Homemade Apricot Jam

kitty | July 9, 2024   SKIP TO RECIPE  

A jar of Homemade Apricot Jam

There’s something so cheery 🌞 about the summer fruit season. So many juicy and tasty flavors are exclusive to these endless sunny days. While watermelon is the obvious favorite, I personally go for the stone 🗿 fruits. I consider it hitting the jackpot when I come home from the store with a bounty of fragrant, juicy and crisp peaches and floral, tart apricots. We even planted both kinds of trees recently and are already reaping the tasty fruit. Since the stone-fruit season is short-lived, we have to maximize by picking the trees clean and dividing the fruit amongst our families and finding different ways to enjoy them. This year’s apricot haul was absolutely nuts, so I got to making good use of my favorite fuzzy little fruits. That’s how this homemade apricot jam came to be. 

Not only are apricots my favorite stone fruits 🇦🇲, it just so happens they’re also my favorite jam flavor. Having heaps of homegrown apricots made it a no-brainer that they’d be fated for some jammy preserves. This homemade apricot jam is so simple to make with only a few ingredients and only a few minutes of active cooking time. Combine fresh fruit with sugar, lemon juice, and zest and then cook it all down after letting it sit for the natural juices to draw out for an hour. It only takes a few minutes of cooking for the apricots to break down and thicken the mixture. Adding in a whole vanilla bean pod with its seeds makes for a lovely floral complementary flavor to the apricots that store-bought jams just don’t have. I do like a chunkier jam so I just mashed some of the fruit with a potato masher, but feel free to go in with an immersion blender for a smoother finish.

Slather a heaping spoonful of this pure and tasty jam on top of buttered sourdough toast or homemade white bread, and you’ll marvel at the simple beauty of homemade jam. Even more ways to enjoy this are with a bowl of plain Greek yogurt, with scones or biscuits, or featured in a shortcrust tart. This recipe even makes enough to share with family and friends so you can spread the sunny cheer of summer all around.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 ½ pounds apricots, pitted and chopped
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
  • 1 vanilla bean pod, seeds scraped out, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. To a medium saucepan, add the apricots, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest. Stir until all the apricots are coated in the sugar and set aside to macerate for 1 hour.
  2. Place the saucepan over medium heat, add in the vanilla beans and the pod or extract, and cook, stirring constantly for 10-15 minutes until the apricots have broken down and the mixture has thickened. Smash the apricots with the back of a spoon, potato masher or immersion blender if you desire a smoother jam.
  3. Allow to cool in the saucepan for at least 20-30 minutes before transferring to a glass jar to store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

A jar of Homemade Apricot Jam with a butter knife on top
A piece of buttered toast with Homemade Apricot Jam on top and a jar of jam in the background
A piece of buttered toast with Homemade Apricot Jam on top
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