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Fireweed jelly turns a roadside wildflower into a bright pink preserve with a soft, fruity-floral flavor. Fireweed grows like a weed across much of the country, and a batch of jelly is one of the nicer ways to put those short-lived summer blossoms to use.
Table of Contents
- Notes from My Kitchen
- Quick Look at the Recipe
- What Does Fireweed Jelly Taste Like?
- Identifying and Harvesting Fireweed
- Ingredients for Fireweed Jelly
- Low Sugar Options
- How to Make Fireweed Jelly
- Canning Fireweed Jelly
- Altitude Adjustments
- Ways to Use Fireweed Jelly
- Fireweed Jelly FAQs
- Flower Jelly Recipes
- Fireweed Jelly Recipe
- Jelly Canning Recipes
This recipe has been reviewed for safety and accuracy by a Master Food Preserver certified through the University of Cornell Cooperative Extension.
Fireweed is a common sight in disturbed ground all across the country, and it’s one of the first plants to move in after a fire or flood, which is how it earned its name (it’s also called rosebay willowherb). It grows just about everywhere, but plenty of people walk right past it without realizing the blossoms are edible.
It’s especially loved in northern regions, where you can almost chart the summer by how far the blossoms have climbed the stalk. Making flower jellies is one of the ways we hang onto the flavors and colors of that short season, and a bright pink splash of fireweed jelly on toast in January is a fine reminder of warmer days.
If you’re new to fireweed, read through a guide to foraging fireweed before you harvest, since correct identification always comes first.
Notes from My Kitchen
Up here, the last fireweed blossoms are a little bittersweet. They’re lovely, but once the flowers reach the top of the stalk, you know summer’s about done and a long northern winter isn’t far behind. Putting up a few jars of jelly is my way of holding onto the tail end of the season.
There’s nothing quite like that bright pink splash on a piece of toast in the dead of January to call summer back for a minute. It’s become one of the jars I’m always glad to spot at the back of the pantry shelf in the middle of winter.
Quick Look at the Recipe
- Recipe Name: Fireweed Jelly
- Recipe Type: Flower Jelly Recipe
- Canning Method: Water Bath Canning
- Prep/Cook Time: 30 Minutes (including steeping)
- Canning Time: 10 Minutes
- Yield: 5 to 6 half-pint jars
- Jar Sizes: Quarter Pint, Half Pint, or Pint
- Headspace: 1/4 inch
- Ingredients Overview: Fireweed blossoms, water, lemon juice, sugar, and pectin
- Difficulty: Easy! You’re basically making a floral tea and setting it with pectin.
- Similar Recipes: The process is very similar to other wild-foraged flower jellies, including Clover Jelly, Dandelion Jelly, and Violet Jelly. If you forage often, it’s worth browsing the whole list of flower jelly recipes.
What Does Fireweed Jelly Taste Like?
Fireweed jelly has a soft, fruity-floral flavor with a gentle citrusy tang. It isn’t a bold, in-your-face taste, more of a delicate one that hints at fruit without landing on any single berry. The lemon juice sharpens it up and keeps it from reading too sweet.
The color is the showpiece here. Steeped fireweed tea comes out a muted pinkish-purple, and as soon as the lemon juice goes in, the acid shifts it to a bright magenta-pink that holds right through into the finished jelly. In the jar it’s about as striking a color as you’ll get from a wildflower.
Identifying and Harvesting Fireweed
Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) grows on a tall single stalk, often waist-high or taller, topped with a spike of four-petaled pink-to-magenta flowers that open from the bottom up over the season. It favors disturbed ground, so look along clearings, field edges, and old burn sites. If you’re not certain you’ve got fireweed, read through a guide to foraging fireweed before picking, since correct identification always comes first.
Pick from a clean spot well away from spray, runoff, and roadside pollution. Take just the blossoms, leaving the green seed pods and stems behind, and keep an eye out for bees, which work these flowers hard. You’ll want about 3 to 4 cups of blossoms, roughly a quart, for a batch.
Pick over the blossoms to clear out any green bits, dirt, or lingering insects before you steep them. Fireweed flowers are delicate and don’t keep long once picked, so plan to use them the same day you gather them.
Ingredients for Fireweed Jelly
Fireweed jelly uses the same basic formula as other flower jellies: fresh blossoms steeped into a tea, then set with sugar, pectin, and a bit of lemon juice for balance and safety.
- Fireweed Blossoms: Use just the flowers, picked over to remove any green pods or stems, from a clean patch you’ve correctly identified as fireweed.
- Water: Use clean filtered water if your tap has a strong chlorine taste, since that can muddy the delicate fireweed flavor.
- Lemon Juice: The lemon juice does a few jobs at once. It brings out the flavor of the flowers, shifts the tea to a bright pink, helps the pectin set, and lowers the pH enough to make the jelly safe for canning. Use bottled lemon juice, which holds a steady acidity that fresh lemons don’t. For a more neutral flavor you can swap in citric acid powder at about 1 teaspoon in place of the 1/4 cup of lemon juice.
- Sugar: Regular powdered pectin needs a good amount of sugar to gel, so this recipe follows the current Sure Jell ratio of 5 cups sugar to 4 cups of fireweed tea for an old-fashioned jelly that sets dependably. If you’d rather cut the sugar back, there’s a lower-sugar option in the note just below.
- Pectin: This recipe is built around regular powdered pectin, such as Sure Jell, which is reliable and gives a consistent set.
Low Sugar Options
If you’d prefer a less sweet jelly, reach for Sure Jell low sugar pectin instead and drop the sugar to as little as 1 to 2 cups. With Pomona’s Universal Pectin, bump the lemon juice up to 1/2 cup, since Pomona’s doesn’t include the added citric acid that most other pectins do.
Pomona’s is a 2-part low sugar pectin that comes with calcium water and behaves a little differently, so follow the mint jelly directions on the box. If it’s your first time using it, it’s worth reading through how to use Pomona’s pectin first.
How to Make Fireweed Jelly
Making fireweed jelly runs like any other flower jelly. You steep the blossoms into a tea, set it with pectin and sugar, and add lemon juice along the way. Don’t skip that lemon, since it balances the sweetness, brightens the color, helps the set, and lowers the pH enough to keep the jelly safe on the shelf, so it goes in even if you’re not canning.
Most of the time here is hands-off while the blossoms steep, so have your jars and lids ready before you start. That way you can move quickly once the jelly comes up to its boil.
Prepare the Fireweed Blossoms
Pick the blossoms from the stems, discarding any green seed pods or non-flower pieces. You’ll need about 3 to 4 cups, which is roughly a quart of loosely packed blossoms.
Pick over the flowers to remove any dirt, debris, or lingering insects. Since fireweed wilts quickly once picked, do this the same day you harvest.
Make the Fireweed Tea
Pour 4 cups of boiling water over the blossoms in a heatproof container and let them steep for 10 to 15 minutes. Fireweed flowers are delicate and give up their color and flavor quickly, so they don’t need a long steep. The tea will come out a pinkish-purple.
Strain the tea through a fine mesh strainer (or one lined with cheesecloth) into a jam pot or saucepan, pressing gently on the blossoms. You’re aiming for about 4 cups of tea. If you come up short, top it off with water to bring it back to 4 cups.
Add Lemon Juice and Pectin
Stir 1/4 cup of lemon juice into the fireweed tea, and watch it turn from pinkish-purple to bright pink. (Along with shifting the color, the lemon balances the sugar, helps the pectin set, and makes the jelly safe to can, so don’t leave it out even if these are headed for the fridge.) Bring the mixture up to a boil over medium-high heat.
Once it’s boiling, whisk in one box of powdered pectin until it’s completely dissolved, and let it boil hard for 1 full minute. The pectin goes in before the sugar, which is what lets the jelly set, so hold that order.
Add the Sugar
After that minute, add 5 cups of sugar all at once. (Do not add the sugar before or at the same time as the pectin, or the jelly won’t set up.) Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Bring the jelly back to a full rolling boil for exactly 1 minute, then pull it off the heat and skim away any foam with a spoon. Immediately ladle the hot jelly into prepared jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
Canning Fireweed Jelly
Canning is optional. If you’d rather not, let the jars cool completely on the counter and tuck them into the refrigerator for a few weeks, or the freezer for up to 6 months in freezer-safe jars (leave a little extra headspace for expansion).
For shelf storage, I like to run the jars through a water bath canner so the jelly keeps at room temperature year-round, which also makes these bright jars easy to set aside for gifts. Make sure you’ve used the full amount of lemon juice, since that acidity is what makes water bath canning safe. Have your canner, jars, and lids prepped before you start the jelly. After ladling into jars (leaving 1/4 inch headspace), wipe the rims with a clean, damp cloth, set the lids, and tighten the bands to fingertip tight.
Process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude as needed. Let the jars cool undisturbed on a towel for 24 hours, then check the seals. Refrigerate any that didn’t seal and use them first. Properly canned and sealed jars will maintain quality on the pantry shelf for 12 to 18 months. Refrigerate after opening.
Altitude Adjustments
For water bath canning, processing times increase at higher elevations:
- 0 to 6,000 feet: 10 minutes
- Above 6,000 feet: 15 minutes
Ways to Use Fireweed Jelly
Fireweed jelly is at home on scones, croissants, muffins, and toast, especially with cream or salted butter for an afternoon tea. For a more savory turn, spread it on whole grain bread with peanut butter and banana slices for a fancier take on a PB&J. Its bright color also makes it a standout on a cheese board.
The color alone makes it a fine gift, and it’s an easy one to play with. Since fireweed leans fruity to begin with, some cooks stir in a handful of raspberries, and there’s even a northern tradition of adding a couple of cups of champagne along with the lemon juice for a celebratory batch. Keep any additions modest so the fireweed flavor still comes through.
Fireweed Jelly FAQs
Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) grows on a tall single stalk, often waist-high or taller, topped with a spike of four-petaled pink-to-magenta flowers that open from the bottom up over the season. It favors disturbed ground like clearings, field edges, and old burn sites. If you aren’t certain, check a foraging guide before harvesting, since correct identification always comes first.
That’s normal. Steeped fireweed tea comes out a muted pinkish-purple, and it shifts to a bright magenta-pink as soon as the lemon juice goes in. The acid changes the color, and that brighter pink carries through into the finished jelly.
The most common reasons jelly doesn’t set are adding the sugar at the same time as the pectin (add pectin first and boil for 1 minute before adding sugar), boiling the finished jelly for too long (over 5 minutes), or trying to double the batch size. If it doesn’t set after 24-48 hours, enjoy it as a floral syrup or read through my guide on troubleshooting jelly set.
Yes, but you’ll need to use a low-sugar pectin like Sure-Jell Low Sugar or Pomona’s Universal Pectin and follow the package instructions for mint jelly. If you use Pomona’s, increase the lemon juice to 1/2 cup, since it doesn’t contain the added citric acid that other pectins do. The yield will be lower with reduced sugar.
Flower Jelly Recipes
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Fireweed Jelly
Equipment
- Canning Jars, Lids and Bands
Ingredients
For the Fireweed Tea
- 3 to 4 cups fireweed blossoms, de-stemmed, cleaned
- 4 cups water
For the Jelly
- 4 cups fireweed tea, strained
- 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice, or 1 teaspoon citric acid
- 1 box powdered pectin, 1.75 oz, regular, such as Sure-Jell original or 6 Tbsp Bulk Pectin
- 5 cups granulated sugar, See Notes for Low Sugar Option
Instructions
- Pick the fireweed blossoms from the stems, discarding any green pods or pieces, and clean off any dirt or insects.
- Pour the boiling water over the blossoms in a heatproof container and steep for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Strain the tea through a fine mesh strainer (or one lined with cheesecloth) into a saucepan or jam pot. Measure the tea, adding water if needed to reach the full amount, then stir in the lemon juice.
- Bring the tea and lemon juice to a boil, then whisk in the powdered pectin until dissolved and boil hard for 1 full minute.
- Add all the sugar at once and stir to dissolve. Return to a full rolling boil and boil hard for exactly 1 minute, then remove from heat and skim off any foam. (Do not add the sugar before or with the pectin, or the jelly won’t set.)
- Ladle hot jelly into prepared jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rims clean, center lids, and apply bands fingertip-tight.
- Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Turn off the heat and let jars rest 5 minutes before removing. Cool undisturbed 12-24 hours before checking seals.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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This one’s a fun tradition to make every year, with the wild foraged fireweed blossoms that mark the passage of our short northern summers.