Healthy Orange Jam with Low Sugar and High Fiber

Happy New Year 2015!!!!!

A new year has come with happiness and many new things waiting. Let's cook something healthy and taste good for celebrate a new year. Today I make orange jam with a Greek recipe with low sugar and high fiber to celebrate 2015. This recipe is quite the same with marmalade by using oranges and oranges peel in the jam. However, this recipe is faster, tasty, and easy to make with low sugar and high fiber. I learnt this recipe from the television in Greek cooking program. I changed the original recipe by reducing sugar and removing chili. The original recipe have little chili, you can add it if you want a different taste. I like this Greek orange jam recipe as it is easy to make, tasty and healthy.

The ingredients you need to make orange jam are: 

• 1,2 kg of oranges
• 300 gr of sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt

And here we go

Step 1: Clean the orange carefully and keep it dry. Zest all oranges and keep it separate while you are making the jam.

Step 2: Remove the pith oranges (the white part of peel) and cut it like this. By cutting not straight you can remove core of orange easy. 

This is how your jam look like before you cook it.

Step 3: Put the orange pieces, salt, sugar into a pan and start to cook orange jam. Turn the heat up and boil rapidly until the jam reaches setting point about 104 oC. 

• If you want your jam more jelly like, you can add some orange pith (the white part of the orange peels). As orange pith contain high amount of the natural pectin (30% of the citrus peel).
• Reduce the heat and cook it for 1 hour or whenever you see your jam is little dry. You can check it by putting a teaspoonful of the jam on to a cold saucer and put in the fridge for a minute or so. If it crinkles when you run a finger through it, and your finger leaves a clear line in the preserve, it's ready. If not, check it every five minutes or so.

Step 4: When you feel your jam is ready you can pour the orange zest into the pan.  Cook the jam with low heat about 10-15 minutes. The zest will bring the bitter taste to the jam. If you don't like that, you can cook it little bit longer until the oranges zest is clear. Don’t cook the oranges' zest for too long to keep the vitamin and nutrient in the zest. Orange peels consist of over 60 flavonoids and 170 different phytonutrients. Flavonoids can protect us from certain types of cancer and lower cholesterol levels.

Step 5: Cool down the jam and put it into clean jars. You can keep the jam in fridge for 2 or 3 weeks. If you want to keep it longer you can check the more detailed in my other post  How to make low sugar and no pectinRaspberry jam.   

Here is how I make my orange jam for a new year 2015. This jam is a good idea to start a day with a slice of bread. Do you love orange jam? What is your favorite recipe and flavor? Can you share with me or add anything to make this recipe better? 

You might be interested in:

How to make low sugar and no pectin Raspberry jam

References: 

http://www.foodgenetics.com/2010/07/06/is-orange-pith-good-for-you/

http://www.just-health.net/Eating-Orange-Peels.html

http://www.livestrong.com/article/238484-how-to-make-pectin-orange-peel/