How to Make Mint Jelly

With so much mint growing, we harvested a bunch of it to make a double batch of this easy to make, yet so delicious, mint jelly.

Mint Jelly

Our mint plant has gone crazy over the last couple of months and desperately needed to be harvested. I used a bunch of it to make some mint extract, dehydrated another huge bunch of it and used some to make this jelly as well.  Mint jelly is usually yellowish in colour. If you want to make it green, add a couple of drops of food colouring, though I prefer to keep this more natural which is why it is not green. To make this jelly, you will need:

• 2 cups mint leaves
• 4 cups water
• 2 TBSP lemon juice
• 1.75 oz (49g) pectin
• 3 ½ cups sugar

This recipe is quite simple. First, wash, dry and roughly chop the mint leaves. The leaves will then need to steep in the water, bringing it to the boil and then letting it stand. The longer you let it stand, the stronger the mint flavour will be.

After straining out the leaves, measure out three cups of the liquid and pour it back into the saucepan. 

Add the lemon juice – if you want to can this recipe, you will need to use store-bought lemon juice due to to acidity needed when canning.

If you were adding food colouring, add it now – a few drops at a time until you get the desired colour.

Whisk in the pectin and bring it back to the boil. 

Slowly add in the sugar, whisking as you go, making sure the sugar is being stirred through and dissolves. Once the mixture reaches a rapid boil, cook for an additional 2 minutes before pouring into sterilised canning jars. Follow proper canning instructions for processing – usually 10 minutes in a water bath.

Use as an accompaniment to lamb, pork on even on toast.