How to Make and Can Strawberry Habanero Jam

This strawberry habanero jam is a delicious combo of sweet and spicy. Similar to our ever popular strawberry jalapeño jam, but with a slightly different kick.

It’s strawberry season again, and that means its time to make som fun jams and jellies. We love a classic strawberry jam, but there’s nothing like having a little fun and changing it up a bit.

This jam is perfect on homemade biscuits, alongside barbecue. for breakfast too, if you’re the type who can stomach spicy stuff first thing in the morning.

Perhaps even better, serve it alongside cream cheese and crackers on a charcuterie board.

Tips for handling hot peppers

If you trim, deseed, and dice habaneros with your bare hands, believe me when I say, you’ll have spicy hands for hours afterward. This can be a problem is you inadvertently touch your eyes or nose, as we often do without thinking.

I highly recommend wearing food handling gloves while cutting habaneros, and avoid using a wooden cutting board if possible, as the oils from the peppers can soak in, and taint your for for quite some time.

Be sure to wash your tools immediately after use, so that the super hot oils of the peppers don’t have time to permeate them.

With that said, as long as you’re mindful, clean your things, and discard your stems and seeds quickly, it really shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

I usually use a plastic cutting board to cut peppers, but the last time, I did use my wooden one (because I’m forgetful), and after a couple of good washes with detergent, it was fine (do oil a wooden cutting board after using detergent on it though!).

Ingredients for Habanero Strawberry Jam

This recipe is quite simple and uses only five total ingredients – one more than your usual strawberry jam.

• Strawberries – these can be fresh (preferable), or frozen – just be sure to thaw them before use, and make sure to include the juice that they release as they thaw in your measurements.
• Habanero peppers. These make your jam delightfully spicy, adding a little kick to offset the sweet jam.
• Lemon juice. This helps bring out the flavor, and counter some of the sweetness of the sugar.
• Fruit pectin. I use powdered pectin. This helps the jam set reliably. without it, jam making is a bit of a guessing game, because you can’t know exactly how much pectin is in your fruit.
• Granulated sugar. This not only sweetens the jam, but also helps the jam set, as well as acts as a preservative, making your jam more shelf stable than sugar-free alternatives.

Equipment needed for canning jam

To can this, or any other jam, you need only a few things.

• A large pot. This can be one made specifically for water bath canning, or a stock pot. As long as it’s a few inches taller than your jars, and you have a rack that will fit into it.
• A rack. As mentioned you need a rack to fit into the bottom of your pot. This is important so that the water can circulate on all sides of your jars, and so that the direct heat doesn’t break your glass jars.
• Canning jars. I’m not too picky about brand here. I usually use 8 or 16 oz jars, and end up buying Ball half pint jars (I make a lot of jam to sell at the farmer’s market), but sometimes Walmart has their own brand on sale, and those work just as well. The lids aren’t as good though, which brings me to the next bit:
• Canning lids. When you buy new jars, they typically come with lids, so you don’t have to worry about buying lids separately. However, after that first use, you will probably need to buy replacement lids. You can order them from amazon, or pick them up at Walmart or most other stores, but I prefer to order mine from Denali Canning. I’ve been using them for three years or so, and I haven’t had one fail to seal yet – except that time when the jar broke, so not the lid’s fault. They also have guarantee, which other brands don’t have, so they’re invested in making sure you get a good product.

Tips for making the best strawberry habanero jam

This is an easy jam recipe to make, but here are some tips, mainly geared toward getting even flavor, with no hidden surprises if you know what I mean.

• Blend the strawberries, rather than mashing. I use my immersion blender to make it easy. This makes all of your strawberries small, and evenly distributed throughout the jam. This is personal preference, and if you prefer to have big chunks here and there, by all means, go for it! But with the inclusion of peppers, I like to make sure everything is even.
• Dice the habaneros very finely. I’m talking 1/16th of an inch. This is pretty easy, since we’re only dicing 3-4 peppers per batch, and it helps distribute the heat, with no unexpected big pieces to overload your senses.
• Use a larger pot than you think you need. For this batch, I recommend at least 4 quart capacity. You need room to stir in the sugar, and your jam needs room to roll and boil.
• Add a teaspoon of butter to the strawberries. This helps keep the mixture from developing a lot of foam, which you will need to skim off before canning due to the air bubbles. I find this to be most effective if it’s added while the strawberries are still cold. If you wait until the jam has already started to foam, I find it to be much less effective.

How to make strawberry habanero jam

1. Cap, crush, and measure strawberries. You will probably need two quarts of strawberries to make four cups once they’re capped and crushed.
2. Deseed and finely dice habanero peppers.
   
3. Combine both strawberries and peppers in a large (at least four quart) pot, with lemon juice and, if using, butter.
4. Stir in powdered pectin until dissolved.
5. Heat over medium heat until mixture is boiling, stirring occasionally.
6. Once mixture has reached a true boil, add sugar all at once, and stir until sure is completely incorporated. At this point, there is no longer any need to stir.
   
7. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil over medium or medium-high heat.
8. Once mixture has reached that full boil, time for one minute.
9. After the minute is up, remove from heat.
10. Skim off any foam, and ladle hot jam into containers. These can be freezer jam jars, which you can let cool, and then store in the freezer. Or, if using canning jars, proceed to canning instructions.

Canning strawberry habanero jam

One popular method for canning jams and jellies is simply inversion. With this method, you sterilize all your equipment, then ladle the hot jam into the jar, screw down the sterilized lid firmly, and invert the jar for about ninety second. Stand the jar back up, and let cool. The jar should seal as it cools. For this, the jam needs to be jarred straight from the stove, while it’s still piping hot.

This method is not an official method. and can result in, shall we say, not the firmest seals. Some jars don’t get quite sterile enough, and you end up with mold here and there. Most home canners don’t worry too much about it, because theirs is considered to be too much sugar in these jams to grow harmful mold. incidentally, this is a continuation of the method our great grandmothers used or sealing jars of jam and jelly with wax. The principle is the same: to keep impurities out.

If I’m being honest, I’ve used this method more often than not for my own personal jams. And so did my mom, and my neighbors, and… you get the idea.

And I recommending it? Not necessarily. Like with all shortcut methods, it’s not the most reliable, and is the most likely to result in waste.

Not only that, but it’s’ not an officially approved method, and it would be irresponsible and risky for me to recommend it.

but it is worth knowing about. If nothing else, it can be useful to know if you’re making a lot of jam and don’t have time to water bath can it all in the same day – you can rest easy, knowing that your jam will be okay until you can can it tomorrow.

With that said, water bath canning is very simple.

1. Ladle jam into sterilized canning jars, wipe rims with a soft cloth to ensure there is not debris, and screw down bands and lids.
   
2. If canning hot jam, fill your water bath canner with hot water. If jam is cooled, use cooler water
3. Be sure your canner is fully prepared, with a rack inside
4. Lower jars into water, ensuring that they do not touch each other, or the sides of the pot. This gives them a bit of room to shift around as the water circulates, without bumping and breaking.
   
5. Cover canner, and bring to a boil. Boil pints for 15 minutes, or half pints for 10 minutes.
6. Remove from heat and let cool.
7. When canner has cooled enough to make jars safe to handle, remove jars, and let finish cooling.
8. After 24 hours, test for seals, wash jars if needed, and store out of direct light.

Other recipes you’ll love:

• Jalapeño jelly
• Strawberry rhubarb jam
• Sugar-free strawberry jam
• Sour cherry jam
• Carrot Cake jam

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