I’m willing to bet you’ll never meet a better peach jam than this salted brown sugar roasted peach jam. Not ever in your life.
I mentioned in our adoption journey post yesterday that I’ve been cooking up a storm in order to stock the freezer now that baby Riley is with us. Call it what you want. I call it survival mode.
Something has to keep me from falling asleep while sitting straight up in the middle of the day. And in addition to cooking, I’ve been taking Riley on drives. She loves being in the car but I’m pretty sure I love it more since she passes out in the car seat before we get to the end of the driveway. Ha!
Anyway, last week we took a little trip up to a farm stand in Roxbury where I’d bought local peaches at a few years back for that incredible peach vanilla bean jam I made. I’ve had peach jam on my mind for weeks and seriously couldn’t shake the idea of another summer passing without having homemade jam on hand for the cold winter months.
Is there really nothing better than slathering summer jam all over a toasted English muffin or a slice of toasted, hearty oatmeal honey wheat bread in the dead of winter?! Nope. Nope. Nope.
Twelve pounds of peaches were waiting for me at the farm stand (I pre-ordered them) and I could barely stand to get them home without eating one on the spot. They smelled SOOOO good!!
This salted brown sugar roasted peach jam was really the only thing I had focused on making with those peaches. Everything else would be arbitrary. And truthfully, I’m not sure how any other peach jam could measure up against this one.
Yes, I ADORE my vanilla bean version but it is a bit on the sweet side. This roasted peach jam, with its deep color from roasting then simmering the peaches, is deeply flavored from the concentrated roasted peach juices. The salt and brown sugar are purely perfect ingredients in this recipe, balancing each other out like its their job. Which, I guess, it sort of is!
To be frank, I didn’t have it in me to properly can this jam with all the sterilizing of the jars, lids, and rims, lugging out my giant canning pot, and ensuring all of my canning equipment was where it should be (and clean!). So I made the jam in my favorite jam pot, ladled it into clean jars, and stuck them in the fridge to chill overnight. I then moved all but one jar to the freezer and I’ll pull my stash from the freezer this year rather than the pantry. No harm, no foul.
And with this salted brown sugar roasted peach jam, who could complain anyway?
Salted Brown Sugar Roasted Peach Jam
- Prep Time: 15min
- Cook Time: about 1hr 25min
- Yield: 4 half-pint (8 oz) jars
Ingredients
4 lbs peaches, sliced in half and pitted
1 cup brown sugar
1 ½ tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
Juice of 1 lemon
Instructions
-
01
Preheat oven to 425° F. Line a full sheet pan or two half sheet pans with parchment paper. Lay the peach halves cut side down. Roast for 40 minutes until the peaches are soft and the skins are crinkly.
Slip the skins off the peaches and discard. Transfer the peaches and their remaining juices from the pan(s) to a deep stockpot and mash the peaches until slightly chunky.
-
02
Stir the sugar into the peaches and let sit for a couple minutes until the sugar is dissolved. Mix in the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice.
-
03
Bring the peaches to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring frequently to prevent burning on the bottom of the pan, for 25 minutes, until the mixture starts to thicken. Reduce the heat the medium-low and continue to simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the jam is thick, has reduced in volume by half, and leaves a clear trail behind a spatula when dragged across the bottom of the pan.
-
04
At this point, you can either transfer the jam to hot sterilized jars (with ¼-inch of headspace) and process with the lids and rims tightly secured in a water canner for 10 minutes or transfer the jam to freezer-safe jars or containers, leaving about ½-inch headspace at the top of the jar/container for expansion during freezing. If doing the latter, chill the jam completely before transferring to the freezer. Allow the jam to thaw in the refrigerator before using.
heavily adapted from Preserving by the Pint by Marisa McClellan
LOVE this recipe! Once in the fridge, how long will it last?
Thanks!
It should last about 1 month in the fridge. SO happy to hear you love the recipe! Thank you so much for coming back to leave a review, Jennifer!
This is my favorite peach anything! The smell! The texture! I use it for peach pie filling with toasted pecans and extra sliced peaches. Omg! You are a genius!
Fantastic to hear, Lydia! Thank you so much for coming back to leave a review!!