Make a batch of this fake strawberry jam whenever your zucchini harvest is abundant. Similar to the actual thing in flavor! Unless you inform them, your relatives and friends won’t understand the difference.
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Additional Time: | 4 hrs |
| Total Time: | 4 hrs 50 mins |
| Servings: | 96 |
| Yield: | 6 half-pint jars |
Ingredients
- 5 cups peeled and shredded zucchini
- 5 cups white sugar
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 (3 ounce) packages strawberry flavored Jell-O®
Instructions
- Stir the zucchini and sugar together in a large pot over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture begins to boil, about 10 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice and gelatin, and continue simmering 5 minutes more, stirring constantly.
- Ladle the hot jam into 6 hot, sterilized half-pint canning jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe the rim and jar threads with a clean, damp cloth. Center lid on jar and screw the ring down firmly. Place into a boiling water canner covered by 2 inches of boiling water. Process for 10 minutes. Remove from the canner, and allow to cool to room temperature, and refrigerate any jars that do not seal.
- You can make any flavor of jam by changing the flavor of Jello(R) – try peach, blueberry, blackberry, etc.
Reviews
Folks use 6 cups shredded and peeled zucchini and only 2 cups sugar!! It’s still crazy sweet so 5 cups is an insane amount of sugar yikes. I also added a 1.5 oz box of suregel and one small can of crushed pineapple yum yum !!
I have tried this before, when we had a huge garden. I loved it. My question has any one tried it with a granulated artificial sweetener.
Sweet but good for using up excess yellow and green zucchini squash. Seedless cherry and strawberry jam. I did add about 2 tsp of imitation cherry and strawberry extract. I will try different flavors next time. Kids loved it. I thought it was yummy.
I decreased the sugar by 1 cup. It was still too sweet.
This recipe is like eating lumpy Jello. We tried it and didn’t like it. Sorry I wasted good zucchini on this recipe.
Great and easy! I used raspberry jello in place of the strawberry.
I have made this several times its very good.
Soooooo very good! I modified the recipe in two ways: 1. Decreased sugar to 4 cups and 2. After peeling and shredding zucchini, I put through my blender on puree and then placed into pan with sugar. Just my preference on not having stringy jam – very nice consistency this way. Oh – and don’t tell anyone it’s zucchini until after they RAVE about it!!
This turned out really good. Next time I may puree a little more – but my family did not know that difference – will make again
WOW, This was so easy and delish!! It did take longer that 10 minutes to get this to boil though. First time jarring too. Thank you Patricia!!
12 Quarts of tasty Strawberry syrup and 3 quarts of jelly. You must use pectin with this recipe if you desire jelly and it must come to a rolling boil for at least five minutes, but mine took much longer. Check for set. I love the flavor. I didn’t seed my zucchini, though I did puree it. I added a couple drops of blue food coloring in one batch for deeper color, and used crab apple pectin in one batch that lent a deeper color. Thanks for this recipe!
I read through the reviews before I attempted this recipe. I appreciate those who went before me and provided their tips so I knew what to do before I made it. I cut this recipe in half BUT I cut the sugar back twice so for a half recipe, I only used about a cup of sugar. After I’d cooked the zucchini with the sugar and it’d boiled, I cooled it a bit and then stuck the mixture in my blender and really blended it down to a thin almost soupy consistancy. I then added it back to the saucepan, re-warmed it, then stirred in the lemon juice and gelatin. After all is said and done, I think this was a fun recipe to make with on hand ingredients to make a quick freezer jam, but for us, it really wasn’t a home run. There’s nothing wrong with the recipe, it just wasn’t for us.
This worked great for me. The only change I made (based on other recipes I has read while searching for recipes) was to grind the zucchini instead of shredding/grating it.
This is really good. I made this with only four cups of sugar and it is still very sweet. Next time, I’ll make with three cups. I did not blend the zucchini/Jello mixture after boiling and there are obvious pieces of zucchini in the jam. Next time I will blend the mixture.
I was doubtful but with so much zucchini in my fridge I had to try it. This turned out great, really really great I plan on making alot more!
My jam came out way too thick. It wouldn’t spread at all. I think only 1 3-oz package of jello was needed. After it set, I boiled it down again, added 3/4 cup water, more lemon juice, 1 cup sugar and 4 more cups of shredded zucchini. I put this into jars and it was a better consistency.
Yah! Another delicious way to use excess zucchini from my garden. I followed the advice of a former reviewer and added a 1/2 box of sure-jell and pureed the cooked mixture a bit before pouring it into the jars to seal. I also added 1 T. of butter when I added the Jell-O and lemon juice to reduce the amount of foam. Can’t wait to try other flavors…deliciously sweet! Will definitely make this again for my family and for gifts!
This is a soft serve jam, since it does not use pectin. It tasted pretty good, except it was a little on the sweet side. Cool thing is, since it does not need pectin, you can scale down the sugar a bit if needed. I might do 3 to 4 c. of sugar rather than 5 next time. It’s a good recipe, it’s a keeper for sure.
Surprisingly delicious and tasty. 🙂 What a nice surprise and twist to a new jam recipe. My only slight gripe is the color. Due to the strawberry gelatin… the jam turns out to be a candy apple bright colored red and not exactly the color strawberry jam is naturally. I might next time add a drop of red food coloring in an attempt to slightly deepen the color a bit.
I didn’t care for this. I love the idea – I was so facinated with this recipe I had to try it. Unfortunately, it did not turn out well for me. The end result was an overly sweet jar of stringy, googy, sticky Jello flavored jelly. I thought the zucchini would break down but it was still very much intact. I think the other reviewer who cooked and blended her zucchini had the right idea. Knowing that, I still wouldn’t make this again because I didn’t enjoy the flavor of Jello as jelly.
What to do with all the extra zucchini??? This was a yummy recipe that my whole family enjoyed! I made a total of 50 pint jars and I will make this every year.