Strawberry jam is a pantry staple for our house, and canning your own is thankfully easy enough.

In fact, I haven’t bought storebought jam in years because all you need are 3 basic ingredients, some pectin, and a couple hours slotted away to make a batch.

That said, I have learned that we prefer a lower sugar version of strawberry jam without the use of artificial sweeteners; we can taste the strawberries better without thinking we are spreading candy on our bread!

Here I go into the tools you need, ingredients, instructions, and some FAQs for this easy, Low Sugar Strawberry Jam Recipe and how to water bath can it right at home.

Let’s Dive In…

Table of contents:

Strawberry Jam Recipe | Low Sugar, Pectin

This recipe aims to keep the bright flavors of strawberries at center stage, while only using the other ingredients to help make it into an item that is spreadable on a bread, pancakes, muffins, etc.

You can use fresh or frozen, storebought, farm picked, or homegrown strawberries for this jam recipe.

4-5 pounds of strawberries will give you about 8 jelly jars (half pint).

Tools you Need

Dutch oven or large stock pot to make the jam in
Potato Masher or Immersion Blender
Ladle, jar funnel, jar lifter
Water Bath Canner
Half Pint-sized mason jars (jelly jars) with lids and bands

Ingredients

4-5 pounds of fresh or frozen strawberries, washed
1-3 cups of non-GMO cane sugar (this will be done to taste)
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/3 – 1/2 cup of non-GMO powdered pectin

Instructions

Prepare your water-bath canner and jars, per your canner’s instructions. Allow the canner to sit on medium heat and the jars warm up while you prepare the jam.
Wash berries if needed. Place them all in a large dutch oven or stock pot.
Place on medium to high heat and warm the berries until soft.
Once the berries are soft, go ahead and mash them with a potato masher or your immersion blender. Potato masher will give you a chunky jam, while the immersion blender will give you a smooth jam.
Once mashed, add sugar one cup at a time. Allow to sugar to dissolve in between each cup and taste test. Add more to your liking.
Once sugar is to the the level you prefer, add lemon juice and pectin.
Allow the jam to boil for 15 minutes stirring constantly. Be careful about jam splatters!
You can complete the plate test or the frozen spoon test for gelling consistently at any time during the boil. Please note, this recipe will not give you Jello-like jam, due to the lower sugar content. If you are looking for a super thick jam, add more pectin, and please see notes in the FAQs.
Once boiled, bring your jars out of the hot water. Your canner should also be hot and simmering at this point.
Pull jam off the heat so it doesn’t burn on the bottom.
Fill your clean jars with the hot jam using a ladle and jar funnel. Create a 1/4 inch headspace.
Wipe rims clean, and place lids and bands on finger tight.
Using your jar lifter, place the jars of jam in the water bath canner.
Bring your water bath canner to a rolling boil, per the canner’s instructions. Water Bath Can half pint jars for 10 minutes. Adjusting for altitude.
Allow to cool, per the canner’s instructions, and place your jars on a dry tea towel.
Allow to cool on the countertop for 12 hours.
Check seals, wash jars, and store on the shelf.

Once opened you can put your jam in the fridge.

Video

FAQs

My strawberry jam didn’t set? Strawberry jam is known to be hard to set to a thick, Jello like consistency without the use of lots of sugar and lots of pectin. I’m talking 7 cups or more of sugar or 2-3 cups of pectin!

For our house, that’s too much. That’s too sweet of a jam and the pectin I like to use is too pricey to be dumping it all into one recipe. The recipe above gives a thick fruit butter consistency; something that spreads easily and doesn’t run off your bread.

If you are looking for a thick set on your strawberry jam, try this: add more sugar. Add more pectin. Allow to boil and reduce down for longer. Your jam will taste differently than the recipe I give you above but if it’s texture you are aiming for then this will help.

How long is this home-canned strawberry jam good for? If canned correctly, your jam can last on your shelf for at least 18 months to 2 years. Some claim they last longer than that. So long as the seal is shut, the jam is shelf stable. I personally have jam from 3 years ago, that’s just fine.

Once the seal is broken, it must be refrigerated. It can last a few months after it’s opened.

How is this considered Low Sugar? This is not compared to any diet or medical advice. Instead, it’s compared to other recipes!

Usually, recipes will call for several cups of sugar: anywhere from 5-8 cups of sugar. That’s a ton of sugar! I prefer to rely on the sugar content of the berries before adding in extra sugar.

But for math’s sake, 2 cups of sugar spread over 8 jars is about 1/4 cup of sugar per jar. If you use less than of course, it’ll be less than.

Compared to a recipe using 8 cups of sugar, would be 1 cup of sugar per jar (yikes). Storebought jams usually have about 2 cups of sugar a jar in them depending on what brand and what size (given 1 cup of sugar is about 185-200 grams). Even lower sugar varieties, tend to use artificial sweeteners instead of actually lowering the sugar content.

All in all, this recipe is definitely lower in sugar compared to the others out there and lower in sugar than storebought comparatives and avoids artificial sweeteners.

That’s It!

With storebought organic frozen berries, each jar of jam costs me around $1.70 to make. That’s a good deal for organic jam to me!

One day, I have serious goals to have this be from homegrown berries. So far, my berry plants are still young and whatever berries are produced get ate out in the garden.

So all my strawberry jam has been from frozen berries from the store. And that’s okay! I can still control the ingredients and make big batches whenever I need too.

Which is great because this recipe is one that gets ate through quickly in my home.

Enjoy!

-Chelsea, The Cottage Vegetable