Most grape jelly recipes call for an excessive amount of sugar, often 6 to 7 cups per batch! But if you pick fresh, sweet grapes, there’s absolutely no reason to sweeten things up or to overwhelm the natural flavors.
The recipe below calls for 2 cups of sugar, which I’ve generally found to be more than enough to keep things sweet, but still allowing the fruit to shine through. I’ve also used as low as 1 cup of sugar if the grapes are super sweet naturally. Whatever amount you choose, you’ll certainly enjoy the amazing taste!
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Ingredients
- 4 cups fresh Grape Juice, unsweetened
- 2 cups Sugar
- 3 tbsps Ball RealFruit Classic Pectin
Instructions
- Note: For the grape juice, you can purchase organic grape juice from the grocer or prepare your own from fresh grapes. I opt the later and now use a juicer which makes juicing grapes ridiculously easy with minimal clean-up and waste.
- In a large sauce pan, over a medium heat, add grape juice and sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Turn stove top heat to high and bring juice to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Stir in pectin. Continue boiling, stirring constantly for one (1) minute.
- Skim foam and discard. Remove from heat.
- Ladle immediately into hot canning jars or freezer canning containers, leaving a 1/4 inch head space.
- Continue processing with your preferred method for storage – shelf, refrigerator or freezing. (If you are unfamiliar with canning processes, I highly recommend picking up a manual like the “Ball Blue Book of Preserving.”)
Grape Jelly Low Sugar Recipe
4 cups fresh Grape Juice, unsweetened
2 cups Sugar
3 tbsps Ball RealFruit Classic Pectin
Note: For the grape juice, you can purchase organic grape juice from the grocer or prepare your own from fresh grapes. I opt the later and now use a juicer which makes juicing grapes ridiculously easy with minimal clean-up and waste.
In a large sauce pan, over a medium heat, add grape juice and sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
Turn stove top heat to high and bring juice to a boil, stirring constantly.
Stir in pectin. Continue boiling, stirring constantly for one (1) minute.
Skim foam and discard. Remove from heat.
Ladle immediately into hot canning jars or freezer canning containers, leaving a 1/4 inch head space. (Typical yield fills 6 half pint jars.)
Continue processing with your preferred method for storage – shelf, refrigerator or freezing. (If you are unfamiliar with canning processes, I highly recommend picking up a manual like the “Ball Blue Book of Preserving.”)
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I am so happy to find your recipe with less sugar. What I can I use instead of Ball RealFruit Classic Pectin ? POwdered or liquid pectin ? I am in london and we do not get this brand here. thank you
Awesome, glad to hear that! Ball RealFruit Classic Pectin is my go-to, but I have used other fruit powdered pectins in the past successfully. Look for a quality, pure pectin powder that lists that it is suitable for jams and jellies on the container and you should be good to go!
Thank you for this recipe. I really appreciate the lower sugar. I have a juicer but have not tried using the grapes in there. Does this alter the taste and consistency of the jelly – or do you still strain?
I’m doing fresh Zinfandel Jelly. I’ve never found a successful recipe. Wish me luck!
Thank you for the low sugar jelly recipe. The kids and i dont like the super sweet jelly so that is why we make our own now!!!!! Your recipe was easy and gelled up nice!!!!
I’m thrilled to learn that you enjoyed the recipe! I’m right there with you, don’t like the super sweet jellies either, this one always tastes just right, so I’m really glad you thought so, too!
I’m getting ready to try this recipe for the first time can you tell me how many jars of jelly this makes. If you used half pints or pint jars. Right now we have 64 cups of juice prepared and another 32 to juice and we were wanting to figure out how much we will get out of each batch.
Hi Amber, wonderful! Hope you enjoy it! It makes about 6 half pint or 3 full pint jars of jelly. Give or take, each batch always turns out a little high or low because, well, you know, that’s how canning goes!
Can you use liquid pectin as powdered is harder to dissolve?? If so, how much?? Thx for low sugar recipe as tastes more like fresh fruit ????
Thank you. I don’t have any grapes but I do have two apple trees. I can’t find a recipe for apple jelly using the Ball’s low sugar pectin. Have you tried that?
I haven’t tried that pectin yet. I do, however, have a recipe for low sugar apple jelly if that’s of interest to you: https://ruralmom.com/2013/08/apple-jelly-canning-low-sugar-recipe.html Hope that helps! Enjoy your canning!
Hi there! I’m wondering if I could use the low/no sugar pectin instead of the classic as mentioned?
Haven’t tried to use that with this recipe, so can’t guarantee results, but it seems like that would reasonably work well!
Wondering if doubling the recipe is an option as I have a five gallon bucket of grapes to boil down to juice. and making these 6 half pints at a time would be pretty time consuming!
I have doubled the recipe before with success. But you will, of course, have to use a larger pressure cooker or two pressure cookers to accomodate 12 half pint jars. When I’m using two pressure cookers, I still often just make each batch in seperate pots as that way I can time them better. Meaning, you need to ladle the juice while it’s piping hot, so you can time one batch to be finished after the other allowing you time to can and start the pressure cooking of the first round. Hope that makes sense!
Thank you so much for this recipe, it’s my first time making jelly without my grandmother, I have tried other recipes and well, had to throw it all out! Everything came out perfectly! Finally lol
Have you tried this recipe using Monkfruit instead of sugar?
I have not, but that sounds like a great alternative!