal, the in-phase and quadrature-phase electrical signals generated as a result of the quadrature detection of the optical input signal. Depending on the frequency offset between the local-oscillator signal and the input signal, the electrical output signal produced by the signal combiner can be a desired baseband signal or an intermediate-frequency signal. The latter signal can be demodulated to recover the baseband signal in a relatively straightforward manner, e.g., using a conventional intermediate-frequency electrical demodulator coupled to the signal combiner.