Strawberry season is upon us and wherever I go I see them. It’s a wonderful thing to have such a delicious and beautiful fruit around in abundance. There’s one popular mouth-watering dish that demands this abundance of strawberries and that it Strawberry jam. It is astonishing that strawberry jam recipe is so simple and doesn’t require any fancy ingredients.

So, before you go on and buy strawberry jam from the market, keep in mind that they are loaded with a lot of sugar and preservatives. Our homemade strawberry jam recipe has no preservatives, gelatin and has a controlled amount of sugar. Furthermore, you are free to customize the recipe according to your taste by reducing the amount of sugar or replacing it with other sweeteners. If you like this recipe, you might also like our Sweet and Spicy Apple Chutney recipe and other dips, jams and chutneys.

Serves 5 people and yeilds 100gm glass jar of jam

Cooking time 45-60 minutes

STRAWBERRY JAM RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

500 gm fresh strawberries
½ cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

How to make Strawberry Jam

Firstly, wash fresh strawberries. Pat them dry and remove the leaves.
Then, slice the strawberries into small chunks.
In a large shallow pan, add the chunked strawberries and then add powdered sugar. Mix the sugar really well with the strawberries so that it is well coated with every chunk.
Let it sit for at least 15 minutes. If you have time, leave it for an hour. You’ll notice that sugar has allowed the strawberries to release a lot of juice. This also helps the sugar to dissolve nicely.
Transfer the pan on the flame on medium heat and let the mixture come to a boil. Keep stirring continuously.
It is important to keep stirring so the strawberries do not burn.
After about 15 minutes or before you’ll notice foam on the surface of the pan.
When the strawberries are softer, mash them gently.
Keep cooking and stirring till the mixture becomes thick, darker in colour and the foam disappears.
After about 35-40 minutes, the jam is done. Turn off the heat and add lemon juice.
To check if the consistency is good, scoop some jam with a cold spoon (freeze the spoon when you start cooking the jam) and check if the jam is running or falling off. If it’s not then it is ready. If this test fails, keep cooking the jam further.
Let it cool and transfer to sterilised glass jars.
Finally, as there are no preservatives used in this strawberry jam recipe, refrigerate it.