Blueberry Jam

Simple and sweet blueberry jam! The perfect summer project for the kids and so delicious!

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Right about mid-summer the most beautiful blueberries you have ever seen start popping up everywhere around here.

Just a 10 minute drive down the road from our house is a wonderful family blueberry farm where we pick plump, sweet blueberries every year.

Blueberry picking is a fun one to bring the little ones to because the bushes are just their size, the picking is super easy, and kids love blueberries! This was baby Caitlyn’s first blueberry trip, and while she was strapped to momma’s back most of the time, she did stretch her legs a little toward the end and definitely caught on to how fun the blueberries tasted!

We brought home 40 pounds of blueberries this year. I froze about half, dehydrated some, and we’ll eat a lot of the fresh this week. I also triple batched blueberry muffins, and the rest went into jam.

Blueberry is my absolute favorite jam! I think most people think of strawberry jam when it comes to favorites, but if you have never had blueberry jam before you really have to try it! I rarely make any other jam anymore. The flavor and texture is similar to grape jam, and it is just amazing on pancakes, or stirred into oatmeal or yogurt!

I use the Pomona’s 100% citrus pectin and have always had very good outcomes on my jams with it. You don’t need a load of sugar to make it work, and you should be able to find it in your health food store. If you can’t, Amazon does carry it.

Tips:

• Here is where you can get the Pomona’s 100% citrus pectin if you can’t find it in your health food store – I have been using it for years and it always works very well – very forgiving.
• This recipe makes about 2 dozen 4oz jars (about 12 cups) – just half the recipe if you don’t think you want that many. This jam will last me until next summer!
• You can alternatively blend your blueberries to a puree before you cook them if you like a super smooth jam. They really cook down well anyway, and it really has a pretty smooth texture even without blending. I just use a simple potato masher to squish up the berries while they cook!
• Have you seen these Ball Freezer Containers?! They are my absolute favorite. I do about half of my jam in the pretty little Ball glass jam jars so I can give them away for gifts, but the other half I put in the simple (cheap!) BPA free Ball freezer containers. You can put the lids right on and stick them in the freezer– they won’t crack like glass would with a lid on while they freeze! I usually give a few containers to my mom for the year so she can have them in her freezer when the girls spend the night at Gramma’s and might need a PB&J!
• The freezer jam will last a couple weeks in the fridge once thawed.
• We like to use our jam on pancakes! We don’t eat a ton of PB&J’s around here because we are gluten free and GF bread is expensive. But I do make large batches of pancakes to keep in the freezer, and the girls will have PB&J sandwiches using pancakes for the bread. You can also stir your jam into soaked oatmeal or whole plain yogurt!

This post was shared at Fat Tuesday, and Real Food Wednesday!