How To Make Pomegranate Jelly

Growing up we had the most beautiful Pomegranate tree in our backyard. Every year it produced loads and loads of gorgeous red fruits. They adorned the tree like beautiful red ornaments created by Mother Nature. Every year my dad would give bags and bags of pomegranates to my girlfriend’s mother who would make beautiful, ruby red, delectably, delicious Pomegranate jelly with them.

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This year my girlfriend Iesha contacted me to see if I wanted to make Pomegranate jelly with her. Yes, yes and yes!!! We had some heavy rain storms come through recently and all the Pomegranates on her tree had split open. It was time to do something with them or lose them all to mold.

Let me be honest, canning has always intimidated me but doing it with friends was the perfect solution to getting over my hesitation. I found out that making Pomegranate jelly is actually not hard to do. It’s just quite labor intensive and time consuming preparing the seeds and extracting the juice that’s needed. It’s well worth the effort though! Iesha enlisted me and our friend Cindy to help her make it. Iesha and I are total newbies to canning, but Cindy has canned jelly before and she brought her expertise to our little jelly making party.

If you are new to canning you will need to invest in a few basic supplies, like a large stock pot. Or if you’re lucky, you’ll have girlfriends that have canning supplies you can borrow.

Basic Canning Supply List:

• 21 qt or larger stock pot
• canning lids, rings, and pint sized glass jars
• canning funnel
• canning jar tongs, to lift cans into and from boiling water bath
• magnetic lid lifter 

The most time consuming, tedious part of making Pomegranate jelly is preparing the fruit. There are several different ways to do it. Some websites recommend submerging the fruit in water to remove the seeds, some recommend banging the fruit on the counter to dislodge the seeds (sounds like it would make a big mess). We opted to do it the old fashioned way by cutting the fruits in half to remove the seeds by hand.

TIP: Wear an old shirt when working with Pomegranate seeds, their juice stains everything and will not come out.

Prepare Pomegranate juice:

Break apart the pomegranates by cutting through the skin and pulling them apart. Separate the arils by removing the outer peel and white membranes. 

Good to know: 2½ cups of arils will produce about 1 cup of juice.

Place arils in a large ziplock bag. Seal the bag squeezing out as much of the excess air as possible. Use a rolling pin and crush the seeds to release their juice.

Strain the juice from the seeds, using a fine mesh strainer.

Use a rubber spatula to squeeze out as much of the juice as you can from the seeds. Discard seeds.

If the juice has any small seed bits in it, use a paper towel or piece of cheesecloth to strain the juice once more so that you end up with a clear ruby red liquid to work with.

Prepare Canning Jars:

Add water to a large stockpot, one that is large enough to hold the jars you are using and completely submerge them under water. Bring the water to a rolling boil.

Once the water comes to a boil, place the lids, rings and jars in the boiling water and boil them for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, use the jar lifter to remove jars, lids and rings and place them on a dry towel. Use care, items will be very hot. 

Good to know: Boiling the jars and lids sterilizes them and ensures there is no bacteria that could contaminate your jelly. Be sure not to touch any of the sterilized surfaces with your hands.

Prepare jelly:

Pour pomegranate juice into a large saucepan, add the butter and the pectin.

TIP: Use a large saucepan, contents will bubble up as the mixture cooks. The addition of the butter will help combat excess foaming.

Bring mixture to a boil over medium high heat and then boil mixture for 1 minute.

Add the lemon juice, and sugar. 

Stir and bring the mixture to a hard boil. Boil, stirring constantly for one minute.

After 1 minute, turn off the heat. Place funnel on a sterilized jar and ladle pomegranate jelly into prepared jars, leaving about ½ inch head space.

Use a paper towel to wipe down the rim of each jar to make sure there is no jelly along the rim that might prevent the jars from sealing properly.

Use a magnetic lid lifter to place a lid onto each jar. Avoid touching the lids with your fingers.

Add the rings and finger tighten. 

Using the canning jar tongs, carefully submerge the jars in the stockpot of boiling water and cover pot with a lid. 

Boil/process jars for 10 minutes.

Use the canning jar tongs to carefully remove the jars from the pot. Place them on a dry kitchen towel to cool completely to room temperature.

Listen for popping sounds as the jars cool, the pops indicate the jars have sealed.

TIP: If any of the jars don’t seal, store them in the fridge after they have cooled to room temperature and use them within 2 weeks. Properly sealed jars will last in your pantry for up to a year.

This jelly turned out, oh so very, very good! Iesha, Cindy and I are all quite impressed with ourselves. Our first batch of jelly turned out fantastic! It’s a simple, basic recipe that’s easy to make. The addition of the lemon juice gives this jelly a lovely touch of brightness and keeps it from being overly sweet. Invite some friends over to give you a hand. Put them to work and turn Pomegranate jelly making into a fun afternoon spent with your girlfriends! At the end of the day we all went home with jars of this ruby red deliciousness that we will be enjoying on our morning toast for months to come. But the best part? The laughter, conversation and memories we made spending time together learning a new skill. That is priceless!!!

Dear Cindy and Iesha, I love spending time with you girls on this journey called life; learning new things together and creating memories that I will cherish for a lifetime. You two are amazing women and make my life so much better because you are a part of it!

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