Rhubarb Strawberry Jam
There is something about the first harvestable fruit of the season. After months of frozen, canned, or otherwise processed fruit, rhubarb shines in all its fresh, tart glory come spring. Every year the unfurling leaves herald the beginning of garden bounty. In pie, bars, cake, crumbles, curds, muffins, it adds a bright note that matches the optimism of the spring season. Alas, its moment of glory is short-lived. Once the strawberries are here, or the other berries start ripening, I start to lose interest in rhubarb. Except for in jam. It feels a little sacrilegious, being married to a blueberry/blackberry farmer, but our favorite jam is strawberry rhubarb, the ideal marriage of two ruby-hued fruits. A few years ago I ran across a strawberry rhubarb jam made without pectin. There’s nothing wrong with pectin, but by making a jam without it, the fruit to sugar ratio isn’t quite so shocking. Measuring out the sugar when making jam always makes my jaws tingle a bit. For example, the Ball strawberry-rhubarb jam is 2 cups of each fruit and 5 1/2 cups of sugar!! This recipe is over double the amount of fruit, with the same amount of sugar. More fruit, less sugar? I’m in!
It’s part of many a school lunch PBJ, gets dolloped on freshly baked loaves of bread, smothers sourdough waffles on Wednesdays (our weekly tradition) & sweetens up plain Greek yogurt for a very satisfactory replacement for our favorite Noosa strawberry rhubarb yogurt.
The window where rhubarb and strawberries overlap is small, if at all, so I typically chop up the rhubarb and freeze it until strawberry season. Or if you stumble across a forgotten bag of frozen strawberries when defrosting your freezer and it happens to be rhubarb season, well, there’s really nothing else to do, but drop everything and make a batch of jam.
Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam (no pectin)
Yield: 6-7 half pints
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, around 5 cups sliced
2 pints fresh strawberries, 4-5 cups halved
5 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
Directions
Rinse and slice rhubarb into 1/2” slices. Rinse and hull strawberries, cut in halves, quarters if large. Combine rhubarb, strawberries and sugar in a large pot and stir. Let set for 2 hours at room temperature, covered.
Meanwhile, prepare your jars, (lids and rings if canning). I prefer to freeze this jam to preserve the fresh fruit flavors as much as possible, as it does have a decent amount of cooking time to reduce and thicken it. It can definitely be canned though as well.
Add the lemon juice to the fruit and place pot over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium and cook until temperature is around 220, or it passes the cascading test, stirring frequently to prevent scorching (this can take a while: and hour to an hour and a half). I’ve never actually had my jam reach 220; it will sit at 218 for a while, but won’t increase those last 2 degrees. So I usually just trust the cascading test; I scoop some with a large spoon and let it fall back into the pot. If it runs off quickly in a single stream, not done. If it “cascades off in a sheet,” I call it good. Some of my batches have been runnier, which is fine for most of my uses. Call it ice cream topping if you must:).
Once jam is thickened, skim off any foam and ladle into prepared jars, leaving a 1/4” of headspace. To freeze: place on lids, tighten and wipe jars clean. Let set at room temperature for 24 hours, then freeze. To can, process in boiling water canner 10 minutes.
And enjoy! Let us know if you have any questions, or how you put your strawberry-rhubarb jam to use.