Delicious, truly-pure blueberry jam in which the taste of high summer really comes through, unmasked by white refined sugar.
And, without the sugar, it’s so incredibly low in calories that any dieter can basically count a couple tablespoons of this as “free.”
You can use either Ball or Bernardin No Sugar Needed box pectin, or, Ball RealFruit™ Low or No-Sugar Needed Flex Batch Pectin.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Either 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) OR quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 5 x quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars
Headspace: 1 cm (¼ inch)
Processing time: 10 minutes either size jar
Blueberry Jam Sugar-Free (Ball / Bernardin)
Ingredients
- 1 kg whole blueberries (whole. 7 cups / 2.2 lbs)
- 250 ml fruit juice (unsweetened, pure. 1 cup / 8 oz)
- 1 box Ball / Bernardin No-Sugar Needed Pectin (49 g / 57 g / 1.75 oz)
- 300 g sugar (white. 1 ½ cups / 12 oz) OR (1 ½ cup / 40 g Splenda®) OR (1 ½ teaspoons liquid stevia)
Instructions
- Wash and stem blueberries.
- Mash the blueberries a layer at a time in something like a pie plate using something like a potato masher.
- Add to a large pot.
- Add fruit juice, stir.
- Sprinkle the pectin over, stir until the pectin is dissolved.
- Put on burner, add the sweetener you are using, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Then, boil hard for 3 minutes.
- Immediately turn burner off and remove pot from heat.
- Skim off any foam, if there is any.
- Ladle into hot quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars.
- Leave 1 cm (¼ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process jars for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Notes
- 1 kg (7 cups) of whole blueberries, after mashing, will equal about 1 litre (4 cups) of mashed. A tidge over or under is fine. But if you measured your berries by weight, you won't be too far off that.
- If using frozen blueberries, zap from frozen in microwave for 4 to 5 minutes, then mash, retaining any juice that might have come off while thawing.
- Don't crush or mash the berries in a machine, it will damage the pectin.
- For the fruit juice, you can use cranberry, apple, grape, etc.
- In 2015, the recipe called for 1 cup (200 g / 8 oz.) of sugar. Sometime between then and 2022, they boasted the amount to 1 ½ cups of sugar. As no sweetener at all is needed for either the safety or success of this recipe, feel free to use less than the new higher amount if you wish -- it depends on the tastes of your crowd and how sweet / tart that particular batch of blueberries was.
- How much Splenda or stevia you need will again depends on the tastes of your crowd and the blueberries in question.
- Ball / Bernardin No Sugar Needed is the same; it's made in the same plant and just labelled with different names on the packaging. If you are using the Ball No Sugar Needed pectin from a canister, you'll want 3 level tablespoons.
- Boil hard means it should bubble for the whole 3 minutes.
- You could also use the 125 ml (½ cup) smaller sampler size jars. But this recipe hasn't been tested for larger ½ litre (1 US pint) jars.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Information about no-sugar needed pectins.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe source
Source: Light Blueberry Jam – No Sugar Needed Pectin. Bernardin web site. Accessed August 2015.
Modifications made:
- None.
How to make the original recipe
Omit stevia. The original recipe is sugar-free, so use the sweetener of your choice adding according to directions provided with your pectin packaging. You will need to recalculate nutritional values if that matters to you.
Nutrition information
Serving size: 2 tablespoons
Sugar-free version
Per 2 tablespoons: 17 calories, 0 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
Holly Brooke
Hi there,
I’m wanting to make BlackBerry jam using Pamonna (sugar free) pectin and stevia to sweeten. Using your recipe above, how long of a shelf life would you say the jam might have, being sugar free? I will use a water bath to preserve the jam.
Thanks!
Healthy Canning
For best quality, especially with sugar-free, use within a year. After that, it will be safe, but will start to darken (though clearly you may not notice with blackberry!) If you store in a cool, dark place, your quality storage life is even longer. See: https://www.healthycanning.com/jar-sizes/
Karla Hardy
Can you use honey in place of the white sugar?
Healthy Canning
There wouldn’t be any safety ramifications, but because honey is a liquid, its use might have a bearing on the success of the recipe. You are best to ask Bernardin that directly.
Kenneth Mize
I only have pimt jars , can I use them orbdo I have to have 1/2 pint jarx?
Healthy Canning
The only tested size for shelf-stable home canning here is the half-pints. You could put it in the pint jars, and freeze the jam. Be sure to leave about 1 1/2 inches of headspace for expansion when frozen.
Thea Showalter
Can you sub water for fruit juice?
Healthy Canning
Ask Bernardin directly if they have any caveats.