Strawberry jam and what to do with a glut

Strawberries are the first crop of the season, the busiest farm gate of the year, and the fruit people most reliably over-pick. They are also the worst keeper on the site: two days in the fridge and they are going. Plan the evening before you plan the drive.

Sort the moment you get home

Tip the punnets onto a tray in a single layer. Anything bruised or leaking gets used tonight, anything perfect goes in the fridge unwashed, and the middle gets hulled and frozen. Do not wash strawberries until you use them, and never leave them stacked in a deep container.

Strawberry jam

Strawberries are low in pectin, so this needs help. Lemon is the honest fix.

Ingredients: 1 kg hulled strawberries, 800 g sugar, juice of 2 lemons.

Method: Halve any large berries but leave small ones whole. Layer with the sugar and lemon juice in the pan and leave for two hours or overnight. The sugar draws the juice out, so the fruit holds its shape instead of disintegrating.

Warm gently until the sugar has completely dissolved. Only then raise the heat and boil hard, ten to fifteen minutes, skimming the foam. Test on a chilled saucer: push the blob and look for a wrinkle. Strawberry jam sets softly and often needs longer than you expect, but boiling past the set point makes it dark and toffee-flavoured, so test early and often.

Rest five minutes off the heat and stir once before potting, so the fruit distributes instead of floating to the top of the jar.

Freezing strawberries properly

Whole frozen strawberries thaw to mush, so decide what they are for.

For smoothies: hull, freeze on a tray, bag.

For anything cooked: hull, slice, toss with a spoonful of sugar per punnet, then freeze flat in bags. The sugar protects the texture and they thaw into a usable compote.

For a quick sorbet: blitz frozen sliced strawberries with a little icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon straight from the freezer, and eat immediately.

Two things for tonight

Roasted strawberries. Halve, toss with a spoon of sugar and a splash of balsamic, roast at 200C for fifteen minutes. It rescues under-ripe or watery fruit better than any other method.

Macerated strawberries. Sliced, sugared, left twenty minutes. They make their own syrup. On ice cream, or on a plain sponge.

Updated 10 September 2026