French Style Strawberry Preserves Recipe

A high-angle shot into a jar of gorgeous red strawberry preserves with a spoon in it. There are large pieces of fruit in suspended in the preserves.

French Style Strawberry Preserves Recipe

There is no better way to bottle up the taste of fresh, ripe strawberries than to make French-style strawberry preserves. Made without pectin and with no specialized equipment, these preserves will surprise you with their fruity, bright strawberry goodness.

Course Jam

Cuisine French

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 25

Macerating/Resting Time 2

Total Time 2 30

Servings 1 oz servings

Calories 97kcal

Author Jennifer Field

Equipment

Ingredients

1.5 pounds fresh strawberries washed and topped. Weigh AFTER topping
19.2 oz granulated sugar
1 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla paste or extract

Instructions

Day 1

Cut large strawberries into 4 pieces, medium guys in half, and leave small ones whole. It's up to you to decide where you draw those lines!
Put them in a large, non-reactive saucepan with all the sugar and lemon juice. Cover loosely with a lint-free towel and refrigerate.

Day 2

Take your berries out of the fridge. You will be amazed at how juicy they will have gotten as osmosis works its magic!!
Heat over low/medium-low heat until it comes to a high simmer. It'll sort of bubble up in the middle but won't be at a hard boil. This could take about 45 minutes to an hour. Don't rush it.
Remove from heat, allow to cool to warm, cover with your trusty lint-free towel, and refrigerate.

Day 3

Strain the berries through a fine mesh strainer, shaking the strainer gently and letting it drain for a good 10-12 minutes.
Set the berries aside, pour the juices back into the pan, and heat to 220F.
Add the drained berries back in, along with any extra accumulated juices, and cook over medium to medium-high heat, stirring almost constantly, until the mixture reaches 223F. No mashing, only stirring, unless you want to crush all the fruit into jam. Which you can do. Your call. Getting the fruit to 223F will take way longer than you think it will, but it will happen. The mixture will also bubble up alarmingly, so make sure you are indeed using a large pot.
Once the preserves have reached 223F, remove from the heat, and skim off any foam that may still be lingering. Stir in the vanilla, and then pour into clean jars--either a pint jar and an 8 oz jar or 3 (or 4) 8 oz jars.

Notes

To Scale the Recipe Up or Down

No matter how many berries you have, this recipe is easy to scale up. Figure that for every pound (16 oz/454 grams) of strawberries, you'll need 12.8 oz of sugar. (80% of the weight of the berries)

And for each 1.5 pounds/680 grams of berries, you'll need 1 oz/28 grams of fresh lemon juice.

The easiest way to arrive at the amount of sugar is to multiply the weight of the berries by 0.8. So, for example, if you have 2 pounds of berries, that's 32 oz. 32 x 0.8 = 25.6 oz. In grams, that would be 907 x 0.8 = 726 grams sugar.

To Make Jam Instead of Preserves

All you have to do is mash the fruit rather than keep the large pieces and whole berries intact. Mash during Day 2 when you bring it to a simmer and/or mash on Day 3 as the fruit and syrup is coming up to 223F. Voila: jam!

Nutrition