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Strawberry season – Balsamic strawberry jam

By on March 6, 2012 in Preserves, Recipes

I am lucky enough to live in a town full of farms.  Farms where you can find free range eggs, chicken and beef, scores of different types of veggies, corn fields, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, orange and citrus groves and strawberries.  Right now we are in the middle of strawberry season so I will be slowly making enough strawberry jam to last until next season.    I have posted before about how to make strawberry jam, today I am sharing MY favorite.  I few years ago I saw a dessert of strawberry and balsamic vinegar and knew that the French often add wine to their strawberry jam to make the taste pop so I tried it with balsamic vinegar and I loved it.

This weekend I got a half a flat of local organically grown strawberries and popped them in the fridge to use on baking day.  My back was killing me so I got no baking done but I did put up 14 half pints of yummy jam. You don’t taste the vinegar but to me it deepens the flavor of the strawberries and is amazing on whatever you want to put it on.

Something I have wanted to share.  I have noticed that when some people are cutting their berries for jam, they just slice off the top part completely.

I don’t.  Why? You see that white part which most people cut off, it contains some pectin.

Pectin is what helps jam to set so I want to leave that in.  I just pull off the green leafy part, then with a little knife I cut the stem out.
Chop it up and throw your berries in a bowl.
I ended up with 16 cups of berries (you need to measure how many cups of strawberries you have)
the dark stuff you see in this picture is the balsamic vinegar I just put it in the pot along with the berries and sugar.
This is one of my favorite little vintage jam jars.  I don’t know why but I think its so cute and since I had more jam but not enough to fill one last half pint jar, I pulled it out of the cupboard and sterilized it too
This jam has a more grown up taste but my kids still adore it.
Balsamic strawberry jam
4 cups chopped strawberries
2 cups turbinado sugar (white sugar would work too)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Put the strawberries, sugar and balsamic vinegar into a pot and cook on medium high.  Mash the berries a little to get the juice out.  Once it is boiling, lower to medium and let cook for about 25-30 minutes until it passes the freezing plate test (drop a little bit on a plate you had in the freezer and if it does not drip and gels up you are done).  Scoop off the foamy stuff at the top and ladle your jam into sterilized jars.  Process in whichever way you use to can preserves.  If you go to the link above to my Nilla Strawberry jam, the instructions to simple water bath canning are included.



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