How to cook tasty and healthy dandelion jam

Dandelion jam is a thick, fragrant, as if concentrated sunbeam in a can. With the arrival of cold weather, when the rain is drizzling outside the windows or the winter blizzard flares up, there is nothing better than to drink a cup of warm tea while holding this dessert, remembering warm summer days and getting a portion of good mood and health.

In order to prepare for the winter jam from dandelion flowers, it is not necessary to be the owner of your own vegetable garden or summer cottage. It is enough to find the area where this plant grows, and simply harvest the crop of sunny flowers, observing all the conditions of environmental safety, transportation and processing.

If, during a walk out of the city, you spotted a glade covered with yellow, fully spreading baskets - you can assume that you are provided with raw materials for original and tasty delicacy.

It remains only to learn how to make dandelion jam, so that your blanks are tasty, useful and have stood for a sufficient amount of time without the risk of spoiling.

In our article, you will not only learn about the step-by-step recipe for dandelion jam with photos, but also discover some secrets of how to preserve and improve the natural taste of this dessert with the help of other products.

How to make dandelion jam simple recipe

We begin our acquaintance with the story of how to make dandelion jam according to the simplest recipe that anyone, even a beginner, can cope with.

So, let's start:

1. Step 1. It is necessary to collect all the ingredients. They are quite simple - these are the dandelion heads themselves( they need at least 400-500 pieces), clean filtered water - 2 glasses of 250 ml each and sugar - sand in the amount of 7 glasses.
2. Step 2. Prepare the raw material - rinse the flowers under running water, dry with a towel and cut off all the excess parts.
3. Step 3. In a saucepan or bowl, place the dandelions and pour the amount of liquid indicated in the ingredients. Cover and leave overnight.
4. Step 4. In the morning, without stirring up the contents, just turn on the heat under the container with future jam, bring to a boil and boil for no more than 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Step 5. Leave to stand for a while and cool, then strain the resulting broth using a colander, a tea strainer or a piece of clean gauze. Do not forget to squeeze out the flowers yourself, so that the maximum amount of tasty and healthy ingredients gets into our delicacy.
6. Step 6. Pour all the sugar into the squeezed liquid, boil again and let it boil for 7 minutes under the lid and at the lowest heat.
7. Step 7. In principle, dandelion jam is ready, but if you want a thicker consistency, repeat the boiling procedure 1 - 2 times for 5 minutes.
8. Step 8. Pour the resulting mass into sterile jars and roll up or simply cover with thick parchment paper. Our dessert should be stored in a cool and dark place, and if you did not use the lids, then in the refrigerator.

In order to prepare the correct jam, only freshly picked flowers are used together with the sepals, but without stalks and leaves. The collection of plants is best done on a clear May afternoon afternoon, when the baskets are most open. And be sure to choose places away from industrial facilities and highways.

Dandelion Jam with Lemon

Our next recipe is dandelion jam with lemon. When adding this citrus, natural sweetness not only acquires a pleasant acidity, but also turns out to be more useful, because it significantly increases the content of vitamin C, which saves us from many viral diseases and strengthens our immunity.

casserole Ingredients:

• 400 ripe dandelion baskets;
• medium size lemons - 1 - 2 pcs.;
• sugar - at least 1 kg, a little more;
• clean water - 0.5 liters.

The initial stage of preparation of this variant of jam is exactly the same as in the last recipe - the flowers need to be prepared, cleaned of dust and dirt, add water and let stand for several hours. After that, add the lemon cut into large pieces with the skin into the pan, boil, turn off the heat and set aside under the lid until cool. This time is necessary in order for the lemon to fully convey the broth all its taste and aroma. Then the contents must be filtered, add sugar and cook as usual jam - over low heat, boiling down to the desired degree of thickness.

If there is not a single lemon in your kitchen, and all of the dandelion preserves have already been collected, you can safely use regular citric acid. For the amount specified in the recipe, you will need half a teaspoon of food-grade concentrated powder. Believe me, dandelion jam with citric acid will be no worse than when using fresh fruit.

Dandelion Jam with Orange

The technology of making fragrant dandelion jam with orange is not too different from the method with the addition of lemon. But, here there is one secret, knowing that you will receive an incomparable aroma with anything that, even at the preparation stage, will attract all interested households to the kitchen. Do you want to know? Then prepare:

• main ingredient - prepared dandelion flowers, about one 3-liter jar;
• ripe orange - 3 pieces;
• juice of one lemon;
• water - 1500 ml;
• sugar - 1500 kg;
• cardamom - this is our "secret", because when combined with the smell of citrus, this spice gives a unique, rich smell to any dish - 3 - 4 grains.

Water with dandelions, which has already insisted for at least 6 hours, put on fire and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, wash the orange and cut it, removing bones and veins. It is not necessary to remove the peel, it is enough to thoroughly wash away residues of chemical preservatives used in the transportation of citrus fruits from southern countries.

The grains of cardamom need to be crushed with a knife, simply by pressing a blade on them flatly, or using a special mortar. You can use a whole pod, but only if you are preparing a larger amount of jam so that the smell of spice does not interrupt the rest of the flavors.

Add orange and spices to boiled floral water, boil it for a couple of minutes, turn it off and let it brew for 5-6 hours. It is convenient to start cooking in the evening to continue the process right in the morning.

The separated liquid must be filtered, covered with sugar and boiled in several passes. At the last stage, 10 minutes before switching off the fire, add freshly squeezed lemon juice to the thickened mass - you will immediately feel how “richer” the taste and aroma of your dessert will become.

Some housewives do not remove the pieces of citrus from the billet, but cook with it until the orange pulp is soft. In this case, the finished jam is not so transparent, but from this - no less tasty.

Dandelion jam without boiling

If your goal is to preserve the maximum of useful vitamins donated to medicinal nature dandelion, then we advise you to cook the sweetness out of it without using heat treatment.

There are two options for making dandelion jam without boiling, differing in the way the raw materials are processed and the set of ingredients. We will tell about each of them.

The first method of cooking without cooking

You will need:

• prepared dandelion flowers, without stems and green parts - half a kilogram;
• sugar - 750 - 800 g.

Preparation method:

1. Clean, dry inflorescences are placed in a three-liter jar in layers, interspersed with sugar.
2. Hermetically close the container with a lid and remove in a dry, dark place.
3. Mix the contents of the jar once a day.
4. After three days, under the influence of sugar, the plant will release all the juice, all that remains is to separate the liquid part and pour it into dry, clean jars.

Prepared by this method, the jam should be stored only in the refrigerator under the nylon covers. Rolling up for long-term storage of raw product is not recommended.

The second method of jam without cooking

The products used in this recipe do not have clear proportions. You can cook to your taste and the available number of components:

• baskets dandelion;
• fresh honey.

Preparation:

1. Flowers to sort, remove insects, wash and dry thoroughly.
2. Grind prepared raw materials using a blender or a special nozzle of a food processor.
3. Place the flower mass in an opaque dish. It is better to use a clay or ceramic barrel with a lid.
4. Pour honey, mix thoroughly.
5. Let it brew for 3 days.

Supervitamin dandelion jam without cooking with the addition of honey is ready!

Dandelion jam as a cure for liver

Now that you and I know how to make dandelion jam, it is necessary to say that this natural delicacy is not only able to diversify our table in the form of a dessert, but also serves as a real healer against many diseases of the body.

It is known that for medicinal purposes, dandelion jam is used for anemia, to raise immunity, to equalize blood pressure, but our liver is one of the most sensitive organ components to a plant.

A couple of tablespoons of dandelion jam on an empty stomach can become the strongest biostimulant that helps liver cells regenerate faster and recover from painful conditions.

For those who care about their health, we post the recipe for dandelion jam to treat the liver.

1. Finely chop 500 pieces of prepared inflorescences.
2. Wash and cut lemon into slices.
3. Connect the components in a container with a lid. Pour one liter of clean water. Ideally, you need to take well water, free from impurities and harmful substances. But, if you do not have this possibility, use a clean filtered liquid.
4. Put the container in a dark cool and dry place to infuse for a day, stirring the contents periodically.
5. After a while, put the pan on the stove, bring to a boil and cook on low heat for 20 minutes. Make sure that the flowers and lemon are not burned to the bottom, stir them in the cooking process.
6. Add one kilogram of sugar to the decoction and continue cooking for another 15 minutes.
7. Turn off the fire and leave to cool.
8. After this, gently filter, discard the cake plants and lemon pieces, and again boil for 5-7 minutes or until the desired consistency.
9. Jam resembles fresh floral honey in appearance. It can be closed in sterilized jars or immediately begin tasting.

People who have serious liver problems, such as hepatitis or cirrhosis, cannot of course rely only on the magical properties of herbs and plants. You must take the prescribed therapy, eliminate alcohol and adhere to the principles of healthy eating. A herbal medicine will be a good helper for you to recover.

As you can see, making dandelion jam according to our recipes is pretty easy. The main thing is to find clean, unpolluted places where you can collect a lot of flowers. Let it be meadows, forest glades or banks of the river, located far from urban smog, because dandelions, like forest mushrooms, are capable of absorbing not only useful, but also harmful substances from soil, rain or chemical emissions into the atmosphere. But, if you have found such a place and have harvested a large crop of these sunny baskets, be sure to use them to prepare a tasty, and most importantly, very useful delicacy. It's so nice to spend family evenings with a cup of tea with fragrant dandelion jam.