Recently I wrote about the natural health benefits of fireweed and told you all about this powerful healing plant.
One thing I didn’t mention is that once a year we pair fireweed flowers with organic cane sugar and lemon to make the most delicious fireweed jelly.
The pantry is filling up with home grown goodness. Although we eat very healthy most of the time we do allow ourselves the occasional indulgence. This fireweed jelly is one of my favourites. This Northern classic has a distinctive flavour. I find that it has mildly spicy undertones, a hint of honey and a a delicious something you just quite can’t put your finger on. It pairs nicely with toast, pancakes, biscuits, oatmeal, and I’ll never refuse it when paired with fresh baked bread and a nice chunk of cheese.
What is fireweed?
Fireweed is a perennial wild flower common across North America. It is also known by many other names great willowherb, rosebay willowherb, Oja’cid’bik (Cree), Gon Dhi’ele (Chipewyan) just to name a few. It is easily recognizable by it’s tall stalks and sprays of pinkish fuchsia flowers. You can learn more about it here.
Fireweed Jelly Is Beautiful
This is one of the prettiest jellies that I’ve ever made. The all natural pinkish purple colour looks lovely in a jar. To make fireweed jelly there are many great recipes that you can follow, this is the one that I use.
More Recipes
If you like this recipe you might also enjoy: Home Canning: Rose Petal Jelly Recipe or Wildflower Jelly Recipe.
Make a fireweed tea by steeping the flowers in a pot of boiling water. Allow to cool for twenty minutes. The color and flavor will drain from the flowers into the water making an herbal tea. Don’t worry if it is a dull brownish color at this stage. Strain the liquid from the petals, squeezing them out if necessary and reserve 3 cups of the tea for the jelly. Bring the tea to a boil and add the pectin. Stir and dissolve well. Add the sugar and lemon juice and stir well. You’ll notice that once you’ve added the lemon juice the liquid will turn back to the color of fireweed. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often. Meanwhile get your water bath of steam canner set up and your jars and lids washed and ready. Place a saucer in the freezer. After about 10 minutes of simmering you can test the set by taking the frozen saucer and placing a spoon of jelly on it. As it cools you can run you finger through it and get a general sense of the texture you should expect. If you aren’t happy keep simmering for another 5 minutes and test the set again. With flower jellies there is no natural pectin so it can take a bit more time that you’d expect to get a good set. Keep in mind too that over the next 24 hours the jelly will continue to set in the jar. Ladle the jelly into clean jars and following the direction of your water bath or steam canner process for ten minutes. Allow to rest for 24 hours before storing in a cool, dark location.
Ingredients
Instructions
This was a great recipe, I just made it. It made about 9 small jars (the 125 ml ones) Honestly I worried that 1/2 cup was a bit too much lemon juice and it definitely has a tartness to it, but it’s not overwhelming. I did 1/2 cup scant lemon juice. Beautiful pink colour. Thanks for the recipe!
I am so glad you enjoyed it Tara! Thanks for letting us know. I do like bold flavors and appreciate you mentioning your concern with the lemon juice. I felt it needed that slight punch in flavor but I am certain your comment will be helpful to others that are working on the recipe and share your concerns.
Can you use dried petals for this recipe?
I have not used dried petals but yes, you can use dried. Reduce the number of petals that the recipe calls for and steep for a bit longer.
Hi I can’t wait to make this recipe but I can only purchase liquid pectin where I live. Can i interchange? Any advice greatly appreciated. thank you
Hi Melanie, I have not tried it with liquid pectin, I think you’d need quite a lot to get it to set up to a jelly thickness. Worst case is that it will be not as thick but still delicious.
Hello! I’m going to attempt making this jelly. Once we harvest the flowers, do we boil the main steam and all? Or just pluck the flowers off and steep? Thx
Hi Shannon, I’m sure you’ll have great success! You’ll want to pluck the petals and use only the flowers for this recipe. The stems of flowers tend to make foods quite bitter so you want to avoid them when making sweet concoctions. Thank for asking this question, I’ll update the instructions to make sure this is more clear in the future!
I would like to make it without using certo. Or pectin..do you have a receipe?
Hi Shannon, you could use apples or apple pectin or apple jelly but you’ll need to add something that contains pectin or it won’t set up. Here’s a recipe for making apple pectin. You could add this instead of the certo. https://www.walkerland.ca/how-to-make-apple-pectin/
Hi where do i find these flowers i live in calgary? how can i get them?
You might find fireweed along forest edges or river banks at the edges of farm fields and clearings. You’ll also often find them in areas where there were forest fires in previous years. I expect you’ll need to head to the countryside for an outing if you are in the city.
Here’s a source for properly fermented Candian fireweed tea that popped up when I did a guick search online: https://mintandhoney.ca/collections/frontpage/products/fermented-fireweed-herbal-tea-yukon
Hi Charlotte, I was going to make this jelly today, as I picked up some “fire weed flowers” yesterday, but what a surprise, your flowers on the pic look different then mine. 🙁 Are those real fire weed flowers?
no, those aren’t fireweed flowers, nor are these photos intended for this recipe. Thanks for catching that. I’m going to have to dig up the correct photos and clean this up. My apologies for this. I don’t know what happened. I added a quick photo of fireweed right now so that you can see what they look like (even though I am sure you already know).
Once you have made it into a steaptea form can you freeze this for a later use.
Sure, you’ll loose some of the nutrients overtime but it would be just like freezing any tea or juice.
Made fireweed jelly and the recipe called for a tablespoon of butter to prevent foaming. Had no foam to skim off. This morning when I checked the jars, there is a brownish scum on the top edge of each jar! What did I do wrong?
Hi Linda, Our Fireweed Jelly recipe does not call for the use of butter so I can’t be entirely sure about what’s going on with your recipe. If the foam/scum you are seeing isn’t aesthetically pleasing, you can re-process the batch this time omitting the butter. Before ladling into jars you can skim off any foam/scum using a spoon.
I have my flowers all picked off and rinsed , had unexpced company show up . So they are washed and sitting in the fridge until morning. Hope they will be ok until then