I am so lucky to live in a tropical climate and to have a huge mango tree in my backyard that provides fruits for several families. For 3-4 weeks each year, we drawn in fresh, delicious, juicy and sweet mangoes that fall off the tree. We don’t even have to cut them from the tree. One of the recipes I make each year it’s this mango jam without pectin!!
Seasonality of Mangoes
Mangoes are a tropical fruit that grows in the Caribbean, tropical areas of the Americas, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and some regions in Africa. Here in Miami, mango season is anywhere from May to July. Mangoes around here are so bountiful that you can pick them off the side walk in many residential neighborhoods. Teenagers usually set up tables in their front yards and sell mangoes for cheap to passerbys.
I love mangoes so much and incorporate them as much as possible in my recipes during their peak season. I wish the fruits would stagger a bit getting ripe as we have too much during a three week period then nothing until next year.
Having grown up in the Mediterranean, I know all too well fruit and vegetable seasonality. We usually make jams, spoon sweets or pickle anything we want to preserve longer than their natural season.
Here are some of my mango recipes:
- Mango Cheesecake
- Mango Mousse
- Mango Gelato with Meyer Lemons
- Mango and Passion Fruit Cocktail
- Mango Popsicles
Small Batch vs Big Batch Jam
When making a small batch of mango jam you don’t have to can the jar. Just sterilize properly before you fill it with jam and then you can store it covered in the refrigerator. Usually my jams keep really well for about 2 weeks this way.
If making several jars of jam it’s safe to say that the best way to preserve the jam to last longer is to use safe canning techniques. This is a great guide on canning jams & jellies.
The problem nowadays with making jams is that fruits cost more than a jar of jam at the store. When I was little, end of a season for a fruit meant it went dirt cheap so that’s when we would buy it in big quantities to make jams, jellies etc.
However, if you have fruit trees that’s when you can prepare big batch preserves with fruits from your own backyard.
Additional Tips and Notes
Here are additional tips for making the best mango jam in addition to the recipe card.
- If you have the choice to pick the variety of mango that you’ll be making the jam with, pick one without strings. Some mangoes have strings and that makes it really hard to create the proper jam consistency.
- Sugar helps create the jam thickness and it also helps preserve the jam longer. But in the mango jam case, it’s a bit difficult to use a lot of sugar since ripe mangoes are already sooooo sweet!! My way of balancing out the sweetness is to add a little lemon juice, lemon zest as well as lemon peels to the jam.
- Adding an apple (diced, skin on) to the pot while making jam will help thicken the jam as well as add some pectin which is very much needed since mango naturally doesn’t have a lot of it.
- Add sugar and lemon juice over diced mangoes and let the pot rest for an hour or two. The sugar will help bring out natural juice from the mango and this will help you gaige better how much water to add to the pot when it is time to cook the jam.
Homemade Mango Jam
Equipment
- 1 Large pot
Ingredients
- 25 ripe mangoes
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1 lemon, juice and zest We'll need both juice and zest
- 1 apple Preferably granny smith
- 0.5 cup water not always needed, depends on mangoes
Instructions
- Wash then dry mangoes with a clean kitchen towel. Dice mangoes, add them to a large pot.
- Squeeze lemon then zest the skin. Add lemon juice and lemon zest over diced mangoes.
- Pour sugar over mangoes and mix once to incorporate. Let rest for about an hour. In the meantime, mangoes will release natural juice. The amount of juice depends on how ripe the mangoes are. if mangoes are covered in juice don't add additional water. If you see very little juice, add half a cup of water.
- Add diced apple in the pot. Keep the skin on as that will help with pectin and jam thickness.
- Turn heat on, once it start bubbling then cover the pot and lower heat to medium-low. Let cook until jam thickens, usually about 1 hour for me.
- Let jam cool completely before adding to jars. Make sure jars are sterilized even if you're not canning the jam. Store in the refrigerator. If making a big batch, use safe canning techniques before storing. Enjoy over toast or in desserts:).
Notes
- Serving is estimated to be about 1 tbsp of mango jam.
- For thicker, more jam consistency increase amount of sugar.
- Using a wooden spoon, you can smash the apple dice on the side of the pot while jam is cooking to add to the thickness of the jam.
- I use about 1 apple for this recipe when I have anywhere from 20-30 mangoes so it’s not necessarily strict to have 25 mangoes for 1 apple.
- Since mango size and ripeness of homemade mangoes varies a bit, the results have slight differences each time but jam is always delicious:).
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
Mango fruit is not high in natural pectin. You can add pectin to jam or add lemon peel, apple peel etc to pot when cooking to increase natural pectin in the jam.
You can puree mangoes and freeze them flat in ziplock bags or ice cube shapes. Use frozen in smoothies or in desserts. You might need to thaw depending on the type of dessert you are making.
All citrus fruits pair great with mango and make for great addition to jam making. Mango and coconut pair really well in popsicles and ice cream. Mango and passion fruit or mango and papaya make for great smoothies and drinks.
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save the below image to your boards in Pinterest. Let me know in comments if you have any questions or if you need help troubleshooting. Thank you for stopping by my recipe:).
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More Jam Recipes from My Blog
Here are some more jam recipes from my blog. I hope you enjoy them and if there’s anything additional you’d like to see please let me know in comments:).
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