Simple Strawberry Jam

When I grabbed a fresh box of delicious and juicy strawberries from the farmer's market, I immediately wanted to make strawberry jam. It has been a long while since we got jams and preserves from the grocery stores. We were just out of our cranberry jam and this batch of strawberry jam replenished our jam stock.

I just made a small batch since this was the first time I tried my hand in making jam with strawberries. But this has been our favorite so far. The best part of making jams at home is that you could actually control the amount of sugar that goes in. The sugar can also be replaced with other natural sweeteners like honey, agave nectar etc. to make it less in calories and diabetic friendly.

This jam uses just three ingredients - strawberries, lemon juice and sugar and requires no pectin.

Ingredients
Strawberries sliced finely - 2 cups
Brown/White sugar - 1.5 cups
Lemon juice - 2 teaspoons

Directions
Wash and pat the strawberries dry.

If you like to bite into the strawberry pulp, just slice the strawberries finely. If you do not like to bite into pieces, just puree the strawberries into a coarse mixture.

In a wide saucepan, place the sugar and lemon juice together and bring it to a slight boil. Switch to medium heat and immediately add the sliced strawberries or the pureed strawberries. Allow the sugar to melt and the strawberries to cook well and thickens to form a jelly consistency.

In order to test if the jam is ready, place a small stainless steel plate in the freezer for about five minutes. With a spoon take a little jam from the saucepan and pour it in the chilled plate. If the jam stays like a jelly without spreading out, the jam is ready.

Switch off the stove and allow the jam to cool. Transfer to a sterilized glass jar and refrigerate.

To know how to sterilize a glass jar - read this. Once the jam has cooled completely refrigerate. This stays fresh for 4 to 5 weeks.

Tastes great with toast!

Sending this to Back to Basics initially started by Jaya.