Pear Preserves

When the mystery pear tree in the backyard is loaded with fruit, and once we’ve eaten our fill of apple-pear puff pancakes and hazelnut pear cake and pear and gorgonzola salad, it’s time to make pear preserves. Think of preserves as sort of a general category in canning, as the term means fruit preserved in sugar. But whereas jam often calls for fruit finely chopped, and making jelly requires straining the fruit solids out entirely, preserves go the other direction, calling for large pieces of fruit. Yes, you still need to peel the pears, but the resulting preserves have a glossy texture suspending melting pieces of pear. It’s lovely dolloped onto pancakes, or swirled into plain yogurt, and it’s a lovely sweet addition to a ham or turkey sandwich.

This simple recipe for pear preserves is a good introduction to boiling water canning for beginners. There’s no pectin in it, so you’re really just slow-cooking the mixture until it thickens to your liking. If you’d prefer not to use a boiling water canner, you can pack the finished preserves into clean jars and store them in the fridge for quick usage, or in freezer containers for longer storage.

Ingredients for Pear Preserves

• Pears: About a dozen large, or 16 small, pears are the star of these pear preserves. Bartlett, anjou and comice pears, which have a higher moisture content, will break down more. Bosc pears will hold their shape better. And if you make these preserves and still have more pears to use up, skim through some of our favorite pear recipes.
• Sugar: Granulated sugar acts as a preservative in this recipe, both amplifying the sweetness of the pears and forming the syrup that helps preserve their color and flavor.
• Water: Even juicy pears won’t release enough moisture to create the syrup that forms the base of these pear preserves. Adding water helps the fruit soften in the sugar syrup.
• Lemon juice: A little lemon adds acid to the pear mixture, which both ensures that it has a safe pH for water bath canning and helps add contrast to the sweet fruit and sugar.

Directions

Step 1: Cook the pear preserves

Kristina Vänni for Taste Recipes

In a stockpot, combine the pears, sugar, water and lemon juice, then bring them to a boil. Cook, uncovered, for 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours, or until the mixture reaches a thick, spreadable consistency.

Step 2: Ladle the preserves into jars

Kristina Vänni for Taste Recipes

Remove the pot from the heat. Ladle the hot mixture into seven hot 1/2-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Remove the air bubbles and adjust the headspace, if necessary, by adding more hot mixture. Wipe the rims, then center the lids on the jars, and screw on the bands until they’re fingertip tight.

Step 3: Process the jars in a water canner

Kristina Vänni for Taste Recipes

Place the jars into the canner, ensuring that they’re completely covered with water. Bring the water to a boil, then process for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and let them cool.

Kristina Vänni for Taste Recipes

Pear Preserves Variations

• Add vanilla: Add a splash of vanilla extract or the seeds scraped from a vanilla bean pod.
• Spice it up: Add a whole cinnamon stick, star anise pod or some whole allspice berries to the pear mixture as it cooks. Using whole spices instead of ground ones infuses the preserves with their warm flavor without muddying up the color of the finished preserves.
• Try it with ginger: Pear and ginger are an excellent pairing. To infuse these preserves with ginger spice, add whole slices of fresh ginger to the fruit as it cooks. The ginger will absorb the sugar syrup mixture. You can remove them and discard them when canning the pears, or add a slice to each jar.

How to Store Pear Preserves

Once the jars of jam have cooled completely, verify that the lids of each jar have formed a seal. Remove the canning rings, label and date the jars, and store them away from sunlight in a closed cabinet. It’s important to store the jars without canning rings so you can easily tell if a seal has failed when you use them in the future.

Can you freeze pear preserves?

Absolutely, you can freeze these preserves instead of canning them. Once the pear preserves have cooled, pour them into freezer-safe containers, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Label, date and freeze them for up to a year.

How long do pear preserves last?

Canned preserves are quite stable. For the brightest color and clarity, enjoy them within a year, but as long as the seals on the jars are in good condition, canned preserves are good for up to two years.

Pear Preserves Tips

Kristina Vänni for Taste Recipes

Can you reduce the sugar or substitute a different kind of sweetener?

If you’re planning on canning this pear preserves recipe, please don’t reduce the sugar or replace it with another sweetener, as that can disrupt the formulation and render the jam unsafe for boiling water canning. If you’re not planning to can this recipe, go ahead and adjust or modify the amount of sweetener to your liking!

Do you need to use bottled lemon juice to make pear preserves?

Some canning resources will insist on bottled lemon juice every time for a consistent acidity in preserves meant for canning, but because all fruits, including pears, are already considered a high-acid food in canning terms, fresh lemon juice is fine here.

Can you halve this recipe for pear preserves?

Yes. You can cut the quantities by half if you’d like to make a smaller batch of preserves. With a smaller quantity in the pot, you will likely need less cooking time. Watch the mixture often to ensure it doesn’t scorch.