Instant Pot Homemade Strawberry Jam Recipe

There's nothing quite like a thick, flavorful layer of homemade strawberry jam smeared across the top of gooey peanut butter slathered on top of warm crunchy toast or a bagel. Even saltine crackers are pretty tasty with some bright red ooey-gooey strawberry jam spread across each one. Most of us gravitate toward the glass jars of jelly or jam found on grocery store shelves, but truly, nothing can compare to homemade jam. Believe it or not, the process to make homemade jam is quite easy. Even sweeter than the jam itself is that it takes a mere 10 minutes to prep your ingredients and 17 minutes to whip up a batch of this homemade strawberry jam.

After she made her first batch of homemade strawberry jam, chef and recipe developer Susan Oliyanka vowed she would never buy store-bought jam ever again — that's how incredible her naturally sweetened concoction tastes. With just four ingredients and an Instant Pot, you too can have homemade strawberry jam waiting for you to sample in no time at all.

To create Oliyanka's homemade strawberry jam, you will need six cups (or two pounds) of fresh strawberries along with a cup of sugar, one lemon, and two tablespoons of cornstarch. If you aren't too keen on strawberries, you can swap them out for other fruit like raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and even apricots, Oliyanka advises. "Anything with water content ... one thing that would not work so well is a banana," she says.

Also, don't forget to find a sturdy storage container that will be appropriate for housing jam, like a mason jar with a lid or an old jam jar.

Start by gingerly holding each strawberry and slicing off the green leafy tops. Discard the tops and next slice the strawberries into four pieces each. Grab your Instant Pot and place the strawberries inside it. Measure out a cup of granulated sugar and pour it over the strawberries in the Instant Pot. Be sure to stir the berries three or four times, then let them sit for five minutes to soak up the sugar. During this step, the sugar draws out the liquid contained in the berries, and you'll end up with a puddle of sweet and shiny berries with a delicious strawberry syrup pooled up around them.

While the strawberries are hanging out in the Instant Pot, grab the cornstarch. Take the other lemon half and squeeze it into a small bowl, then add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Mix both ingredients together until thoroughly mixed. It's usually easiest to use a whisk to whip up a slurry like this. Cornstarch has the important job in many recipes of thickening up liquids like meat juices to make gravy. In this recipe, cornstarch helps the thinner strawberry puree become a thicker jam.

"It should be thicker than water, as in, it should be like heavy cream in terms of the consistency," Oliyanka says.

Turn the Instant Pot back on to sauté mode and cook the whole mixture on high for 15 minutes until it thickens. Use a wooden spoon and gently stir it up every two to three minutes for the duration.

"I find that a wooden spoon is much better to use in an Instant Pot, as it doesn't scratch the pot at all like a metal spoon. Home cooks can also use a silicone spoon," she says.

Grab your container and pour the homemade strawberry jam into the container to cool before consuming. Not only are mason jars handy and perfect for storing jams, but they're quite attractive, too, and would make a great gift brimming with berry jam.