Strawberry Jam

Why should I make my own jam?

There are numerous reasons to make your own easy homemade condiments. For example, you can control how much sugar you eat.

The average strawberry jam has 10 grams of sugar in every tablespoon. On the other hand, our homemade strawberry jam recipe only has about 5 grams of sugar per serving.

Another reason to make your own homemade jam is to avoid extra ingredients.

The average store-bought variety has sugar, corn syrup, AND high-fructose corn syrup. In addition to citric acid and fruit pectin.

Whereas our strawberry jam without pectin only has sugar, salt, and corn starch (for thickening) added to strawberries and water.

While it might not hold as long as processed jams, it’s certainly has less complicated ingredients.

Making Strawberry Jam:

Making our Sunday morning strawberry jam is a lot easier than you might think. You don’t need any special equipment.

First, you need about 1 pound. of frozen strawberries. Don’t worry about thawing them out.

After that, toss them into a large sauce pan. As you may have noticed, it’s very similar to making your own homemade strawberry pie filling.

Next, add 1/4-cup of sugar, 1/2-teaspoon of salt, and 1/4-cup of water to the pot with berries.

Then, place the pan over medium heat, cover it, and let the homemade strawberry jam cook for about 15 minutes.

Now, it’s important to keep and eye on your Sunday morning strawberry jam as it cooks.

You’ll need to stir it from time to time to keep the sugar from burning. It should look like the picture below as it cooks.

As the mixture cooks, the strawberries will break down and create a lot of juice. However, we’re going to use a corn starch slurry to thicken everything.

In fact, once it gets close to being done, go ahead mix 1/4-cup of water with 3-tablespoons of cornstarch.

When the 15-minutes have passed, stir in the slurry, cover the pan again, and lower the heat to low.

Let the homemade fruit jam cook for another 7-10 minutes. Again, keep an eye on it and stir it every minute of so to keep it from burning.

Last, turn off the heat after the 10-minutes and uncover the pot. Use a potato masher or spoon to mash the berries. Unless, you prefer whole berries, it’s up to you.

Let the Sunday morning strawberry jam cool for a bit before transferring it to container with a lid.

Keep it stored, in a sealed container, in your fridge until you’re ready to use the jam.

Strawberry Jam Recipe Tips:

• The jam can be frozen for up to 2 weeks in a freezer safe container.
• This strawberry jam recipe is not a preserve. If you would prefer a homemade preserve, then try adding fruit pectin and citrus acid to the recipe. Another option is to use proper canning methods.
• You can use fresh strawberries. Just be sure to wash, dry, and remove the stems of the berries. Also, you may need a more than 1/4-cup of water (added to the berries, don’t adjust the slurry).