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When berries are plentiful, preserve the flavor of summer for year-round enjoyment with this Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam! One easy step ensures your jam is smooth and sweet, not grainy!
When Berries Are Bountiful But Time Is Short, Make Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam
Last week, as was driving past my favorite local market on the way to run some other errands, I spotted a sign advertising strawberries for five dollars a flat.
Yes, you read that right.
Strawberries. For five dollars. A FLAT.
After doing a double take to ensure I wasn’t seeing things, I did what anybody would do: kicked the other errands to the curb, made a U-turn, and drove back to the market.
Upon ascertaining that the sign was accurate and that the advertised strawberries were sweet, red, and ripe, I bought a flat. (I also bought a bunch of other groceries, which is undoubtedly what the store hoped would happen. Deals like that are called “doorbusters” for a reason.)
Leaving the store, I couldn’t help but smile. Lucky me! I bagged a bargain!
However…
Those strawberries were already at the peak of ripeness. They wouldn’t stay that way for long, and all the things I needed to do didn’t suddenly vanish into thin air just because strawberries were on sale.
There was only one thing to do – make strawberry freezer jam.
Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam – An Easy Recipe Made Even Easier
There’s a lot of love about strawberry freezer jam! Unlike traditional jam, freezer jam doesn’t require cooking or canning the fruit.
Don’t get me wrong, I do a bit of canning and enjoy it. But there’s always a level of anxiety that comes with it, especially in terms of food safety, and a lot of questions….
Did I adequately sterilize the jars? Did I leave the jam jars in the boiling water bath long enough? Did the jars seal properly? How long before I hear the little “pop” that tells me they did?
Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam has all the sweet and summery flavor of traditional jam but without the guesswork or worry. In short, it’s super simple to make!
My version includes an easy step to eliminate one of the process’s few potential pitfalls: grainy jam.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s begin at the beginning…
Ingredients for Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam
To make my homemade strawberry freezer jam, you only need four ingredients: strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and liquid pectin. Let’s take a moment to discuss them.
Strawberries
Flavorful berries are the most important part of a good strawberry freezer jam. Choose strawberries that are bright red and ripe, with flesh that is slightly soft but not mushy. Throw out any berries that are mushy, moldy, or beginning to turn brown.
After discarding any spoiled berries, place the remainder in a colander in the sink and run cool water over them to remove dirt or residue. Once the berries are clean, use a strawberry huller or knife to cut off the stem.
Sugar
Sugar is the next most important ingredient in making freezer jam. DO NOT skimp on it!
Seriously, even if your berries are wonderfully sweet, you must add all the sugar that the recipe calls for. If you don’t, the jam will not set properly.
Lemon Juice
The touch of tartness that lemon juice brings will help enhance the flavor of the berries and keep the jam from tasting too sweet. Also, the acid from the lemon juice helps to activate the pectin so that the jam will thicken and set up properly. Either fresh or bottled will work.
Liquid Pectin
This recipe calls for liquid pectin. The process for liquid versus powdered pectin is different, so do not substitute powdered pectin in this recipe; it won’t work.
Liquid pectin is so easy to use and ensures practically foolproof in a freezer jam. But it does have a shorter shelf life than powdered pectin, so be sure to check the date.
How To Make Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam (That’s Not Grainy!)
Most freezer jam recipes proudly boast about their “no-cook” status. However, my recipe is “mostly” no-cook.
Why? Because a grainy consistency is one of the few potential pitfalls of making freezer jam.
Grainy jam happens because the first step in making it is stirring mashed strawberries together with sugar and then waiting for the sugar to dissolve. Most recipes tell us to wait 10 minutes for that to happen. But I can tell you from experience that it takes at least 20 to 30 minutes for sugar to dissolve.
Instead, I pop the mashed berry and sugar mixture into the microwave at heat it for 3 to 4 minutes at 70% power. This saves me time and ensures that my jam will be smooth and sweet, not grainy, and with no extra cleanup.
Once the berry-sugar mixture is ready, you’ll stir the lemon juice and pectin together in a separate bowl. Finally, you’ll stir the pectin into the strawberry mixture and stir for three minutes.
To make sure the jam sets up properly, it’s important that you stir it for the entire three minutes. Three minutes can feel like a long time, so setting a timer is a good idea.
And honestly, that’s all there is to it!
When your jam is done, pour it into clean, lidded jars or plastic containers. Let it sit on the counter at room temperature for a day to let the jam thicken and set up, then put the containers in the freezer for storage.
Freezer jam can be stored in the freezer for up to a year. Opened jam is good for up to 3 weeks if stored in the refrigerator.
Print
Simple Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam
- Yield: 5-6 cups of jam 1x
Ingredients
- 4 cups of washed, hulled, quartered strawberries
- 4 cups of sugar
- 2 T lemon juice
- 1 3oz pouch of liquid pectin
Instructions
- Place prepared strawberries in a medium sized bowl and mash with a potato masher or wooden spoon to release juice and crush the berries. (4 cups of berries should crush to about 2 cups) Stir sugar into crushed berries until thoroughly mixed. (DO NOT reduce the amount of sugar).
- Put the bowl with the sugar and berry mixture into the microwave. Cook at 70% power for 3 to 4 minutes, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside
- In separate, smaller bowl, stir together lemon juice and liquid pectin.
- Pour the pectin mixture into the strawberry mixture. Stir constantly for a full three minutes. (It’s a good idea to set a timer.)
- Pour the jam into clean jars or plastic containers, filling to ½ inch from the top. Place lids on the filled containers. Let the jam set up at room temperature for 24 hours before storing in the freezer or refrigerator.
- Freezer jam is good for up to one year if stored in freezer. Opened jam can be stored covered in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.
