By Francesca Giuliani Hoffman, CNN
(CNN) — With the holidays near, there is one type of gift I’m always happy to receive — a delicious jar of homemade jam. And here’s the truth: You don’t need to be Martha Stewart or Ina Garten to make phenomenal jams.
I know you have follow-up questions. Is it safe? Is it easy? Do you need special equipment?
Yes, yes and no. All you need is a little bit of fruit, sugar and a clean jar.
Store-bought jams tend to be high in sugar, which acts as a preservative and a flavoring agent. These jams may also contain gelling agents for a firmer set. Making your own jam allows you to cut back on the sugar and keep the ingredient list to a bare minimum.
Whatever produce you may have in the fridge could be enough to get you started on your jam-making journey. Another bonus: Making jam out of ripe produce that you won’t realistically consume quickly enough is an excellent way to reduce food waste in your kitchen.
And that’s no small bunch of bananas: About 31% of food that is grown and produced goes unsold or uneaten in the United States, according to Sara Burnett, executive director of ReFED, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing food waste.
The personal cost of waste is real — and more noticeable when grocery prices are rising.
“Consumers waste about $800 per year from their own wallet that they are just throwing in the trash when they waste food,” Burnett said. “For my family of four — eight times four — I’m wasting about $3,000 a year in food that just goes uneaten, that otherwise could have fed my family or fed one of my neighbors in need.”
Get started on your jam-making journey
To make jam, pick your fruit and add some sugar. The ratio of fruit to sugar in a jam depends on personal preference, and it can be as high as 1-to-1.
You could add lemon, to lower the fruit’s acidity or pH level to give the pectin a boost and help things set, but you don’t have to, according to expert jam maker Claire Dinhut, a content creator and author of “The Condiment Book: Unlocking Maximum Flavor With Minimal Effort.”
Let fruit and sugar boil until they reach the so-called gel point, at 220 degrees Fahrenheit (104 degrees Celsius), at which you should be ready to jar it up.
“A lot of people, I think, get scared when they’re making jam, because sometimes there’s a looser set, sometimes it’s more like jelly, and that’s only because the fruit has a different level of pectin,” Dinhut said. Fruits such as apricots don’t have much pectin, while apples are rich in it.
A good training jam to get started with is a strawberry jam, according to Dinhut. In her experience, a strawberry jam doesn’t always set well, but “regardless of how loose it is in the jar, it’s going to taste like childhood and be really nice.”
It’s fun to experiment with ingredients and flavors for small-batch jams to be refrigerated and consumed quickly. If you’re interested in canning your goodies for longer-term storage, it’s recommended that you use safety-tested recipes from reputable sources.
Share small batches with family and friends
Making jam can be a casual, low-effort endeavor.
“When people think about making jam, they think they have to buy a case