Microwave Strawberry Jam

Do you ever buy more strawberries than you can eat? It happens to me often enough during berry season, especially when I see huge tubs of berries on sale.

The problem is that often when they are on sale, they don’t have many days left in them, so you need to use them up right away.

My mother, bless her heart, has the perfect solution for too much fruit. She makes small batch jams in her microwave. She does it with the plums and figs from her trees (see her Microwave Fig Jam). 

This week I had a big container of strawberries that needed to get eaten or used, so I decided to use mom’s microwave method to make a quick batch of jam. Excellent!

It’s so easy. All you need are strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice (I added orange zest because it gives the strawberries some lift). And you need a large Pyrex or microwave safe mixing bowl.

After you’ve let the strawberries sit for a bit in the sugar to draw out their moisture, it only takes 15 minutes in the microwave on high to make!

2 1/2 cups of quartered berries will yield about 1 1/2 cups of jam. No candy thermometers needed, or big canning pots. No making dozens of jars to store for the winter or give away.

This approach makes a really small batch. But sometimes (usually) that’s all we need!

Microwave Strawberry Jam Recipe

The best strawberries for making strawberry jam are those that are firm and not soft, overly ripe, or too sweet.

You can sub 1/2 cup of the strawberries for 1/2 cup of chopped orange segments for more orange flavor. Just don't use more than 2 1/2 cups of fruit or your bowl may overflow in the microwave.

You can swap out some of the lemon juice with balsamic vinegar.

A tiny pinch of finely ground black pepper added in step 1 can add some zing to the jam.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups hulled and quartered strawberries (from about 1 pound)
• 2 teaspoons orange zest
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sugar (can reduce to 1/4 cup if you would like your jam less sweet)

Special equipment needed:

• An 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup OR a large microwave safe bowl (no metal)

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