Haskap freezer jam (no cooking, no canning)
Nobody has published a tested canning recipe for haskap, so this one follows Bernardin’s tested freezer-jam method for blueberries instead: raw fruit, freezer pectin, ten minutes, and it tastes exactly like the berry.
Makes
About 5 × 250 ml jars
Active time
15 minutes
Total
45 minutes including the 30-minute set
Photo Unknown photographer via Openverse · CC0 (public domain)
Before you start
What matters for this one
- This is a freezer jam. There is no tested water-bath recipe for haskap from Bernardin, NCHFP or a Canadian university or provincial lab, and a recipe for a different fruit cannot be assumed to carry over to a jar on the shelf. Freezer jam does not rely on acidity or a seal, so the substitution is safe here.
- It is not shelf-stable: in the fridge up to 3 weeks, in the freezer up to a year. Do not process it in a canner — this pectin and this sugar level are not designed for it.
- Use Bernardin Freezer Jam Pectin specifically. Regular, liquid and no-sugar-needed pectins each want their own recipe and sugar.
- Leave 1 cm headspace; the jam expands as it freezes and will crack a glass jar filled to the brim.
This follows Bernardin: Blueberry Freezer Jam — Freezer Jam Pectin (followed with haskap in place of blueberries; no tested canned haskap recipe exists). Quantities, acid and times are theirs; do not scale the vegetables without scaling everything, and do not change the vinegar, lemon juice or processing time.
Ingredients
- 1,000 ml (4 cups) crushed haskap — about 2 L of whole berries, roughly 1.2 kg
- 10 ml (2 teaspoons) lightly packed, finely grated orange zest, optional
- 375 ml (1½ cups, about 300 g) granulated sugar
- 1 pouch (45 g) Bernardin Freezer Jam Pectin
Method
- 1
Wash and rinse 5 Bernardin freezer jars with lids, or 250 ml mason jars with plastic storage lids. Rinse the haskap and pick out stems.
- 2
Crush the berries thoroughly by hand with a potato masher, or pulse in a food processor without puréeing — a child can mash. Measure 1,000 ml (4 cups) into a shallow pan.
- 3
Optional but worth it: heat the crushed fruit on the stove or in the microwave, stirring, just until it comes to a boil. It deepens the colour and flavour and softens the skins. Stir in the orange zest and set aside.
- 4
In a large bowl stir the sugar and the freezer-jam pectin together until evenly mixed.
- 5
Pour the fruit into the pectin-sugar mixture and stir for a full 3 minutes by the clock.
- 6
Ladle into the jars leaving 1 cm (½ inch) headspace, wipe the rims and put the lids on tightly. Leave on the counter about 30 minutes to thicken.
- 7
Label with the date and put the jars in the freezer, keeping out one for the fridge to eat now.
Keeps: Up to 3 weeks in the fridge; up to 1 year in the freezer. Thaw in the fridge overnight and stir before serving.
Variations: Haskap plus rhubarb, measured together to 1,000 ml, is the classic Prairie pairing.
Tested source: Bernardin: Blueberry Freezer Jam — Freezer Jam Pectin (followed with haskap in place of blueberries; no tested canned haskap recipe exists). Checked October 2026. If a jar did not seal, refrigerate it and use it within a few days. Never taste anything from a jar that is bulging, leaking, spurting or smells wrong — when in doubt, throw it out without tasting.
The crop
Haskap (honeyberry): when to pick, how to store, what else to make →
Haskap is the easiest berry to freeze and the one that comes out best: rinse, dry, tray-freeze, bag. The skin dissolves and the seeds go unnoticed when the thawed fruit is cooked, so frozen haskap makes sauce, pie, muffins and smoothies all winter with nothing lost. It is tart and high in acid, and it makes a deep purple jam, jelly and syrup that water-bath by a tested berry-jam recipe with pectin; juice and wine are the commercial uses. The University of Saskatchewan lists freezing, drying, fermenting and canning as its routes, but there is no tested recipe specific to whole haskap in syrup — so jam, syrup and the freezer are the home options, and whole canned haskap is not. Dried haskap works in a dehydrator like a blueberry, slowly.
More for haskap (honeyberry)
- Freezing
Tray-frozen berries: raspberries, strawberries, haskap
No sugar, no syrup, nothing to measure — a single layer on a tray, then a bag you can pour from. The way to save a picking before it moulds overnight.
A standard baking sheet holds about 1 kg of berries per freezing round · 15 minutes active
The recipe → - Drying
Fruit leather, apple or berry
Purée poured thin and dried into a roll-up: the snack children ask for by name, made from the fruit that was too soft for anything else.
500 ml (2 cups) of purée makes one 33 × 38 cm (13 × 15 inch) sheet, about 8 roll-ups · 20 minutes active
The recipe →