Easy and good on everything…plus no knowledge of canning required! What’s stopping you from trying this blackberry and basil jam recipe?

This post originally appeared on Catz in July of 2013. Now, over a decade later, we’ve remade it, rephotographed it, and changed up the recipe! Enjoy!

Gosh, I love jam so much! I rarely eat toast without it. I love it on biscuits or atop a scone. It’s good on pancakes or waffles…I mean, even on ice cream it’s good. However, I don’t know how to can, well, anything. I’ve never been taught and I’ve no idea where to start. It feels very intimidating to me. This blackberry and basil jam, however, is anything but intimidating.

Years ago, I saw Giada make this jam on her show (this was back when I was still very much learning how to cook – I didn’t know anything when I got married), and I pretty much devoured cooking shows. I feel like I lived in a very special cooking show age. Everything is reels and short videos now, which are great. But I loved watching cooking shows with young Grace and Eden. It was always family friendly and I learned so much!

After I started my blog (a million years ago) I made this jam using marionberries and mint. I remember I had a ton of marionberries in my freezer (Oregon is unique in that this is the only state in which they grow, as far as I know – they’re very similar to blackberries, except they have a firmer skin and are tart AND sweet), and at the time I was growing my first garden. I was a genius for planting mint because I quickly had more mint than I knew what to do with. As I’m remaking, rewriting, and rephotographing this recipe, I not only do not have any marionberries in my freezer, but I’m also NOT growing any mint or basil! I did have plenty of basil on hand from a previous recipe, and I thought with it being the end of summer and blackberries still plentiful, this would be a delightful recipe to update for y’all.

One of the things I really like about this recipe is that it doesn’t involve canning (see above), but it also doesn’t require any pectin – which I know some people don’t like to use any way. There are very few ingredients in this recipe, which is lovely (and easy on the pocketbook in this age of inflation), and it tastes so beautiful. Seriously, the basil adds the deepest, most luxurious of flavors.

However, since we’re not canning or using pectin, I did a little research on shelf-life for this type of jam. It is really important to boil your jam until the mixture reaches a temperature of 220 F.

Make sure you’re using a clean jar. When the jam has boiled for 25-30 minutes, transfer the jam to the clean jar and cool to room temperature. Then seal her up and keep her in the fridge for up to three weeks. How brilliant is that? No canning and no pectin!

I did use Giada’s original recipe this time, but like I said, I used marionberries and mint previously and that was divine. You could use nearly any berry you want and dress it up with an herb…I’m thinking strawberries, thyme, and lemon zest would be incredible as an example. You could swap the orange juice in the recipe for something else like maybe lemonade, blueberry juice, maybe even grapefruit juice…as a few ideas?

There are just so many different ways that you could play with this recipe to make it your own. You could even double it and give one away as a gift!

If you’re looking for some ideas of how to serve this…we recently added this to a cheeseboard we made and it really enhanced some of the flavors of the cheese (ahem, I’m looking at you, my beloved goat cheese), but you could also use it on top of yogurt and ice cream. It could be really decadent on grilled pork chops or even dress some chicken up with it. And of course, use it on toast, pancakes, and waffles.

Tell me in the comments how you would choose to enjoy this jam, and if you would mix up any of the flavor pairings!