Strawberry Freezer Jam- The less sweet version

I picked up this magazine about canning, and there are so many recipes I want to try! Since we are right in the middle of strawberry season here in the Pacific NW, I thought that Strawberry Freezer Jam would be the perfect place to start! When you compare regular strawberry jam recipes to freezer jam recipes, you'll notice that freezer jam contains more sugar.  I would imagine this is because without the added cooking, freezer jam doesn't thicken as much, and so more sugar is added to compensate.  I would rather have runnier jam than extra sugar, so I reduced the amount of sugar added in my recipe.

Strawberry Freezer Jam
64oz Fresh Strawberries
6 Cups of Sugar
1tsp Lemon Zest (I diced mine after grating so I would not have large pieces of zest in my jam)
2, 1.75oz packages of Pectin
1.5 cups Water
Freezer Jam Containers







To start, you want to cut the stems off all your strawberries and rinse them with cold water.

Then you're going to mash all of the strawberries with a potato masher until they look something like this...

Next, have your best helpers mix the sugar and lemon zest into the strawberry mash. Let this mixture sit for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to mesh together.







The last step it to mix the pectin with 1.5 cups of water in a saucepan, and heat over high heat.  You really need to watch this pectin mixture as it will boil over if not stirred almost continuously.

Once the mixture is boiling, allow it to cook for 1 minute. 

Then, add the pectin mixture to the strawberry mash and stir for around 3 minutes, until sugar in the jam is no longer grainy.

Finally you can ladle the jam into your prepared containers and seal.  Let them sit at room temperature for 24 hours, and then either freeze or refrigerate.  Supposedly it will keep for 3 weeks in the fridge, and up to 1 year in the freezer!  Oh, and it turned out delicious by the way!