Homemade Strawberry Jam

Our family loves strawberry jam.  We go through tons of it - between Joel and his English muffins and the rest of us and our sunflower butter sandwiches.  Joel doesn't like us to eat a lot of high fructose corn syrup, so I end up spending a lot of money of jam that is simply fruit and sugar.  It's about $4 for a small jar.... for just fruit and sugar!

My friend Karla over at The Culinary Enthusiast, recently posted a recipe for strawberry freezer jam that I knew I had to try.  Her and I have canned jam before and the process was just too much for me.  Last week, I had a bunch of beautiful strawberries and gave strawberry jam another try - and it was so worth it!

Here is what I did:

4 lbs of clean strawberries

I used a huller clean up the berries

4 pounds of hulled and halved strawberries

Instead of mashing 4 lbs by hand, Karla recommended using the food processor.

I pulsed the berries until I got the texture I wanted.

Here are the pulsed berries

4 cups of sugar & 12 Tbsp of no-cook pectin

I combined the sugar/pectin mixture for 3 minutes & then filled-up my freezer jars. 

The jars sat out on the counter for about 30 minutes before I put them in the freezer.

4 lbs of berries made approximately 15 cup of jam.

I used freezer containers that I purchased from Bed, Bath & Beyond.

This recipe is really, really easy!!!  I couldn't believe how simple it was and how quickly I was able to make 15 cups of jam.  I think in total, it took me less than 1 hour from the time I rinsed the berries to the point I was able to put everything in the freezer.  You'll have to try it.

To see Karla's recipe and much prettier pictures, head over here.