Pepper jelly
A preserve from the American South, served by the spoonful over cream cheese with crackers — a combination that sounds odd until you taste it. The jelly is sweet, sour and fiery at once, and cold rich cheese balances it perfectly. Technically it is an ordinary pectin preserve with one condition: once the sugar is in and the hard boil returns, it boils for exactly one minute, not a second longer.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Peppers 20 min
- Boiling 15 min
- Jarring 30 min
- Setting 1440 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneDecide the heat
Remove the seeds and membranes from the jalapeños for a mild version, or leave them for a hot one. Work in gloves — 150 g of chillies leaves capsaicin on your hands for hours.
Ingredients: 500 g red peppers · 150 g jalapeños · 350 ml cider vinegar
Mince the peppers fine, not to a pulp
Seed the peppers and remove the white membranes, cut the peppers and jalapeños into chunks and pulse in short bursts into very fine pieces, not smooth. The pieces should hang suspended in the jelly — pulped, they cloud it.
Ingredients: 500 g red peppers · 150 g jalapeños · 350 ml cider vinegar
Fine pieces, not pulp — they must hang in the jelly.Bring the peppers to a boil with vinegar and pectin
Put the minced peppers in a large pan, pour in the vinegar, add the salt and butter. Sprinkle in the pectin, stirring vigorously so it does not clump, and bring to a hard boil. Powdered pectin goes in before the sugar — added to a thick syrup it clumps and will not set. The butter controls the foam — without it there is far more to skim.
Ingredients: 1200 g sugar · 50 g pectin · ½ tsp salt · 10 g butter
Add the sugar and reach a hard boil
Add all the sugar at once, stir until dissolved and bring back to a boil that cannot be stirred down — one that does not stop when you stir. Pectin requires it: at a gentler boil it will not set.
Ingredients: 1200 g sugar · 50 g pectin · ½ tsp salt · 10 g butter
A boil that cannot be stirred down — or it will not set.Boil exactly one minute
From the moment the boil cannot be stirred down, boil exactly 60 seconds, stirring constantly. Time it: less and the jelly stays liquid, more and the pectin starts to break down, so it may not set either. The most precise moment in the recipe.
Ingredients: 1200 g sugar · 50 g pectin · ½ tsp salt · 10 g butter
Take off the heat and skim
Take the pan off the heat and skim any remaining foam from the surface. Foam in the jar gathers on top as a cloudy layer and spoils the clarity that is this preserve's main virtue.
Ingredients: 1200 g sugar · 50 g pectin · ½ tsp salt · 10 g butter
Fill the jars and process
Wait 5 minutes until the jelly thickens slightly — then the pepper flecks will not float to the top. Ladle into sterilised jars through a funnel, to 1 cm from the rim, wipe the rims, seal and process for 10 minutes from the boil in a pot of hot water reaching the shoulders of the jars. Lift out onto a cloth.
Ingredients: 1200 g sugar · 50 g pectin · ½ tsp salt · 10 g butter
Through a funnel, to a centimetre from the rim.Wait a day for it to set
Leave the jars undisturbed for 24 hours. The jelly sets slowly and is still liquid after an hour — that does not mean failure. Serve by the spoonful over cream cheese with crackers.
Ingredients: 200 g cream cheese · 150 g crackers
Before you start
When the jelly does not set
It happens if the boil was too gentle or the pectin old. It is fixable: for each litre of jelly, mix 4 teaspoons of pectin with 60 ml of water in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring. Add the jelly and 50 g of sugar, bring to a hard boil and boil 30 seconds. Fill clean, sterilised jars and process as above.
The colour depends on the peppers
Red peppers alone give a deep ruby, green ones an olive colour and a grassier flavour. If you want a bright green, add a few drops of green colouring.
A year in the pantry
Sealed jars keep a year in the dark. Once opened, a month in the fridge. Beyond cheese, pepper jelly works as a glaze for roast chicken and ribs, brushed on for the last 10 minutes of cooking.