Strawberry season is breathing its last gasps, and before it’s over for good, I wanted to share one last recipe.
This recipe for strawberry ginger jam is one that I can’t quite believe I haven’t shared at some point in the past. Truly, I thought I’d posted every variation on strawberry jam that was possible. Happily I was wrong.
This jam gets its kick from a goodly application of freshly grated ginger root. I’ve found that there’s no better tool for grating ginger than a microplane zester.
With small berries, I don’t even bother to chop them. Instead, half way through cooking, I go in with a potato masher (this is my favorite) and work them until the fruit is pulverized. It works nicely and saves you a goodly amount of knife work.
Finally, if I’d had my wits about me, I would have canned this one in five half pint jars (as that makes for better quantities for sharing). However, I was clean out of half pints the day I made this jam and so used a motley collection of pints and quarter pints.
Strawberry Ginger Jam
Ingredients
- 3 pounds strawberries
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons Ball Flex Pectin
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
- juice from half a lemon
Instructions
- Wash the berries and remove the hulls. If they're giant berries, cut them into quarters. If they're smaller ones, leave them whole. Put the prepped berries in a low, wide, non-reactive pan.
- Whisk the pectin into the sugar and add it to the berries. Add the ginger and lemon juice, and stire everything to combine.
- Let the berries sit until the sugar begins to pull out some of their juice and begins to dissolve.
- When the contents of the pan are nice and juicy, set it on the stove over high heat.
- Bring the berries to a boil. Once they're bubbling merrily, reduce the heat to medium-heat.
- Cook, stirring regularly, for 10-15 minutes, until the berries soften and the liquid begins to thicken.
- Use a potato masher and crush the fruit, taking care not to burn yourself.
- When the jam has reduced by approximately half and looks thick, it is done.
- Remove the pot from the heat. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
I’m glad to see another strawberry and ginger recipe. Maybe if it’s not too hot this weekend, I can try making it. 🙂
Every other year or so I make strawberry-rhubarb-ginger jam. This year, I modified a recipe in the Pomona Pectin cookbook with a little help from the folks at Pomona Pectin.
Love ginger in all things so must make this tomorrow. What is ball flex pectin, not sure of this one, thanks.
This sounds wonderful. Why does the recipe say “divided” after the sugar as it seems all the sugar is used at once? Would this work without using pectin and just boiling until thickened?
Oops, that was an accident. And strawberries are quite low in pectin, so it’s not going to set up as well without additional pectin. You can try it without, but the yield will be less and the consistency will be runnier.
I have just been hunting through different Strawberry Ginger Jam recipes in Google… The Australian New Zealand site says- That Strawberries are Naturally high in pectin. PLZ, who is right?? Lynda from Bendigo Australia. 20 Nov 2017
To the best of my knowledge, strawberries are naturally quite low in pectin.
Could one use frozen strawberries if they missed out on strawberry season?
Yes. Use the technique outlined in this post to prepare the berries. https://foodinjars.com/2016/02/canning-101-how-to-make-jam-with-frozen-fruit/
I have never seen anywhere that you can use frozen berries for jams. You just changed my life!
I am about to use these proportions but do the balsamic version. I had been assuming that the vinegar gives the acid you would get from the lemon juice and that is why you had not added it into that version. Correct?
Lori, strawberries are high enough for canning on their own without any additional acid. So in this recipe, the lemon juice is there for flavor balance. In my strawberry balsamic jam recipe, the balsamic plays that flavor balancing role.
I was able to pick organic strawberries in New Brunswick. I did this recipe and it was AWESOME. very different from everything else. And so easy to make…..
i made this, but roughly halved the recipe, omitted the pectin, and used the technique from the small batch strawberry balsamic jam (it worked beautifully). i only got 4 quarter pints, but such is life when you dont want to work with pounds on pounds of fruit. (or when youre not 100% you’ll like a recipe)
it is delicious. even the tentative husband gave it a good review. now im trying to plan a good day to go picking again to make MORE!!
i think i will add more ginger, though, as i prefer it to be a part of the flavor instead of just a tinge.
Brilliant spread to me HAPPINESS! Wow! 💕💕💕💕the texture, the smell! Pure joy of flavors💕
I am so glad you like it!