Small-Batch Refined Sugar-Free Strawberry Freezer Jam

I love cracking open a jar of jam in the winter. I do not love all the sugar that most jam recipes require. One of the easiest ways to preserve fruit as a jam without using a lot of sugar is by making freezer jam. It’s so easy to make, requires no canning, allows you to make small batches, and also allows reduce the amount of sugar. Some of the recipes for jam online call for 7 cups of sugar to 5 cups of strawberries–that’s basically strawberry-flavored sugar. This recipe uses honey and only 1/2 cup to 4 cups of strawberries. If you find it a little tart, you can add apple juice or a few more teaspoons of sweetener. You can substitute the honey for maple syrup or plain sugar if you prefer.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sweetener (honey, maple syrup, or sugar)
• 4-5 cups of strawberries (I measure with the stems still on)
• Very small organic apple

Steps

1. Cut stems off strawberries and throw them in a pot with sugar. Stir up and put on medium-high heat until boiling. Once it starts boiling, reduce heat to medium (keep a low steady boil, but not so hot it sticks).
2. While the sweetener and berries are heating up, grate the skin (and as much fruit as you would like) of a small organic apple into the pot. You can use as much or as little of the apple as you want.
3. Cook on medium, stirring frequently until the mixture starts to glob up on your spoon. About 15-20 minutes.
4. Take off the heat pretty quickly once it starts to form a glob or “sheet” that runs off your spoon.
5. Fill jars with jam, leaving space at the top so it won’t burst once it freezes and rises to the top. Secure lids. Cool in refrigerator. You can eat it immediately or place it in the freezer the next day.

Notes

Cooking

Knowing when jam is done is an art. If you leave it on too long it will turn into concrete. I wrote an article on the MeatEater website that you can check out to see all the technical ways to assess whether jelly is finished. You can also look at my Instagram video to see how I very low-key test throughout the process until it looks good. Once you get the hang of it and figure out what good jelly is supposed to look like, it’s actually very simple. I don’t freeze my spoon, I just stir it up and test it a lot.

Time Management

The best thing about freezer jelly is that you can make it in small batches. When my kids were little, these are the kinds of projects I might do with them. But as they got older, they were less interested and I found that if I made less of a production out of the whole thing, I would actually get it done. So here’s my pro tip for jelly-making if you’re busy. Once you notice you have some berries on the verge of going bad, wash them and get them ready. That night, after dinner, before you start cleaning up, throw them in the oven. Let them boil (and stir them periodically) while you’re cleaning up dinner. In the time you clean everything up, it will be ready and you can throw the dirty pot in the dishwasher with everything else. It feels like a two for one.

Substitutions

Apples have naturally occurring pectin–especially on the skin. And I have an apple tree that provides 1-2 inch baby apples in abundance right about the time that berries around here ripen. So I like to use that so I have one less thing in my pantry. You can also use pectin instead and I know a lot of people use sure-jell. I have no experience with sure-jell so I’m not sure how much you should use if you’re making a small batch. I would use 1/2 of a packet (the ones that are about 2 oz) for a batch this size.

You can make much bigger batches if you want. Double the recipe. Experiment around and see how much sugar you want. You need enough to get it syrupy, but as long as you aren’t water-bath canning it, there’s no set amount you have to have.

A lot of people use lemon zest or lemon juice. It make the red in the strawberry “pop” and makes for a lovely jam. I tend to overdo it and my jam tastes like strawberry lemonade jam which isn’t what I really want on my biscuits in the winter. So I’ve just decided to do without.