Before we left for our trip, I found myself with a couple pints of blueberries and a few spotted bananas to use up. I’ve been meaning to make my strawberry chia seed jam for a while now, so I ended up adapting my recipe using blueberries, all-natural sweetener, and a touch of vanilla. It turned out lovely and was ready in 20 minutes flat!
This is the strawberry chia seed jam that I made a couple years ago:
Chia seeds are magic. I love using them as thickeners in all kinds of foods from homemade jam to vegan overnight oats to pasta sauces.
This strawberry chia seed “jam” is a tasty filling for my Healthy Strawberry Oat Squares! You can use any kind of filling that you like in these oat squares. They remind me a lot of a healthy nutri-grain bar.
This is not a traditional jam recipe by any means, but then again I’m not one for following traditions all that often when it comes to food. Instead of using white sugar, I used maple syrup to lightly sweeten the berries. The maple and vanilla extract do a great job of bringing out the flavours in the blueberries without overpowering them. Chia seeds thicken the mixture nicely while adding a tasteless burst of nutrition in every bite.
If you’ve got 20 minutes, you can make this jam. It’s a snap. All you do is add blueberries and a touch of maple syrup into a pot. Bring it to a low boil and then reduce it to simmer for about 5 minutes or so. Then stir in the chia seeds and simmer it for another 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently until it’s as thick as you desire.
Before adding the chia seeds, the blueberries will be quite watery.
Have no fear chia is here!
After adding in the chia seeds and cooking the mixture down, it thickens up beautifully! Hence, the name – magical jam. You won’t believe your eyes how thick this gets. Thanks to the chia seeds, we’re also pumping up the jam with all kinds of healthy omega fats, iron, fibre, protein, magnesium, and calcium. Who knew jam could be so healthy?
Enjoy this on toast, oatmeal, vegan overnight oats, thumbprint cookies, tarts, in smoothies, and so much more. Also, feel free to try this out with any seasonal fruit you wish.
Magical Blueberry Vanilla Chia Seed Jam
Yield
1 cup
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Adapted from my strawberry chia seed jam.
Ingredients
- 3 cups fresh blueberries
- 3-4 tbsp pure maple syrup, to taste (or other liquid sweetener)
- 2 tbsp chia seeds
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Directions
- In a medium-sized non-stick pot, bring the blueberries and 3 tbsp of maple syrup to a low boil. Stir frequently, and reduce heat to low-medium to simmer for about 5 minutes. Lightly mash the blueberries with a potato masher or fork, leaving some for texture.
- Stir in the chia seeds until thoroughly combined and cook the mixture down until it thickens to your desired consistency, or about 15 minutes. Stir frequently so it doesn’t stick to the pot.
- Once the jam is thick, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Add more maple syrup to taste if desired. Enjoy on toast, English muffins, oatmeal, vegan overnight oats, oat bars, tarts, cookies, banana soft serve, smoothies, and more. The jam should keep for at least a week in an air-tight container in the fridge.
A breakfast sandwich sounded like a good idea.
Banana slices, sunflower seed butter, and blueberry jam all sandwiched in a toasted English muffin….I couldn’t wait a second longer.
*Poof*…it was gone just like a magic trick.
~~~
We’re off for our flight back home this morning! I think my first meal back will be banana bread oatmeal with blueberry jam & sunbutter to top it all off…yum. And then about a week’s worth of salads because I kinda got off track with the salad-a-day challenge a bit. Whoops.. This last week of June is going to be a leafy one…
I might of missed if this was already mentioned but any idea if this recipe could be canned?
Do you think you could can this? It sounds so delicious!!
Easy and delicious! Just made some, and with frozen blueberries too – it worked out fine!
Thanks for the lovely recipe
I just made this with pluots and cherries. SO YUMMY!
I have just finished making my strawberry-rhubarb jam with maple syrup and chia seeds instead of gelatin, all proud of myself for being so clever, when I decided to go online and found this! haha Oh well. So much for my creativity. I guess great minds think alike?! ;)
Made it this morning and it was the best jam I’ve ever had- even my toddler loved it on his toast!!!!
I just made this today after picking loads of fresh blueberries yesterday. I doubled the batch and used honey instead of maple syrup. I also doubled the amount of sweetner (gasp!), which is still way less than traditional recipes, and I added some cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves to spice it up a little as well as the juice of a lemon. I canned it and it turned out beautifully and is delicious!!! Thank you for the great idea and recipe!
This is amazing! Your recipes are so creative and delicious looking. I came to your blog almost every day when I first went vegan. Keep it up. :)
Thanks Jordan!
I don’t mean to sound stupid here but it says to bring blueberries to a boil which I should think is difficult without water. Are we added water? And if so, how much?
Oops, maybe that should say simmer? They are supposed to simmer I guess. Finding the right work can be tricky, but as they cook the blueberries break down and water does release.
Hey I am wondering that if I use mason jars do they need to be sterilized and sealed like other jams ? Or just close tightly and use within one week and/or freeze ?
I don’t sterilize my jars when I store in the fridge – the jam tends to last for 2-4 weeks in the fridge. hope this helps!
I made this with frozen cherries and coconut sugar. It’s fabulous!!! So many uses. My fav so far is on a piece of toasted GF bread with almond butter mmmmmmmm.
Hey I looking to use the Blueberry Jam recipe to make Christmas Jam gifts this year. Have you ever doubled, tripled the recipe? I want to know if it works.
Hi Angela :)
I read somewhere that you shouldn’t ever heat chia seeds, because it makes the fats go rancid and/or destroys a significant amount of the amazing nutrients they contain…
Do you know if this is true and if so, could you stir the chia seeds into a cold blueberry mixture?
I love this blog :)
I want to make this for my boyfriend the thing is he’s in the military so when I’d have to ship it to where he’s stationed so I was wondering if it can last 3 or 4 days without being refrigerated.
Was all ready to make this tonight… Bought my blueberries in ready and then realised what I thought were chia seeds were actually hemp seeds. Don’t suppose they would work the same? Otherwise I will have to wait to try the jam until I buy some chia.
Thanks for the inspiration. We made it in 20 minutes and it tastes great on homemade bread.
I had an epiphany this morning that I could totally make a raw jam with chia and some blended berries of some sort. Then a few minutes ago I was looking for a vegan recipe with oats and it was complete serendipity that I came across this recipe. How cool is that. Thanks for the recipe. :)
Love this recipe. Today I modified it as carrot cake jam. I used 1 1/2 cups chopped pears, 1 1/2 cups shredded carrot, 1 14 oz can organic crushed pineapple, then added maple strip, vanilla and chia seeds along with cinnamon and nutmeg. Worked great. Thanks for the inspiration.
Oh my goodness was this wonderful! And so easy to make! I just had some on sprouted wheat toast. I will have to start experimenting with other fruit for chia seed jams. Looking forward to topping my VOO with this tomorrow… And maybe an almond butter or sunflower seed butter and jam sandwich will soon follow ;)
Hi, the jam is pretty good but I am not a fan of feeling the crunch of the chia seeds. They do not get soft enough to my taste after cooking. Did I miss something or is it supposed to turn out this way?