A homemade blueberry jam, all natural without artificial pectin, prepared with 3 ingredients.
Technically this is a blueberry lemon jam. The lemon helps in setting the jam and adds a lovely flavor to it.
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Do you love homemade jams? I have plenty of jam recipes that you will love. Check out my raspberry jam or my peach jam.
🫐 Ingredients
You will need 3 ingredients to make this blueberry jam from scratch at home.
- Blueberries - fresh or frozen
- Sugar - regular sugar, not jam sugar
- Lemon - I recommend organic lemons because you will need the juice and the squeezed-out lemon halves.
Blueberry season, depending on where you live, is form May to September, with July being the peack season
I recommend making blueberry jam when blueberries are in season.
🔪 How to make it?
Here is an overview on how to make you own batch of blueberry jam. The detailed steps with US and metric measurements is located further below.
Step 1
Wash and weigh fruits. Weigh sugar, cut lemon is half and juice it.
Place all ingredients in a large jam cooking pot and bring to a boil.
Step 2
Stir occassionally and cook your jam.
The jam will turn translucent and thick. This takes somewhere between 30-60 minutes.
Step 3
Test if your jam is set.
Pour jam into jars and seal tight.
🍱 Storing
This jam doesn't require a water bath canning, if you followed the setting steps and cleanliness instructions to the T.
It's a French jam recipe and jams are not canned. The vacuum technique does the trick!
Yet, feel free to do a water bath canning or steam canning technique if you are used to do this.
If you do it my way, your jam will last 10-12 months stored in a cool and dry place away from direct sunlight unopened.
Once you unseal the jam and you eat out of it, store in the fridge.
Also try avoiding eating directly out of the jar with your spoon, to reduce contamination.
🧰 Equipment
- A proper jam pot such as the typical jam copper pan which we use in France. Copper because it's the best conductor and somehow the jam always turns out better when cooked in a proper copper pan. But you can use a stainless steel pot too.
- Long-handled wooden spoon to stir the jam easily. We pick wood because it doesn't transfer the heat.
- Wide mouth funnel to pour the cooked jam into the jars
- Jam Jars/Mason Jars to store your jam
- Labels so that you can identify your jam easily with the date on it
- Heat Resistant Jam Jar Tongs to pick up the hot sterilized jars or the jars filled with hot jam
. Canning Thermometer (optional). It assists you with the temperature so that you don't overcook your jam.
💭 FAQs
Yes you can freeze this jam too. I recommend filling up smaller jars if you want to freeze them. It's easier to thaw smaller batches.
You can add other berry fruits when making this jam such as strawberry and raspberry. Or you can enhance it with chia seeds. Spices such as ground green cardamom, lavender, and vanilla can pep up your blueberry jam further. Culinary herbs such as basil and tulsi can turn your blueberry jam special too. The lemon can be switched with lime in this recipe
The jam will set at 220 Fahrenheit or 105 Celsius.
If your blueberry jam is runny, it's not set. That means you need to cook it down further until it's set. Use a candy thermometer if you are not sure or check with the ice cold plate technique.
Place a small plate into your freezer before you start preparing your jam. When you think the jam looks translucent and set, drop some of the hot jam on the ice cold plate. The jam will cool instantly and show it's true consistency. Move the plate around to test if the jam is running or if it is set. It it's running, cook it down a bit more and test again with the ice cold plate until your jam is properly set..
If your blueberry jam is stone hard, it's because you over cooked it. This can happen if you thought your jam wasn't set because it was still looking liquid. A set jam will always appear liquid when it's cooking hot. It only thickens when it has cooled at room temperature.
Wash your jars and lids in soap water. Keep a pot of water to boil and place your jars and lids into the cooking water. Take them out after 5 minutes. Or you can place your jars and lids into the oven (not microwave!) and keep them there for 5 mins at 350 Fahrenheit/ 180 Celsius. This will kill all the germs and your jam will last much longer.
📖 Recipe
Blueberry Jam Recipe without Pectin
Ingredients
For the Jam:
- 2.2 pounds Blueberries
- 1.5 pounds Sugar
- 1 Lemon juice + lemon halves
Instructions
- Wash your blueberries and pick-out/discard any impurities.
- Place fruits into cooking pot, add sugar, lemon juice and lemon halves.
- Heat up jam and stir occassionally. Keep over a medium heat setting.
- Bring to a rolling boil, reduce heat then and cook over a slow to medium heat setting. Cook it down until jam appears shiny and a bit transluscent.
- Test if the jam is ready by placing a few drops of the jam on an ice cold plate. The jam is ready if it's not running, if the opposite is the case, just keep it to cook for some more time and repeat the test. Don't cook the jam on high heat! Use candy thermometer if you need help getting the setting temperature right. See FAQs in post.
- Fill your clean jam jars with the blueberry jam, close well with the lids and turn them upside down to create a vacuum. Keep them upside down until the jar has cooled a bit and then store them in a dry and cool place away from sun (lid up). Once the jar is opened, store in the fridge. Keeps well for a year and more if stored correctly.