My Easy Homemade Blueberry Jam (with No Pectin) only has 3 ingredients, no funky additives, and comes together quickly on the stovetop as a small batch recipe. No canning necessary!
My great-grandma, a true Mississippi native, would make all sorts of canned items – including fruit preserves. So I knew I had to make her proud & make my own version of jam – healthier, cheaper, and tastier than what you find at the store. Here, we have an Easy Homemade Blueberry Jam (with no pectin) recipe. Once you start making your own jam, you are going to be hooked! Try a strawberry or raspberry version… or maybe even apple butter? Yum!
Ingredients
- Blueberries – Fresh or frozen blueberries will work here. Just make sure you thoroughly clean your fresh fruit – I like to use a water + apple cider vinegar combination.
- Granulated Sugar – We don’t use a lot of sugar since blueberries have a natural sweetness. I suggest starting out with 1/4 cup of sugar and working your way up to the recipe amount, depending on your personal taste. You can also use honey or agave as a sweetener!
- Lemon Juice – A small amount of lemon juice will cut some of the sweetness of the jam as well as help prevent the growth of bacteria when we store it in the fridge.
How to Make Homemade Blueberry Jam
Making homemade jam or preserves is so simple! All you do is add your ingredients to a large pot and let the fruit mixture come to a boil, then simmer everything until it’s thickened.
You want to make sure your homemade jam reaches 220°F. However, if you don’t have a food thermometer, I also included a trick to figure out if your jam is ready in the instructions (step 3.)
Most jelly recipes use pectin, a naturally-occurring starch, to get the gel consistency that we’re all used to. But we’re going to make this homemade jam without pectin.
Pectin can be expensive and sometimes hard to find. Using this cooking technique, we’re going to cook down the moisture from the fruit to create an amazing jam consistency with no pectin.
FAQs
Yes! Some fruit naturally contains pectin. Below, I show a cooking technique to create the jam consistency that we want without using added pectin.
You can store this homemade jam in a mason jar in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks (if it lasts that long!) I like to make small batches so the jam can continuously be fresh. You can also freeze this for up to 2 months as long as it’s sealed well.
Technically, regular granulated sugar uses a non-vegan technique when processing. To make vegan homemade jam, substitute the granulated sugar with coconut sugar.
Other Breakfast Favorites!
Cajun Shrimp & Grits (with a Creamy Tomato Sauce)
Purple Rain Smoothie Bowl (Whole 30!)
Easy Homemade Blueberry Jam (No Pectin!)
Ingredients
- 2 cups blueberries
- ½ cup granulated white sugar
- 2 tbsp. lemon juice
Instructions
- Rinse blueberries. Add blueberries, sugar, and lemon juice to a pan and cook on medium heat until it begins to boil, stirring constantly.
- Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 12 minutes. While it simmers, smash some of the blueberries with the back of a spoon.
- Set a plate in the freezer for about one minute. Drop a quarter-sized amount of the jam onto the plate and put back in the freezer for another minute. If you can run your finger through and it wrinkles up, your jam is ready!
- Add the jam to a mason jar and let cool completely.
- Once the jam is cooled, seal and store in the fridge. You can eat this right after cooking, but it will continue to thicken to a more jam-like consistency after being in the fridge overnight.
- Serve on biscuits, toast, pancakes, or anything else you can think of. Enjoy!
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The Coined Breakdown
- Total Cost (1 tbsp.): $0.19
- Total Cost (8 oz. jar): $2.14
- Those Other Guys: $8.99 per jar
