Blueberry Jelly is a great spread for muffins, biscuits, and pancakes. The blueberries of the season really shine through.
You’re going to love this blueberry jelly recipe — the perfect addition to any summer spread, or a cherished topping all year long!
In fact, it’s one of our most popular summer recipes.
This is the perfect size jar of jelly to keep in your refrigerator for muffins, toast and sandwiches. Get some fresh blueberries and have a jar for breakfast tomorrow!
Let me first confess that I am afraid to can anything. It seems simple enough, and I have many friends that do it. I would love to have a pantry full of jellies, jams and pickles, but it just hasn’t happened. Instead I resort to making refrigerator pickles, freezer jam and small batch blueberry jelly.
Since a large part of the summer is blueberry season in New Jersey, I decided to try to make a small batch of blueberry jelly. While jam is easier to make because the fruit does not have to be strained, my family prefers the smooth texture of jelly. So strained blueberry jelly it was.
This blueberry jelly recipe makes one large jar of jelly and it keeps in the refrigerator for weeks. If you are a canner, go ahead and can some. I use a small strainer over a glass measuring cup to get all the juice from the cooked fruit. Make sure you have an old T-shirt or apron on because nobody likes to ruin their clothes with blueberry stains.
This jelly uses pectin to set, and most grocery stores carry it. I used the loose kind in a jar, so I used two tablespoons. This jelly spread a little thin and that’s exactly how my husband likes it.
You could use a bit more pectin if you would like to make a thicker jelly. But as far as peanut butter is concerned, this is the perfect topping on a PB and J sandwich.
Once my jelly is made, it inspires me to bake some fresh whole grain bread or fluffy buttermilk biscuits. Because who doesn’t like homemade blueberry jelly on toast or biscuits for breakfast?
And if you enjoyed this blueberry jelly recipe, why not try making blueberry preserves, which use more of the whole fruit, or a fabulous low sugar blueberry jam?
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Blueberry Jelly Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 pints Fresh Blueberries
- 1 cup Water
- 1 cup Granulated Sugar
- 2 tablespoons Powdered Pectin
- Fresh Lemon Juice From half a small lemon
Instructions
- In a small sauce pan, add the blueberries and water.
- Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes or until mixture starts to boil.
- Stir and crush the berries with a wooden spoon.
- Cook for another 5 minutes until all the berries have lost their shape. Remove from heat.
- Put a small strainer over a large glass measuring cup and let the juice strain through.
- Use a spoon to help make sure all the juice goes into the cup. Discard solids or reserve for something else. You should have a cup or more of blueberry liquid.
- Put the juice back in the pan with the sugar, pectin and lemon juice.
- Cook on medium heat until mixture comes to a simmer.
- Simmer for a few more minutes until jelly starts to thicken. More pectin can be added if you like a thicker consistency.
- Pour jelly into a glass jar and cool for half an hour.
- Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Chet
Monday 16th of June 2025
Well the juries still out... My water bath canned everything but the ones you are it got knocked over and went everywhere. I'm just going to go with the blue color scheme in my kitchen now. One of two things are going to happen. As it cools it's going to set up and start to look like jelly. Judging from the taste, if it does not set up I will have the tastiest blueberry syrup ever made. I bought it for a good bit longer than the recipe call for hoping it would thickwn up as mentioned in the recipe but sitting on the stove now it sure looks syrupy. Time will tell I guess? I added an extra tablespoon of pectin and two and a half tablespoons of lime juice. That's as close to half a medium size lemon as I can get according to Google AI. It's impossible to squeeze the jar that the lemon juice comes in so I went with the tablespoon measure. If it gels up in this recipe works for me the only thing I do different next time is run all of my blueberries through my juicer before I add water and boil. It was really hard getting all the berries to break up and release all their juices. I have a small press but I use on kumquats when I make jam but it made more of a mess than it was worth with Barry's exploding and shooting juice everywhere. I believe the juicer for making jelly is the best way to go. There was plenty of pulp left over and I have a few Frozen ones still so I think I might throw them all together and make a jam too?
Chet
Sunday 15th of June 2025
Thank God for Google. Two pints is 4 cups not one but why you don't say four cups when everything else is in cups only exacerbates the problem for people like me who are so easily confused by things other people seem to take for granted. Okay I've got my ingredients straightened out here I go... There's no live coverage available, news at 11:00. Unless I totally destroy a couple of gallons of blueberries in which case you'll never hear from me again cuz I'm too emotionally distraught to discuss blueberries again until next season's harvest.
Chet
Sunday 15th of June 2025
This recipe looks great and I think I'm going to try this one. I'm totally amazed at how many recipes on here don't seem to know the difference between jelly and jam. I love making jam with most fruits however because many of the blueberries I end up using are frozen even after being cooked they are very tough and chewy and that's the last thing you want in a jam. I'm after jelly to eliminate any solids. What I'm wondering here, because I have a blueberry orchard, can this recipe be multiplied evenly across all the ingredients? I'm comfortable in the kitchen but when trying something new I'm not a good enough cook to know how to alter a recipe without consequences. I literally have gallons and gallons of blueberries so two pints at a time is out of the question! I've decided to jelly them because freezer storing them has been such a miserable failure for me. Part of that is my fault because now that I live alone they end up being frozen for too long. I'm hoping that making jelly as I harvest them I will have fresh jelly and be able to preserve my blueberries without freezing.
josie pierce
Wednesday 17th of July 2024
Blueberry jelly recipe