Easy Elderberry Jam Recipe

A Fast, Simple, Delicious Elderberry Refrigerator Jam Made from Dried Elderberries

Got 30 minutes and some dried elderberries? Then you’ve got elderberry jam!

Got 30 minutes and some dried elderberries? Then you’ve got elderberry jam!

There’s no faster or easier elderberry jelly or jam recipe. Since it’s a refrigerator jam, this recipe requires no canning or processing after the jam is made. Fill the jars, pop in the fridge, and you’ve got one more easy way to incorporate the goodness of elderberry into your everyday diet.

There’s no faster or easier elderberry jelly or jam recipe. Since it’s a refrigerator jam, this recipe requires no canning or processing after the jam is made. Fill the jars, pop in the fridge, and you’ve got one more easy way to incorporate the goodness of elderberry into your everyday diet.

Easiest Elderberry Jam

Ingredients:

Elderberry Jam Jars

Instructions:

Measure the ½ cup dried elderberries into a small glass bowl or two-cup glass measuring cup. Add the ¾ cup cold water to the dried berries. Cover and refrigerate overnight (or eight to twelve hours) to rehydrate berries. (Alternatively, if you are short on time, you may bring the water and berries to a low boil and then simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Time permitting, rehydration is slightly better with the overnight cold-soak method, but either method will work. Read here for more on how to rehydrate dried elderberries for recipes.)

Pour the rehydrated elderberries and any remaining juice/water into a medium saucepan. Add the lemon juice and additional ½ cup water, stir to combine, then bring to a boil.

Remove from heat and carefully transfer the mixture into a blender or food processor. Keeping your hand on the lid of the blender, blend the berry mixture until a smooth, uniform consistency is reached (a few minutes).

Return the blended mixture to the pan. Sprinkle the powdered pectin over the berry mixture. Let rehydrate for one minute and stir to incorporate.

Stir constantly while heating and bring the mix to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Turn off the heat. Add the honey (or sugar). Stir to combine.

Heat, stir, and return the entire mixture to a rolling boil. Continue to boil for one minute, then remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary.

Pour the hot jam into jars. Cap and let cool for several hours. Refrigerator jam must be stored in the refrigerator, even before use, and is not considered shelf-stable at room temperature as it is not a canned product.

Yields three, eight-ounce jars of jam.

*This recipe originally appeared in The Complete Elderberry Tea Book. It has been adapted from a recipe from Frontier Co-Op, with changes made to improve sweetness and instructions. Enjoy!

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Make Elderberry Jelly from Dried Elderberries!

Elderberries may be hitting the mainstream now for their promising antiviral benefits, but the truth is that a lot of us homesteading and country types have had a relationship with elderberries for a very long time. Elderberries were always a part of our late-summer preserving in my mother’s and my grandmother’s kitchens.

Blessed with Abundance…Smells Like Childhood

elderberries on stem

If you grew up with elderberries, you’re sure to remember the rich smell of it processing. In my house it was always in the form of jelly. I recall it as a fruity yet rich, deep, earthy flavor, actually something of an acquired taste for me as a youngster, but which I grew to appreciate even more as an adult. We were blessed both on our property and my grandparents’ property next door with an abundant grove. Over the years, though, many of those bushes fell away, probably choked out by more dominant growth, and so, too, did my knowledge of elderberry as a prime food source.

I understand that a few bushes remain and I’ll have to go scouting for some cutting to root for planting elderberries here on the homestead (not that I don’t have native elderberries available near me, and in fact I have plenty of local cuttings, but there’s something about owning a piece of grandma’s elderberry bush that draws me).

Elderberry Knowledge Lost & Re-Found

At some point about five years ago I was reminded of elderberries once again. I think it came to me when we started making homemade wines with the fruits of our land and started looking at things other than grapes to make wine with. An older gentleman at the gym made mention to my husband, who made mention to me, and there was my head-smack moment. Elderberry is the PERFECT flavor for my husband! He’s not much of a sweets-eater, but elderberries are not sweet, and nor are most recipes that use elderberries. Earthy and balanced, he’d love elderberry anything, and I should have thought of it years before. In a wine, elderberry tends toward dark, heavier and dry, and not very sweet. exactly what he’d want. That gentleman sent him home with a bottle, and the rest, well, it’s homemade wine history.

Making Elderberry Jelly from Dried Elderberries

how to make elderberry jelly from dried elderberries

I did, however, manage to convince my husband to let me use a small portion of our first elderberry forages for a batch of jelly. And on this, too, he soon became hooked. Elderberry jelly recipes are pretty basic, and not too involved. The problem is often finding elderberries in season to make them…or being willing enough to spare from the wine for the jelly!

Recently, however, I chanced across a post from an herb and spice company, Frontier Co-Op, that I frequently order from online (usually through Amazon because it gets around their high wholesale minimums). I order from them primarily for ingredients for my homemade elderberry tea mixes. But Frontier had recently shared a post on How to Make Elderberry Jelly from Dried Elderberries. This is a brilliant, simple elderberry jam recipe made from dried elderberries, so you can make it at any time of the year.

One More way To Get Our Daily Dose of Elderberry

Especially in the winter months (but really all year long), we try to incorporate elderberry into our daily diet. We do it for the immune support, the antioxidants and antiviral benefits, the high vitamin and mineral and overall strong nutritional profile, but mostly, we use it for the taste of elderberry. It’s simply delicious! We enjoy elderberry in wine. We enjoy it mostly in tea–it’s not hard to make a tasty, relaxing cup of elderberry tea a part of your daily habit. But we enjoy elderberry in other ways, too; like that jelly and like syrup for yogurt and summertime spritzers.

In the end, I believe we can get far with small changes to our daily diet and a return to traditional, wholesome, nutritional foods like elderberries. The challenge for us in this modern crazy age is finding the ways to incorporate those good foods. Simple recipes like this elderberry jelly that are easy–and delicious!–to use every day make eating well and harnessing the power of healthful traditional foods that much easier. I hope you, like me, SHARE and ENJOY this handy elderberry jelly recipe!