Strawberry rhubarb jam with Original Fruit Pectin
June in a jar: the first strawberries and the last tender rhubarb, set with powdered pectin so the tartness stays sharp.
Makes
About 6 × 250 ml jars
Active time
40 minutes
Total
1¼ hours including processing; 24 hours to cool and set
Photo ewen and donabel on Flickr · CC BY 2.0
Before you start
What keeps this jar safe
- Rhubarb leaves are poisonous (oxalic acid). Trim stalks well below the leaf and keep the leaves away from children and the compost bowl that pets get into.
- Fruit, sugar and pectin stay at the tested amounts: 875 ml strawberries, 250 ml rhubarb, 1,300 ml sugar, one 57 g package of Original Fruit Pectin. More rhubarb than this changes the set and is not the tested recipe.
- Bottled lemon or lime juice — the acidity of fresh citrus varies and the set depends on it.
- Powdered pectin goes in before the boil; the sugar after. Boil hard exactly 1 minute. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner.
This follows Bernardin: Strawberry Rhubarb Spring Festival Jam (Original Fruit Pectin). 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
- 875 ml (3½ cups) crushed strawberries — about 2 L (2 quarts) whole berries
- 250 ml (1 cup) finely chopped rhubarb, about 2 medium stalks
- 5–10 ml (1–2 teaspoons) finely grated lemon rind, about 1 lemon
- 50 ml (¼ cup) bottled lemon or lime juice
- 1 package (57 g) Bernardin Original Fruit Pectin (powdered)
- 1,300 ml (5¼ cups, about 1.05 kg) granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon (2 ml) butter or margarine, optional, to reduce foaming
Processing
- Jars
- 250 ml (half-pint) · 125 ml (quarter-pint) same time
- Headspace
- 0.5 cm (¼ inch)
- Time at 0–300 m (0–1,000 ft)
- 10 min
- Higher up
- Same time for 250 ml jars. Above 305 m (1,000 ft) add 5 min; above 915 m (3,000 ft) add 10 min; above 1,830 m (6,000 ft) add 15 min; above 2,440 m (8,000 ft) add 20 min.
Method
- 1
Put 6 clean 250 ml jars on the rack of a boiling-water canner, cover with water and heat to a simmer (82 °C, 180 °F). Wash the lids and set them aside dry.
- 2
Wash and hull the strawberries and crush them one layer at a time; measure 875 ml (3½ cups). Wash the rhubarb, trim off every bit of leaf, and chop finely; measure 250 ml (1 cup). A child can crush berries while you chop. Measure the sugar into a bowl.
- 3
In a large, deep stainless-steel pot, stir together the strawberries, rhubarb, lemon rind, lemon juice, butter and the pectin.
- 4
Over high heat bring to a full rolling boil. Add all the sugar at once and, stirring constantly, return to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Boil hard exactly 1 minute, stirring. Remove from the heat and skim the foam.
- 5
Ladle into one hot jar at a time to 0.5 cm (¼ inch) from the rim. Free the bubbles, adjust the headspace, wipe the rim, centre the lid and tighten the band fingertip-tight. Return to the canner and fill the rest.
- 6
Cover the jars with at least 2.5 cm (1 inch) of water, lid on, bring to a full rolling boil and process 10 minutes at 0–305 m (0–1,000 ft).
- 7
Turn off the heat, take off the lid, wait 5 minutes, lift the jars straight up onto a towel and leave 24 hours. Check the seals, remove the bands, label and store.
Keeps: Best within a year in a cool dark cupboard. Refrigerate after opening and use within 3 weeks.
Variations: Frozen rhubarb and strawberries from June work in October: thaw, chop and crush, and measure as fresh. A vanilla bean split into the pot and fished out before jarring is a popular addition that does not change the recipe.
Tested source: Bernardin: Strawberry Rhubarb Spring Festival Jam (Original Fruit Pectin). 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
Strawberries: when to pick, how to store, what else to make →
Freeze them. Hull, rinse, dry on a towel, spread on a tray, freeze, bag: whole berries that pour out loose all winter for smoothies, sauce and muffins. Sliced or crushed berries freeze well with 180 ml (¾ cup) sugar per litre of fruit for pie and shortcake. Strawberry jam is the other great use — a tested powdered- or liquid-pectin recipe, water-bathed 5–10 minutes depending on the recipe and your altitude — and uncooked freezer jam, which tastes more like the fruit than any cooked jam, keeps three weeks in the fridge and a year in the freezer. What does not work: canning strawberries whole. They are not on the tested list for canned berries because they collapse, float, bleach pale and lose their flavour in the jar; the way to keep strawberries in a jar is as jam. Dried strawberry slices and fruit leather are good but a lot of fruit for a little result.
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