Homemade strawberry jam with 3 ingredients, no pectin

Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam

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This easy and simple homemade strawberry jam recipe, which uses only 3 ingredients and NO pectin, will definitely get your taste buds tingling. Great for spreading on some warm toast or can even be used in your bakes! I use this strawberry jam on my fluffy baked sugar doughnuts! SO YUMMMYY!

Ingredients

450g fresh strawberries
300g granulated sugar
3 tablespoons lemon

Tips Before Making

Before you start, ensure you have a sterilised jar ready to use when the jam has finished cooking. Also, ensure the lid is airtight. You don’t want any air getting inside when your jam is setting as this can cause mould/ bacteria growth overtime.
How many jars does this recipe make? This recipe fits 1x large jam jar.
Can you use frozen fruit? Yes, you can. However, fresh fruit always tastes better when making jam. When simmering, the jam will be slightly waterier and you’ll need to add a little more sugar and lemon.

Method

Firstly, measure out 450g (around 1 punnet) of fresh strawberries and wash them thoroughly.

Next, remove the green leafy top ensuring you don’t cut too much of the strawberry off. I found it’s best to use a sharp thin knife and scoop around the green top and pop it out. I also removed the hard, white bit under the green top (don’t know the technical name for this but I’m sure you understand haha.)

Next, chop the strawberries up into little chunks and place inside a bowl with your sugar and lemon.

Mix the mixture all together until combined and leave for around 10 minutes until you see juices appear. By allowing the ingredient to all sit together, the reaction with the lemon and sugar will draw out the moisture from the strawberries and give you a nice berry juice. DELISH.

After, pour the mixture into your saucepan and simmer on a medium heat bringing your strawberry mix to a boil. Continue to stir the mixture so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Do this for around 15 minutes until your mixture becomes slightly thicker. If you prefer a smooth jam as to a chunky piece jam, feel free to mash the strawberry pieces with a masher.

5 minutes

10 minutes

15 minutes

When the jam reaches boiling point at 105 degrees, it will need to be removed from the hob. If you don’t have a food thermometer (which most of us don’t, including me oops), then you can just play it by eye. A way to tell when your jam ready is if you dollop a bit across a plate and hold it up. If the mixture doesn’t run down the plate, it’s ready.

Then, funnel your jam into a jar and seal the lid tight. Leave at room temperature to cool down completely. I find it’s also good to run the outside of the jar under hot water before the jam goes in, so the hot jam doesn’t shock the glass.

Leave the jam to set at room temperature for a minimum of 12 hours. Once cooled, store in the fridge for up to 3-4 weeks. If your jam is not in an air tight jar, then the shelf life will be slightly less on it.

After my jam cooled to room temperature (and before I refrigerated it), I found it was slightly thicker that how I normally like it. So, I put some boiling hot water in the jam and mixed it around to loosen it up. Feel free to do the same if your jam comes out thicker than normal.