a simple {real food} recipe :: raspberry chia jam

We are so blessed to live in such a great area for berry picking all summer! We just said good-bye to blueberry season and hello to raspberry season at Delange’s Red Berry Farm a couple weekends ago. The girls had so much fun – and I was able to gather much more with my awesome hubby helping me with an extra set of hands to manage the kiddos!

We were able to glean 5 quarts in the 45 minutes that the attention span of a 3 and 1 year old will allow 🙂 We froze half of it, made up some popsicles for an after dinner treat, and I made up about 3 cups of raspberry jam. This is a fun and very easy, fool proof way of making your jam with an extra nourishing kick! Chia seeds! This power packed super food makes a fantastic thickener/binder in many recipes, and today I’m going to show you how to use it to gel up your raspberry jam!

I store jam in these sweet little 8 oz Ball containers that I used to use for baby food making. We don’t go through a ton of jam at a time, so this size works well for us. It freezes up nice and I can have a small container in the fridge that will keep for a week or so. If you go through it more quickly, pint mason jars might work nicely!

Here’s what you’ll need:

6 cups raspberries

1/3 cup maple syrup (Local if possible, or use raw honey – again local if possible or THIS is a good brand)

¼ cup chia seeds

1. Bring the raspberries and maple syrup to a boil in a pot and cook at a simmer for a  few minutes stirring along the way.
2. Stir in the chia seeds.
3. Transfer to a blender and blend up to consistency you wish. I don’t have a powerful blender that will blend up til smooth – to be honest all I have is a Magic Bullet! I do it up in 2 batches and it doesn’t make it super smooth, but I love the texture. If you have a Blendtec or Vitamix you will be able to get a smoother consistency!
4. Transfer back to the pot and cook on medium for about 10 minutes until thick, stirring along the way to be sure it doesn’t stick. It will thicken up more as it cools and once in the fridge.
5. Store in the fridge up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for about 6 months.

Kitchen Tips:

1. This works with other berries if you prefer strawberry jam! We did that early this summer and it was delicious 🙂
2. Play around with the sweetener to your taste – kinda depends on the sweetness of your berries.
3. I don’t have a beef with pectin and traditional methods of making jam! Go for it if that is your thing! (And make me some!)
4. We do enjoy jam on toast some mornings, but here are a few other ideas to use your jam! Swirled into cream cheese! A middle layer of a muffin! To sweeten a smoothie! Swirled into soaked oatmeal! And how could we forget a PB and J 😉

YOUR TURN!

What do you like to use your jam in/on/for?!  Do you make traditional jam? How much and what kind will you be making this year? Let me know if you try the recipe and how you like it!

I’ll be showing you one of my batch prepping secrets to a fast but filling, warm breakfast on Monday! I promise this will even work for school mornings!

This post was shared at Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday!