Strawberry Jam - no sugar added!

I LOVE strawberries and strawberry jam.  I always thought that making jam meant working for hours in the hot summer in a hot kitchen over a hot stove, doing the whole canning process (which I've never really done before).  I thought that the no-cook varieties (ie. freezer jam) was cheating.  But the more that I looked into it, and the more I've learned about nutrition, the more I like no-cook jam. First of all, it takes way less sugar than the traditional kind.  Secondly, fruit is always more healthy when it's raw, and cooking it makes it lose vital nutrients.  Lastly, I don't want to heat up my house in the summer by cooking and canning.

On a later date, I'll post my favourite freezer jam recipe. Today I'm going to talk about a recipe that came across my Facebook feed with a link to a FB group for the recipe, but I'm not sure if you can get to the recipe from that.  Fresh strawberry jam in 60 seconds with no sugar, no Certo/pectin or anything like that.  You use chia seeds to create the jelly-like texture, and just a bit of honey.  Interesting! 

Here's a quote from the FB feed, since I can't seem to get a good link to the actual recipe.

 

"Fresh Berry Jam in 60 seconds. Simply toss 1 cup of your favorite berries into a blender with 1 tbsp of chia seeds, and a tsp of honey. Blend, poor into a jar and place in the fridge over night."

I doubled the recipe - 2 cups of strawberries, 2 Tbsp chia seeds, 2 tsp of honey.  Instead of blending, I chopped them finely and mashed them with a potato masher, so there would still be chunks of fruit in it.

Here's the finished product.  It looks delicious, though you can notice the chia seeds.  My kids thought they were just the strawberry seeds.

It tastes great - very fresh, not too sweet.  Looking back, I shouldn't have doubled it because it didn't last as long as other jams would - after a week or so, it started looking a little off.  I'm not sure if you could freeze it, or just freeze the fruit first before making the batch.  Either way, it's a great little recipe, and SO much healthier than any other jam out there!