Sweet and tangy, this Plum Preserves is definitely a favorite among family and friends. It's fruity and chunky and perfect with creamy clotted cream and homemade sourdough toast. If you prefer the consistency of jam, you can blend it!
I've always loved plum preserves. Especially since mom made the BEST plum preserves that I've ever had. Luckily, this plum preserves recipe is a close second! Don't be surprised if this recipe takes you back to your mom or grandmother's plum preserves!
This plum jam recipe makes enough for 7 to 8 half-pints of jam.
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🧐 Why This Recipe Works
- If you have plums that don't have much flavor or overly ripe plums, don't toss them! They make excellent plum jam and preserve!
- This plum jam recipe does not require any pectin because plums are high in natural pectin, yay!
- Plum preserves makes a wonderful gift idea for family and friends!
- If you prefer the consistency of jam, you can use an immersion blender to make it smooth!
🛒 What You Need For This Recipe
🔖 Ingredients & Substitutions
- Plums: I recommend using flavorful juicy plums for this recipe. Luckily, this recipe is also fantastic with less flavorful plums or overly ripe plums.
- Sugar: Granulated sugar
- Citrus: I like to use a mixture of lemon and orange zest and juice in this recipe, but you can substitute one for the other if you need to. If you do decide to substitute lemon juice for the orange juice, use ¼ cup instead of ½ cup.
- Optional: If you'd like to add spices to your plum jam, I recommend a touch of cinnamon.
*A full ingredients list can be found in the recipe card below!
🔪 Helpful Tools
- Large pot
- Potato masher or Immersion blender
- Canner with canning tools including tongs
- 8 half pint jars
- kitchen scale
🍈 How to Make Plum Preserves & Jam
Note: Before you begin, add clean mason jars to a canner and cover with enough water to submerge the jars by at least a few inches. Do not include lids and collars. Bring water to a boil, then turn the heat down while working on the plum preserves.
Step 1: Wash, then chop plums into quarters or eighths, discard pits. Weigh chopped plums with a kitchen scale to equal 3 ½ pounds.
Step 2: Add plums to a large pot or Dutch oven. Sprinkle with sugar then add lemon and orange zest and juice.
Step 3: Heat the plum mixture over low flame until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.
Step 4: Bring plum jam to a rolling boil, then simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or until thickened. Mash with a potato masher or use an immersion blender for a smoother, jam-like consistency.
Pro Tip: Your jam can boil over very easily, so don't walk away from the pot. If it begins to boil over, stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until it recedes.
Step 5: The plum preserves may need to cook a few minutes longer, until plums are no longer opaque. You want them to be translucent!
Step 5: Skim the foam, as needed, then ladle the hot jam into sterilized hot jars. Leave ¼ inch headspace, wipe the rims with a kitchen towel, add clean lids, and screw collars on hand tight.
Pro Tip: If there's not enough jam to fill the 8th jar, store the jar in the fridge to consume first.
🫙Canning Process
Carefully lower filled jars into hot water. Bring to a boil, then process in boiling water canner for 15 minutes. See chart below to adjust time for altitude.
Pro Tip: Wait for the pings and make sure all jars seal before labelling and storing them!
⛰ Adjust Processing Time For Altitude
If you live 1000 feet or higher above sea level, you need to adjust the processing time for higher altitude! Follow the times listed below.
| Altitude | Additional Processing Time |
| 1,001 — 3,000 3,001 — 6,000 6,001 — 8,000 8,001 — 10,000 | 5 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes 20 minutes |
🤷🏻♀️ Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can use frozen plums to make plum jam or preserves. Rinse off any ice crystals that may have formed on them before using them.
Add the frozen plums into a Dutch oven along with the sugar until they defrost and continue on with the recipe. If you are going to freeze plums, it's best to slice them in quarters and remove the pit before freezing them.
Although some prefer to remove the skin off of plums before using them in jam, it's really a matter of preference. The skin can add texture and additional fiber to the recipe.
👩🏼🍳 Pro Tips
- Although some recipes call for peeling the plums, I prefer to leave the skin on. It's actually one of my favorite things about this recipe!
- If you prefer to make your plum preserves without the skin, just blanch the plums for approximately 45 seconds after slicing an "X" on the bottom of each plum first. This helps when peeling the skin off the plums.
- Remember that jam always thickens once it's refrigerated so do not overcook it!
- To make plum jam, you can either use an immersion blender while the preserves is in the pot, or run the preserves through a food processor.
- Plum jam is amazing over vanilla ice cream!
🍓Related Recipes
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
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📖 Recipe
Plum Preserves & Jam Recipe
Equipment
- 8 ½ pint mason jars
- 1 canner
- 1 Dutch oven
- 1 potato masher (or immersion blender)
Ingredients
- 3½ lbs. plums
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- ¼ cup orange juice
- ¼ cup lemon juice
Instructions
- Before you begin, add clean mason jars to a canner and cover with enough water to submerge the jars by at least a few inches. Do not include lids and collars. Bring water to a boil, then turn the heat down while working on the plum preserves.
- Wash, then chop plums into quarters or eighths, discard pits. Weigh chopped plums with a kitchen scale to equal 3 ½ pounds.
- Heat plum mixture over low flame until the sugar begins to dissolve, stirring occasionally.
- Bring the plum jam to a rolling boil, then simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or until thickened. Mash with a potato masher or use an immersion blender for a smoother, jam-like consistency.
- The preserves may need to cook a few minutes longer, until plums are no longer opaque. You want them to be translucent!
- Skim the surface to remove foam, as needed, then ladle the hot jam into sterilized hot jars. Leave ¼ inch headspace, wipe the rims with a kitchen towel, add clean lids, and screw collars on hand tight.
- Carefully lower filled jars into hot water. Bring to a boil, then process in boiling water canner for 15 minutes. See chart in post to adjust time for altitude.
Notes
- Your jam can boil over very easily, so don't walk away from the pot. If it begins to boil over, stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until it recedes.
- If there's not enough jam to fill the 8th jar, store the jar in the fridge to consume first.
- Wait for the pings and make sure all jars are sealed before labelling and storing them!
- Although some recipes call for peeling the plums, I prefer to leave the skin on. It's actually one of my favorite things about this recipe!
- If you prefer to make your plum preserves without the skin, just blanch the plums for approximately 45 seconds after slicing an "X" on the bottom of each plum first. This helps when peeling the skin off the plums.
- Remember that jam always thickens once it's refrigerated so do not overcook it!
- To make plum jam, you can either use an immersion blender while the preserves is in the pot, or run the preserves through a food processor.
- Plum jam is amazing over vanilla ice cream!
Mary Chaplin says
Hello Hilda
I made plum preserves on Saturday. I followed your recipe. My plum preserves have not thickened to a jell consistency. What can I add to get the preserves to thicken? Or is it too late now that they are sealed in the jars?
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Mary,
Your preserves probably needed to be cooked longer. It's not too late to thicken it, but be sure it's to the thickness you prefer before you can it again. Just test a small amount in the fridge and see what the consistency is like before you can it!
Mary says
Thank you Hilda for responding. I sampled the preserves and it was very good. I put the preserves in the fridge after your response. It is still a little liquidy if that is a word.😊 Can I still thicken it? If so what do I do?
Mary
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Mary, Liquidy is in fact a word, haha. All you have to do is cook it longer until it's to the thickness you prefer.
Mary says
Hilda do I open all the jars put the preserves back in the pot and stir until it thickens? Do I add more sugar or use pectin?
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Mary, Yes, you would pour the jam back into the pot and cook it until it reduces to the consistency you want. But be careful, if you overcook it it could get ruined. I wouldn't add more sugar or pectin if it's almost to the consistency you want.
Susan says
I too love plum jam and can’t wait to try this version. Plums have a lot of pectin and a lot of which is in the seeds too. For that reason, I always tie the seeds into a cheesecloth square and remove the square when the cooking is complete. A previous post mentioned using all ripe plums and wondered if that could have contributed to a set failure. Yes, it’s important to include some less ripe fruit when making jams without commercial pectin. Additionally, performing a cold plate test or using a candy thermometer will help you zone in on the perfect gel stage.
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Susan, all great advice, thank you so much for sharing!
Laurel Sutton says
Making your plum preserves tonight. Sounds yummy. Want to try blackberry jelly next. Do I need to use cheesecloth? Anything else that I could use that I wouldn’t have to buy? suggestions? Those seeds drive me nuts!
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Laurel, It's funny you should ask. I'm not big fan of jelly and usually prefer chunkier jams/preserves. I did however make some chokecherry jelly today. I usually use soup bags, I love them and they're reusable. But if you don't want to spend money you can use a fine strainer or even a cotton napkin. Good luck!
Laurel Sutton says
I don’t know what a soup bag is but I’ll go buy some! LOL
Thanks for your help!
Dean Sockwell says
I left the pits in and while it was simmering I scooped out the pits easily. There’s so much pulp lost if you pit ripe fruit.
Hilda Sterner says
Great idea, how did it come out?
Al Warner says
Hmmm....I followed the recipe exactly but my jam did not jell. The plums were very ripe which I understand is all to the good for pectin but something has gone awry. Tastes great, though!
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Al,
The consistency will be different than jam and will be slightly looser (in other words preserves instead of jam, which has more of a jelled finish). However, it shouldn't be runny either. It does thicken upon cooling, so that may be an issue. If it's cooled off and not as thick as you'd like, you can continue to cook it a bit longer and cool some of it to see if it's at the right consistency. You just don't want to overcook or burn it. You can also add 1/2 of a pack of liquid pectin and boil it for one minute. That should thicken it right up. I hope that helps. I'm glad you at least like the flavor. You can always use it as a topping for ice cream, waffles, etc.
Lisa Johnson says
Can you use sugar substitute?
My Husband is diabetic. Either Stevia orTruvia?
Hilda Sterner says
I'm sorry, I've only made this jam with sugar. Although there are sugar-free recipes for jam, I can't guarantee the results. You can attempt it if you'd like or just look for a sugar-free jam recipe instead.Good luck!
Faith Foust says
Just made a 1/2 batch as that's all the plums I had but am going out tomorrow to buy more. This is the easiest recipe and SO delicious. I love it when I don't need to use pectin. Can't wait to have more jars to give as gifts.
Hilda Sterner says
Thanks, Faith. I love this recipe too. I used lemon last time because I didn't have oranges. It's a little on the sour side, but still delicious.
Sarah says
What do you do with it after you can it? I just made 13 quarts. Lol.
HildaSterner says
Haha,eat it, ship it to family and friends, give it as gifts, stocking stuffers 😉, sell at craft shows, farmer's markets... shall I continue?