Jon and Gabriel both love jam on bread for breakfast, and as I’m all for healthy substitutes, I decided to start making my own jam at home — minus the sugar and all the empty calories. You can make jam out of pretty much any fruit by cooking it slowly on low heat until mushy and juicy. There are many ways to then thicken the cooked fruit and turn it into jam, but one of my favorite ways is to use chia seeds. Packed with omega-3 fatty acids, these miraculous seeds are renowned for their highly nutritious profile as well as they capacity to absorb liquid and expand, thus making them the perfect ingredient to use to thicken any sauce. I particularly love chia seed jam made with berries; feel free to substitute the blueberries in the recipe below with raspberries, blackberries or strawberries (or a combination) and play around with the amount of sweetener if you’d like a sweeter jam.
- 2 cups fresh blueberries
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds
- Rinse the blueberries in a sieve and put them in a pot. Cover and let them simmer with a splash of water for 7 to 10 minutes until they release all their juices and are soft. Mash the blueberries with a potato masher.
- Remove the pot from the heat and add in the lemon juice, honey and chia seeds. Let cool down to room temperature without touching so that the jam thickens.
- Transfer to an air-tight jar and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
