How To Freeze Strawberries To Make Jam Later

Basic method for freezing strawberries –

Prep the strawberries by washing them in cold water and patting dry with kitchen paper.Cut and discard the stems, then freeze whole or cut to desired size.Lay the prepared strawberries on a tray and put in the freezer and until solid. Once frozen, transfer to labelled resealable freezer bag, ensuring you remove any excess air before sealing. Frozen strawberries are best used within six months.

Can you freeze strawberries before making them into jam?

Ways to Use Frozen Strawberries – These delicious berries are packed with antioxidants and polyphenols and brimming with vitamins and minerals. There are many ways to get their nutritional benefits, all scrumptious:

• Add frozen strawberries to smoothies for a thick, cold milkshake texture. Blend straight-out-of-the-freezer strawberries with milk (or non-dairy alternative), a little yogurt, other fruit, and honey or another sweetener of your choice.
• Stock them for jam. Frozen strawberries are just as good as fresh for making jam. Stockpile them in the freezer during the harvest season and get around to that jam project later when you have time.
• Make strawberry sorbet or ice cream. Ironically, you’ll need to thaw the fruit before transforming it into one of those frozen desserts, but the result will be just as delicious as if you had used fresh strawberries.
• Create a simple, colorful fruit topping. Thaw frozen strawberries and then puree them in a blender. Spoon over yogurt, cake, or fresh fruit. Because there is nothing in the sauce other than the strawberries, it is especially important that you start out with high quality, flavorful berries.
• Make a sweet strawberry sauce. Simmer frozen or thawed strawberries with sugar and vanilla. Blend one-third to one-half of the remaining fruit pieces and add to the mixture for a looser sauce.

How do you store strawberries before making jam?

Pack berries into containers, leaving the appropriate headspace (see table 1). Seal the containers and freeze. The dry pack is good for small whole strawberries and for freezing whole or sliced berries (without sugar) to use later in making jam. You can simply pack prepared fruit into containers, seal, and freeze.

Can you freeze berries to make jam later?

Here’s How To Make Jam From Frozen Fruits

• Did you know that you can make jam from frozen fruits?
• To preserve the freshness of your garden harvest, seal and freeze it for later use, especially in the off-season.
• But what if you are left with a massive amount of frozen fruits that you can’t possibly process?

Make homemade jam from the frozen fruits and enjoy a dose of lusciousness when the fruit is otherwise unavailable. Fall and winter are the perfect time to make jam from summer fruits such as berries. This is because the extra heat from the jam-making process brings comfort on such cold days. Let’s find out how you can make a fine jam from frozen fruits.

Is it better to use fresh or frozen strawberries for jam?

Notes –

• If you’re using frozen berries, it will take longer to bring the jam to a boil and take a little bit longer to reach the right consistency, since the berries are frozen and will have more liquid than fresh berries. It will take longer for the extra liquid to evaporate. If you’re using a pot that isn’t wide, it will also take longer, since the smaller the surface area, the slower the evaporation.
• A simple test you can use if you don’t want to use a thermometer is the cold plate test. Chill a plate in the freezer before you start making jam. When the jam seems to have reached the proper consistency, place a dollop of jam on the plate and let it stand for a minute of two. It should start to gel and shouldn’t be too runny. If you run your finger through the center, it shouldn’t run back together.

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How do you keep strawberry jam from foaming?

Prevent it – 1 teaspoon of butter, margarine or vegetable oil, added before you heat the mixture will almost eliminate it. On the downside, some food scientists worry that the small amount of butter could cause the batch to spoil sooner. I suspect this particular group of scientists probably still live at home. Remove it When I forget to add the butter (about 50% of the time), I just wait till I remove the jam from the heat, let it sit for a minute or two and then skim the foam off with a ladle. I save the foam in a microwavable container. See below for why!

Why doesn’t strawberry jam set?

This post may contain affiliate links, my full disclosure can be read here. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Did your jam or jelly not set? If you are wondering what causes jam or jelly to not thicken and how you can fix it you’ll find there is more then one cause but it’s easy to fix your recipe.

Jam and jelly not setting is usually a problem that is caused by temperature, pectin problems, or incorrect measurements. Jellies cooked at too high a temperature can destroy the pectins’ ability to gel while if it’s not boiled long enough it won’t set either. While measuring fruit differently from how the original recipe wanted can also cause the finished product not to set.

It can feel so frustrating to put all that work into making jelly only to have it turn out too runny. While you can use runny jelly as syrup or an ice cream topping sometimes you really just want to have the jelly that you planned on making. Let’s look more closely at the causes of why your jelly or jam recipe didn’t thicken and see what you can do to fix it.

Can you use over ripe strawberries for jam?

5 Delicious Things to Do with Overripe Strawberries: Tried & Proven Posted on August 12, 2022 by – Wondering what are the most delicious things to do with overripe strawberries? Find out below. Can words even describe how happy we are that strawberry season has begun? However, even if you’re one of those people who can eat an entire pint in one sitting, buy enough and we guarantee you’ll end up with at least a few mushy ones. For instant satisfaction, throw strawberries into the blender. No, the mushiness will not take away, in fact, it will help create a compact, smoother mixture. You know what’s best, you’re not limited at all, regardless of whether you prefer milkshakes, smoothies, or even strawberry milk, this is one of the most delicious things to do with overripe strawberries.

Cakes, cupcakes & muffins

Just as overripe bananas are ideal for baking, so can overripe strawberries, mashed or simply chopped and mixed into delicious baked treats. The Internet is full of recipes that use this fruit to celebrate everything delicious about summer. We believe you will find one that will satisfy your taste buds.

• Wondering which one is our favorite? You won’t go wrong if you try this.
• It is an absolute must on these hot summer days.
• Making jam is the most obvious, but also one of the delicious things to do with overripe strawberries.
• The best thing is that you can use every berry, and you can also preserve large quantities or make just a tiny batch of refrigerator jams.

You can enjoy toast with fresh strawberry jam every morning or use it in a variety of bakery dishes. It’s a really fun ingredient for baked goods such as cookies, muffins, or cake batter. Although many would think otherwise, overripe strawberries are a much better option to use in frozen desserts as they begin to break down and won’t freeze into a harder icy texture like fresher, firmer strawberries.

• We recommend that you cook or macerate them with sugar and only then swirl or blend them into bases for ice cream, popsicles, or sorbet, depending on your preferences.
• If you are looking for delicious things to do with overripe strawberries, keep in mind that you are not limited to the classics such as jam.

Even more, let your imagination run wild because only the sky is the limit. Along with cakes, our favorites are various strawberry compotes and dips, we simply enjoy them. We recommend that you cut the strawberries with apples, raspberries, and apricots into small pieces, from which you will make a delicious salsa that you will serve with homemade cinnamon and sugar chips.

True strawberry lovers know that there are no limits when it comes to overripe fruits. There is almost no recipe in which they would not fit well. This time we have made a selection for you of the most delicious things to do with overripe strawberries. Have you found your favorite? Let us know in the section below.

– Author’s bio Karen Rutherford is founder and editor in chief at, You will often find her in the kitchen trying out some new recipes. As a pâtissière and baking enthusiast, Karen has decided to share her knowledge with the internet audience and provide the best tips and recipes for baking and decorating your favorite sweets. Tags:,, : 5 Delicious Things to Do with Overripe Strawberries: Tried & Proven

Do I defrost fruit before making jam?

The freezer is underrated as the most unfussy method of preservation. With this fabulous invention, we can make fresh berry jam long after the berries are gone from the farmers’ markets. In the heat of summer, it’s hard sometimes to want to stand at the stove and stir for so long, but in these colder times of the year, it’s downright luxurious to do so.

Picked at the peak of ripeness and then frozen, these berries will be exponentially better than a pale, washed-out berry from faraway climes at this time of year. Get them into the jam pot before they thaw; the faster they defrost, the less juice escapes the fruits. This makes a thicker, tastier jam. If you are not familiar with the water bath canning method watch our water bath canning video workshop,

Always make sure you are following all safety guidelines outlined by the USDA when canning anything. makes 6 half-pint jars

How do you freeze fruit for jam?

How to Make Jam From Frozen Fruit: Tips and Tricks – Start with the best. What goes into your jars is what you get out of them, so use the best fruit you can find. Depending on the type of fruit, you’ll want to freeze it at the peak of flavor or when it’s just a tad underripe. Don’t get it wet. I pick over berries. I gently spot clean plums. I remove any bad bits from strawberries. But I don’t wash fruit before I freeze it. It’s all organic or foraged from unsprayed places. I pick it myself, or I know the people who do. I’m also going to boil the bejeezus out of it, so I don’t worry about skipping the wash.

• As an aside, some professional jam makers I know and respect don’t wash their organic fruit before jamming it.
• That’s how I learned to stop doing it, myself.
• So if a professional jam maker jumped off a bridge, would I jump off a bridge, too? I suppose I might.) Slice, dice, and weigh.
• Before you freeze the fruit, cut it to the size you think you’ll want it to be when you use it later, because you probably don’t want to mess around with trying to chop up plum halves or whole, huge strawberries after they’ve been frozen.

If you want different textures for different jams, freeze multiple bags, each containing the size you’ll want. You may want to plan for bags of various weights, too. I prepped a lot of two- and three-pound bags, but found that I also loved having single-pound bags to play with. Flash freeze first. You already know about this, right? It’s where you put the individual pieces of fruit on trays and freeze them until they’re just solid. Then you put the flash frozen fruit into freezer bags. This is how you avoid things like whole bricks made of blackberries.

1. Do note that some fruits have special needs when it comes to freezing.
2. For example, I freeze figs in sugar syrup to retain color and texture.
3. You can learn about that here,
4. And you can find detailed information about freezing other types of fruit here,
5. I have never, for example, frozen peaches, nectarines, or apricots because I haven’t had enough to warrant it.

I’d want to check up on the particulars of freezing those or other fruits before attempting it for the first time. Get the air out. Suck it out with a straw, give your freezer bags mouth to mouth, or get a Food Saver — just extract as much air as you can before you seal the bags. Label it now or regret it later. On the outside of the freezer bag, jot down not just the fruit it contains, but the weight and the date you froze it, along with anything else you might want to remember, like where you picked it or who gave it to you.

You’ll be glad you did. (For those of you who are ahead of me in the labeling game, would you please tell me your favorite way to label freezer bags? I write on them with a sharpie, but that makes reuse challenging. I travel with my toiletries in a bag labeled “Blackberries 2010.”) Plan before you jam.

Before you start pulling summer out of the freezer, think about what you want to make. It’s not a big deal — just some recipe notes so you can get in and out of the freezer quickly and not grab or thaw a lot more than you need. Mmm, macerate. This is the best part. I start almost all my frozen fruit jams by macerating the fruit in sugar while it thaws. Doing it this way means you won’t end up with sad, pulpy bits of skin floating in a mess of juice. As the fruit thaws, the sugar nestles it and absorbs the liquid, so you end up with a mixture that is thick, bright, pectin rich (provided you’ve chosen a blend of fruits that provides enough pectin to make a successful jam, which is actually kind of hard not to do) and ready to cook.

I don’t add powdered or liquid pectin to my frozen fruit jams and I’ve not yet had a bad experience with one. In terms of how much sugar to use, that’s up to you and your fruit. I usually use 60%-75% of the weight of the fruit, depending on how much pectin it has (less pectin = more sugar) and how sweet it is to start.

Anyway, go clean out your freezer and make some jam. Because it’s spring and rhubarb is already upon us! This piece was originally published on Hitchhiking to Heaven on March 25, 2012 and was written by Shae Irving.