We like to grow a lot of peppers and I’ve been wanting to try doing something a little different with them, so I decided I wanted to try and make a Jalapeno jelly. After a little research I decided to make a pepper jelly with Jalapeno and Serrano peppers. I started with some fresh Biker Billy Jalapeno peppers and very ripe Serrano peppers.
Ingredients
- 1 pound Hot Peppers
- 6 cups Sugar
- 2 cups 5% Apple Cider Vinegar
- 3 packs dried Pectin
- Food Coloring – Green and/or Red
Canning Supplies
- 6 to 7 8oz Jelly Jars
- Jar Funnel
- Jar Grabber
- Pressure Cooker
Directions
- Prep the Peppers – cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds. I choose to keep the Jalapeno and Serrano peppers separate so that I could process them differently. The slice the peppers into smaller pieces.
- Puree the Peppers – Place the peppers in the blender with 1 cup of the vinegar. I started with my Jalapeno’s because I wanted to puree them to a very fine consistency. Once I had them close to the consistency that I wanted, I added in the ripe Serrano peppers. I then blended the mixture some more leaving some larger chunks of Serrano’s in the mixture so that the jelly would have more a jam appearance with small red chunks of pepper.
- Prep the Pectin – Pectin is the jelling agent and the type and amount that you use will determine the final consistency of your Jelly. Follow the directions on the pectin to match it with the volume of sugar. We are using 6 cups for this recipe. Standard Pectin will be 3 packs for this amount of sugar. Mix together one cup of the sugar and the pectin and set it aside for later use.
- Prep the Canning Jars & Canner – place you canning jars in a pan or sink filled with scalding hot water. At this point you should also make sure you have your pressure cooker set up, filled with an appropriate amount of water and on the stove under a low heat.
- Cook the Sugar, Vinegar and Peppers – combine the pepper puree, the rest of the vinegar and sugar in a cooking pot. Heat to boil over medium heat while stirring the mixture to make sure it does not burn at the bottom of the pot. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.
- Color – At this stage you can add food coloring if you want to adjust the color of the jelly. If you used ripe red Serrano peppers, then you jelly is going to come out a nice rich red without having to add in any extra color.
- Add the Pectin – after the mixture has boiled for 10 minutes, mix in the Pectin/Sugar mix you set aside. Increase the heat while stirring the mixture and bring to a strong rolling boil. Cook the mixture for 1 minute.
- Testing for Jell Consistency – keep a spoon to the side in ice. Put a small amount of the jelly mixture in that spoon and set the spoon on ice. Once the mix has cooled, you will be able to tell the consistency of the jelly. If you want a firmer jelly, add in more Pectin and cook for another minute. Once you have the jell mixture to the consistency that you like it’s ready to jar and can.
- Remove the jars from the hot water bath and fill each jar with the cooked jelly mixture to within 1/4 inch from the top. Seal the jar and place it in the pressure cooker.
- Once all the jars have been filled and placed into the pressure cooker, fill the rest of the cooker with jars full of water if there is more room to make sure the jars full of jelly do not fall over while cooking. Make sure the water level in the pressure cooker is about a half inch from the bottom of the jar lids. (Note you can use the hot water bath method, but I prefer to pressure cook to make sure my jelly has been properly pasteurized.) Generally 10 minutes at 10 to 15 PSI is plenty of time to cook in the pressure cooker. If you’ve never used a pressure cooker before, please follow the manufacturers directions.
- Once the pressure has released from the pressure cooker, remove the hot jars of jelly, tighten the lids and set them out to cool.
Here you can see the little red chunks of Serrano pepper.
