Seedless Blueberry Jam (Small Batch Recipe)

This easy Seedless Blueberry Jam recipe is beautifully smooth and incredibly delicious with no added pectin needed. Use fresh or frozen blueberries to make a small batch of jam at any time of year with my simple step-by-step instructions and handy hints and tips.

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This recipe is two of my favourite things coming together in beautiful harmony. If you are a regular around here, you’ll know that I’m new to blueberries but absolutely loving them. I’ve created a Simple Blueberry Sauce, a Quick & Easy Blueberry Curd, and Apple & Blueberry Crumble so far. (Hit the comments and tell me what I should create next!)

And then there is my love of smooth seedless jam. I have various texture issues with foods and chunks of fruit in my jam is one of them. I’ve always stuck with my Seedless Strawberry Jam as my go-to preserve recipe. But now I am totally converted to blueberry jam.

You see the jam covered toast images in this post? I have never had to work harder to not eat the photography subject than I did shooting those.

If you actually like your jam with more fruity bits in, you can still use this recipe. Simply skip the blitzing and sieving steps and you’ll find yourself with a more traditional fruit packed blueberry jam.

If you are confused about what makes a jam a jam, a jelly a jelly or a conserve a conserve, I’d written about this in my recipe for Seedless Strawberry Jam. I’ve also written about canning and preserving jams in that same recipe.

How to Serve Blueberry Jam

I think it is important for jam to be served at room temperature. As this recipe only makes 1 jar at a time, I never store it, it is always open so it gets stored in the fridge. But cold jam is not only a pain to spread but lacking in flavour. So if you can, try to take it out of the fridge at least half an hour before serving.

Jam is super versatile. You can serve it as a simple breakfast item smothered on toast, slathered on Homemade Bagels, or for a decadent continental feast, on buttery croissants. Don’t forget the butter to go with it.

Jam is perfect to use to elevate your bakes too. Switch up the usual strawberry or raspberry jam and use blueberry jam in your Victoria Sandwich Cake. Or give Cornwall a coronary and anoint your Scones with blueberry goodness.

You can also use it in your baking. Try blueberry jam in these Jam Muffins from Curly’s Cooking.

Ingredients for Smooth Blueberry Jam

Blueberries

Fresh blueberries are wonderful when they’re in season, especially if you have grown them yourself. Its the satisfaction that gives them extra flavour. But frozen berries are realistically just as great. And they’re available year round.

You can start the recipe with berries that are frozen or thawed, The first stage of cooking the berries down will just take slightly longer if you are starting with frozen.

What I think is important whatever type you’re using, is to just have a quick sort through them to make sure you get rid of any bits of stalk or berries that are past their best. There always seem to be one or two in a punnet that have got past the quality checks. It not going to be the end of the world if you miss them but I do like to have a quick check.

Sugar

You need to use a white sugar for jam but you do not need to use any kind of specialist jam sugar. Jam sugar contains added pectin which is not needed in this recipe. So you can just use regular granulated sugar. Caster sugar is fine to use too (although it is the much more expensive option) but you should avoid icing/powdered sugar as the weight quantities will be off.

You can use an unbleached sugar but please don’t use an actual brown sugar. The deeper caramel flavour is not really welcome in this jam and the recipe is also not tested with brown sugar. I would expect the quantity needed to vary.

Lemon Juice

Remember that I told you that this blueberry jam recipe didn’t required added pectin? That is slightly untrue. Some fruits contain more natural pectin than other and blueberries are on the low end. Lemon juice however is packed with pectin so a little added lemon makes sure that the jam sets perfectly.

Plus I like to tiny amount of tang that the lemon juice provides. I doesn’t matter if you use fresh squeezed lemon juice or the bottled kind.

Don’t be tempted to add more than the recipe states or you’ll create glue and not jam. If you do want to add extra lemon flavour, add some lemon zest before blitzing.

Be Flexible

You can add extra flavours to the jam fairly easily. I’ve already mentioned adding lemon zest. Orange zest or extract is also delicious.

You can add alcohol for extra kick but you do need to be careful adding extra liquids to the recipe. I wouldn’t add any more than 1 to 2 tablespoons to the recipe as written below.

Add that extra flavour once the blueberries are cooked down but before blending the fruit.

You can also mix up the fruit. So perhaps you want to make a blueberry and strawberry jam. In this instance you can just sub half the weight of blueberries for strawberries. Strawberries are softer and don’t need cooking down so you’d only need to add those just before blitzing too.

Vegetarian or Vegan Jam

This Seedless Blueberry Jam recipe is naturally suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.

Is Blueberry Jam Allergy Friendly?

This recipe is free from egg, dairy, gluten and nuts.

Discover More Homemade Jam Recipes

Smooth & Seedless Jam Recipes

Here you’ll find all of my fabulous jam recipes in one easy place. With no pesky pips, my recipes are all written to make small batches but can easily be scaled up to make larger quantities.

Featuring mixed berry, plum, blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, and raspberry, fig and dark cherry jams plus some ideas how to use it.

How to Sterilise Jars and Preserve/Can Jam

There is a whole world of variations and advice for how you should prepare your jars and deal with the jars once they’re sealed. They vary from person to person and country to country.

Here in the UK we largely make sure that the jars are properly sterilised, fill the jars with the hot jam, seal them and that’s that. In the US it is almost a given that the jars will then be “processed” to complete the “canning” process. I have purposely provided no links here – if you’d like to learn more about canning, Google is your friend.

There are a lot of strong feelings about this in the “jam community” (yes there is one) which I have no interest in being drawn into. All I know is that UK cooks have been making jam for a very long time without any issues. Therefore I am more than happy to follow the UK process for my jams.

Jar Sterilisation Options

There are several ways that you can sterilise your jam jars.

• Run the jars and lids through a hot wash in the dishwasher.
• Bake the jars and lids in the oven on a baking tray.
• Microwave the jars and boil the lids in water.
• Boil the jars and lids in water.

Whichever method you choose the only important thing is to make sure that the jars and lids are left to dry without being touched. And that you do not under any circumstances touch the inside of the jars or lids as this can contaminate them and undo your sterilisation. Tongs are your friend.

For the record, I usually use the dishwasher method.

How to Tell if the Jar is Sealed

It is essential to add the lid to the hot jars filled with the hot jam straight away. As the jam and jar cool, a vacuum is created in the jar and the lid will be pulled downwards. To help this, I often turn my jars upside down to cool.

This means that when you press the lid, it doesn’t move or pop. When you open a jar of properly sealed jam the lid will then pop. And an opened or not properly sealed jar will pop when you press it.

If your jars don’t seal properly, you can either keep the jar in the fridge and eat it relatively quickly or go though a canning process to seal them. The choice is yours.

Equipment Notes for Seedless Blueberry Jam

You don’t really need any great specialist equipment to make jam. The most important thing is to have a good sized pan. This recipe using just one pound of fruit makes a fairly small amount of the finished product but you still need to use a good large saucepan.

You might think that I’m being excessive when you first see the amount of fruit in the pan but it bubbles up so much when boiling, you’ll soon understand why.

There are a few things that will help make your jam making easier although they’re not essential. A thermometer is one of them. It turns out that I own quite a selection and they are all suitable. My laser thermometer (centre) is mess free and fun to use.

My meat thermometer (left) posed a little more peril as I needed to hold it in the jam until it registered the temperature. And my old fashioned sugar thermometer (right) just happily sat in the pan the whole time. But it was harder to wash up!

And don’t forget something the store the jam in. I love my super cute quilted jam jar set. But you can simply use old jam jars that you’ve thoroughly cleaned.

A comprehensive list of the equipment used to make this recipe is included in the main recipe card below. Click on any item to see an example. There are no hard and fast rules so many items can be sensibly substituted to achieve the same results.

Get Ahead

A properly sealed jar of jam should last at least a year. But I make small batches of usually just one or two jars so I open them almost straight away and keep them in the fridge.

If you want to be a last minute Larry, you’ll need to leave around 5 to 6 hours for the jam to properly cool and set. You can speed this up a little by popping it in the fridge after an hour or so, once it is no longer hot to the touch.

Smooth Blueberry Jam Tips

Do not touch the hot jam. I cannot stress this enough. I don’t care how tempting it looks. Or if that little bit on the side looks a bit cooler. Do. Not. Touch. It. You will regret it.

If you are using a thermometer, you can simply rely on the jam hitting temperature and not worry about doing the wrinkle test on a cold plate. I like to take a belt and braces approach so I use both testing methods. But you can just use one or the other.

I mentioned before to use a good big saucepan. This is worth repeating here!

If you don’t need to keep your jam for any length of time, you can skip the jar stage and use any old container and keep your jam in the fridge.

Don’t forget to let me know in the comments if you try making this recipe – I want to know what you think and if you made any substitutions, how did it turn out?

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