Papaya Jam with lime is one of my favorite tropical fruit jams. The lime lends the papaya fruit a lovely aroma.
No matter if you use this jam as bread spread or mixed into a yogurt, you won't be disappointed by the texture and flavors!
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Jam Making Tips
Picking the right fruit is crucial for making the perfect jam at home.
That means using organic, non-treated limes in this papaya jam recipe is essential.
The skin of the lime is used to give the homemade jam some natural pectin (and of course the lime helps give the jam a lovely, refreshing aroma).
Lime skin, and citrus fruits, in general, contain plenty of natural pectin, which helps in gelling the jam so to preserve it for longer, naturally.
To make sure that your homemade jam holds well without getting moldy, you should always work in a clean and hygienic environment.
The amount of sugar and the cooking and boiling process aid in the preservation.
Just before you fill your jars, make sure to sterilize the jars and lids in boiling water. Sterilizing will get rid of any germs.
Ensure you keep a pot with water to boil and place your washed jam jars into it for a few minutes.
Just before closing the lid, pour a small amount of rum into the lid, to kill remaining germs and to give your papaya lime jam a longer shelf life.
Lock well with the lid and turn your hot jar upside down. This will create a vacuum and your jam will hold much better that way. Turn the jar back up once the jam has cooled down.
I always store my jam in the fridge once opened, and I would suggest you to do the same thing so that you can thoroughly enjoy your homemade jam.
📖 Recipe
3 Ingredient Papaya Lime Jam Recipe
Ingredients
Instructions
- To prepare the papaya cut into half and quarter and scrape out and discard the seeds and strings with a spoon. Cut and discard the peel as well. Cut the Papaya into one inch sized pieces and weigh the fruit pulp.
- Place the papaya pieces in a bowl and add the sugar, juice of the 3 lime and the previously washed lime peels. Mix the content, cover with a lid and keep for 12 hours or more in the fridge. Stir the content every few hours.
- This will help the fruits to incorporate with the sugar better. If you are in a hurry, you can skip that step.
- Place everything into a pot and cook on low heat for about 25 minutes. Keep on stirring frequently!
- Increase the heat and bring it to a rolling boil (lot of bubbles and foam are an indication). Remove from the heat.
- Simmer the papaya jam for a while until the jam is set. Check with a candy thermometer (jam setting temp 220° Fahrenheit/105° Celsius) or by doing the ice cold plate test. Drop hot jam on an ice cold plate and move the plate to see if it runs. If it runs, let the jam simmer a bit longer, repeat the test until the jam is set.
- Test if the jam is set by dropping some jam on a cold plate. If the jam runs, it needs some more cooking time.
- Pick out the lemon peels and mash the jam if you like with a blender or hand masher.
- Prepare your jars and lids by sterilizing in boiling water and pour some rum into the lid (to kill further germs). Place your jam into the jars, close and turn them upside down until the next day.
- Store in a cool and dry place!
Notes
- 1 servings = 1 teaspoon, Total amounts to about 2-3 jars = 80 servings approx.
- Use only untreated organic lime because we will add the lime rind to the jam to add natural pectin which is in the lime rind. You don't want chemicals on your lime to be in your jam.
Nutrition
Uses
I love to spread my jams over a slice of bread, homemade brioche buns or Indian Chapati flatbread for breakfast!
The consistency of the papaya jam is also suitable as a filling for doughnuts and pastries.
We use homemade apricot jam, for example, in Austria, on cakes to layer and finish off the sugar glaze. In that method, the glaze turns out shiny. You can use this papaya jam the same in the same way.
Or how about adding a dollop of jam to your daily fresh yogurt bowl? Paul loves this jam in his porridge or muesli.
My jam came out bitter as gall because of cooking the lime skin with the jam, where did I misunderstand?
Hi Pika, I'm sorry to hear that it didn't turn out as expected. Did you add all the sugar as described in the recipe? Did you blend the lime skin with the jam, which you shouldn't? Did you change anything else in the recipe? This recipe is a little older and I haven't modified it since. I'm working on redoing the recipe with crystal clear instructions, better process images, and a video. It will be mostly done by May.
When peeling the lime do not use the white pith. Just the “zest”. Use a potato peeler. It makes it easier. Also. You can put the zest in cheesecloth for easier retrieval after cooking the jam. Mine was delicious!
Recipe is not clear. Mine was bitter too because the recipe did not specify ZEST, just peel. Also the recipe says lime at the beginning and then lemon later in the recipe. Recipe seems copied and not actually made by author.
Hey Kat, I did mention that I have to redo the recipe, which I did (I filmed it but didn't edit it yet). I'm not a machine and I can't just churn out and fix over 300 old posts that quickly. It's not as if you bought a cookbook or something. You can keep your insult to yourself. I'm working hard to create recipes and to improve them by filming my recipes.
Does this recipe call for 3 limes? I used 3 and it came out very limey.
Hi Helena,
Can any citric be use in jams or only lemons and limes?
Lemons and limes contain the most of natural pectin but you can use other ones as well such as orange or grapefruit.
I have been making your gorgeous jam for a couple of years. Thank you for introducing me to using limes for pectin! We grow our papaya and lime in Hawaii and love to gift this jam to our friends and visitors. I have followed your lead to not do a water bath but wonder if it would extend the shelf life?
Thanks for your lovely feedback Meredith.
You can try to do a water bath but to be honest, if you work as instructed and in a clean way, you will not require the water bath. I have made this jam in a tropical climate just as yours and the jam was good for over 10 months sealed. You can try to do a water bath to see if it suits your needs.
How long will this keep in the fridge, if your methods of sterilization are used?
btw love the jam!!!
Hi Maryann,
The Papaya jam keeps good in the fridge a year easily. The papaya jam doesn't turn bad in the fridge but the jam can get hard over time due to the cool and dry fridge environment. Keeping in the fridge is not the problem. Keep the jars outside in a cool and dry place until you open the jar (cellars can be rather humid and are a great jam storing spot). Once you have opened the jar, store in the fridge.
Hello,
Can you tell me how many cups of papaya are in a kilogram? I apologize for my ignorance.
Also, in one of the pictures it looks like key limes were used instead of p
Persian limes. Would either one work?
Thank you,
Vick
Hi Vicki, no problem. I am slowly adding to all my recipes cup and ounce measurements to make it easier for everyone.
I converted 1 kg (=1000grams) mashed papaya pulp to cups online. So 1 kg pulp should be about 4.35 cups.
The limes used are regular limes, not persian or key limes. Choose whichever lime you prefer.
Hi Helene,
Tried your recipe today with some home grown papaya. Very simple, natural and easy and best of all delicious! Many thanks. Also I only had a few limes so I also used an old orange sitting in the fridge and it worked well:)
Eric, thank you for taking the time and leaving a feedback. I'm glad that you enjoyed the recipe and that the modification, by adding an orange to the papaya jam, worked out well. Next time I will try my papaya jam with orange too. 🙂
How should I cut the lime skins?
Hi Eli,
You can just cut the lime into half and throw them into the pot.
wow I will tru this simple to follow recipe.. I am just curious can I substitute sugar with honey?
Hi Dette, you can't really substitute sugar with honey 1:1 because sugar helps in preserving the jam, which is the whole purpose of a jam. Yet, you can try to switch the sugar with honey but use up the jam within days, or else it will turn bad. You can add whatever quantity of honey you want. With sugar, it's important to stick to the recipe quantity ratio, with honey it doesn't really matter.
The Papaya jam sounds wonderful but I need to make it with Stevia instead of sugar. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Hi Patricia,
Stevia is a natural sweetener and it can't preserve food as sugar does. Sugar sweetens and preserves and in making jam you need to preserve the fruits. A preserve can only be called a jam or marmalade if it preserves for a longer period without turning bad. So, you have one option if you need to use stevia but then it's going to be a relish of sort, which you will need to consume within days. Also, you would need to add some sort of natural pectin, which you find in any citrus fruits such as lemon or also in green apple skin, as well as artificial pectin. I don't use pectin in my jams so I wouldn't know how much to use to make this papaya jam with stevia and artificial pectin. Another thing to consider is the type of fruit you would use. If you really want to try out stevia instead of sugar to make a preserve, then use a fruit high in natural pectin such as green apples, rhubarb, lingonberries etc. Basically sour fruits work best.
Why do you want to use stevia instead of sugar?
Wow this jam is fantastic...my new favorite! I was given a bunch of papayas and so went looking for what I could do with them since we couldn't eat them fresh quick enough. I had never made jam before but decided to give it a go! It was sooo easy and so incredibly delicious!! I've actually made it 3-4 times already because we love it so much...even my son who dislikes fresh papaya, piles this stuff on fresh bread any chance he gets. We've also eaten it with oven pancakes...outrageous!
Hi Grace, thanks for your lovely comment. It's great to hear that my addiction for making papaya jam has caught you. 🙂 We had the same problem, too many papayas growing in the garden and I was fed up of eating them raw. But the papaya jam really turns the fruit into a marvel by itself. I would love to try the papaya jam with oven pancakes, that would be a gorgeous breakfast! Thank you for your generous rating of the recipe and for taking the time and coming back to it. 🙂
Sorry I meant to rate this...
Wow, this is really good
This is the post on my blog with a link back to ur recipe 🙂 thanks once again for a wonderful recipe
Hi Helene : thank you for a wonderful recipe ... I made a third of this recipe and it tastes delicious . And many thanks for a natural ingredient for pectin .. Am naturally wary of making jams and jellies at home coz of the artificial preservatives needed , but this is a winner all through. I shall post this on my blog with a link back to ur blog ..cheers, Kalyani
Hi Kalyani,
I know what you mean, I don't like to use preservative and artificial pectin sugar. It kind of changes the flavor of the fruit. Thank you for your link back and for letting us know! 😀
hi!
I have made papaya lime jam today, it came out well but having a bitter taste. could u pls help me why is it so.
I suppose you used the same sugar and fruit amounts as described in the recipe. Did you taste the papaya fruit before using it, was it sweet or maybe a bit bitter? These days not every papaya fruit tastes sweet and the same. Did you cut close to the papaya skin? It happened to me too that when cutting papaya, I cut it to close to the skin so that the hard light yellow part is on the fruit and that part is bitter. Also it depends which lime you used, did you use the same once as shown in the pictures or bigger lime? If the lime are different, more intense in flavor (compared to common regular lime) or bigger, then I suggest to reduce the amount used in this recipe. Best is to taste the jam before filling it into the jar and then you can always add a small amount of sugar if there is bitterness, which is usually not the case. Homegrown fruits are often much sweeter and less bitter. Also, the jam didn't burn at the bottom of the pot when you cooked it? A tiny amount of burned fruit while cooking can turn the jam bitter.
thank you. will give a try once more
Wow! I never thought of jamming papaya and I am a jam fanatic! What a wonderful recipe. Now to find some papaya!
Wow Helene! That jam looks so awesome and why didn't I ever think of a papaya jam! Very creative and delicious indeed.
I'm with Azita - I've made lots and lots of different types of jam, but never papaya. I love it and the lime sounds perfect for the flavor of papaya! Great jam Helene!
Wow, I'm in the habit of making (and eating) all types of jam but it had never crossed my mind to use papaya. Love the recipe!
What a fantastic way to use up your papaya. I would love to try this jam. 🙂
My next door neighbours have two papaya trees. They rarely eat the fruit so maybe I'll make jam! I love making jam.
G'day Helene and what an unusual combination, true!
Spread the word and wish I could come through the screen and try some right now too!
Cheers! Joanne YUM!
This jam combo looks fantastic, definitely beating marmalade 😀
Cheers
CCU
How very interesting to learn about papaya, a fruit my parents love. It's so sweet in India.
This jam is so interesting and I'm quite intrigued. I am gonna try making it sometime when I am in India, my parents will love it.
Gosh, I'd love to be able to get locally-grown papayas! They're available here, of course, but a bit too expensive for homemade jam - it's much cheaper it buy the commercial stuff. Fun recipe, though - someday I should just make this jam!
My Mom grew beautiful papayas and she made amazing dishes with it. And I never ate them because I can't stand this fruit. Such a shame, because this looks gorgeous and I am sure is a feast for all papaya lovers. I am going to save the recipe and pass it to Mom, she is going to love it!
Hey Helene, I've never even thought of making jam from exotic fruits like Papayas as they are so expensive over here, but I bet that jam tastes truly divine.
Janie x
Oh Helene, how exquisite! Yes, we grow our own fruit and vegetables, but they are really sensitive in this heat!