This sunny yellow dandelion jelly recipe is super simple to make. It tastes light and sweet with a flavor profile similar to honey and a hint of orange. Don’t get annoyed with the dandelions in your yard. Eat them instead!
Most of us have grown up knowing what a dandelion looks like. Probably many of us picked them and rubbed their cheerful yellow heads on our skin to leave yellow marks. But maybe you don’t know the variety of wonderful uses they provide. What would you say if I told you dandelions are a superfood that have vitamin levels higher than kale and spinach?
Useful from its blooms to its leaves to its roots, the dandelion is so versatile and blooms a bounty. I’m sure your yard has been covered in these yellow blooms, whether you wanted them or not. So you might as well enjoy them!
Read more about the many benefits of dandelions and get more ideas on how to use them.
Picking a Spot to Forage Dandelions
To make dandelion jelly you first need to pick your dandelions. It’s very important that you choose an area to forage from that:
- is not sprayed with pesticides or chemicals
- do not contain animal waste
- isn’t muddy
- and isn’t too close to a busy street where it’s subjected to car exhaust
When picking dandelions for dandelion jelly, you don’t need any stems. Just pop the head of the flower off into your basket! This recipe takes approximately 4 cups of dandelion blossoms.
Preparing Dandelion Flowers for Jelly
The petals of dandelions have a nice subtle sweet flavor, but the green part where the petals attach to the flower have more of that characteristic bitterness dandelions are known for. For this reason it’s important to remove as much of the green from the petals as possible.. To remove, you can either snip off as much of the base with scissors as possible, or pinch the base of the dandelion between your thumb and forefinger, squeezing and rolling it to separate the petals from where they are attached to the flower. This practically makes the petals fall out! Grasp them and they will easily pull from the flower.
This task is a bit tedious. If you don’t have time to finish pulling the petals from the flowers in one sitting you can place them in a ziploc bag in the fridge for up to a day. They will close a bit and become a bit more dull in color, but they will still work just fine.
Making Dandelion Tea
The next step of this process once you have 4 cups of fluffy yellow dandelion petals is to make a dandelion tea. Take the prepared dandelion petals and add them to 6 cups of water. They will want to float on the top, so you’ll have to push them under with a spoon. Bring this to a boil and allow to boil for 5 minutes. Then let it sit and steep for at least 30 minutes, but up to 24 hours.
When your dandelion tea has steeped, strain by pouring through a fine wire mesh sieve or through cheesecloth, pressing well to remove all the liquid.
Note: After this step you might be looking at your dandelion tea and thinking, this doesn’t look right. It’s not a pretty color at all, in fact, it’s kind of brown with a weird green tint. This is normal!!
It will turn a light golden yellow when we move to the next step of the process, I promise.
Making the Dandelion Jelly
Measure out 4 cups of the dandelion tea (there might be a little bit extra, feel free to discard it or use it for a different recipe) and add it to a large pan. Add the lemon juice and pectin, and a slice of orange peel (without any pith) to the dandelion tea. Bring this to a rolling boil over hight heat. Next, add all the sugar and bring it back to a boil. Let it boil hard for 2- 2.5 minutes.
Important: If you’ve never made jelly before, you might look at the amount of liquid and think I don’t need a large pan. You do. Once you add the pectin and sugar and get this to really boiling it will grow! You don’t want a boiled over sugar mess burnt on your stove, trust me.
Quickly and carefully ladle the hot jelly into sterilized jars leaving ¼ inch of headspace. Wipe the rims to remove any traces of jelly and add clean washed and dried lids. Add rings to the jars and tighten to fingertip tightness. If you are not planning to can the jelly, seal the jars and allow the jelly to set up. It can take anywhere from overnight to a few days for the jelly to set up and jell.
Without canning your jelly will last in the fridge for several weeks or in the freezer for up to 6 months. (If planning to freeze, put your jelly in freezer jars.)
Should You Can Your Dandelion Jelly?
It’s completely optional to can your jelly, but it will make it shelf stable for a much longer time so you can enjoy your Dandelion Jelly year round. You’ll have noticed that we added lemon juice to our jelly, and there were a couple reasons for that.
- It adds flavor and brightness to the dandelion jelly.
- It changes the ph level of the jelly to make it safe to home can.
Instructions for Water Bath Canning Your Dandelion Jelly
Bring the water in your water bath canner to a boil before you start making your jelly.
When the jelly is done cooking and has been ladled into jars with rings and lids tightened to fingertip tightness, place the jars on a rack in the boiling water in the canner making sure they are covered by 1-2 inches of water over the tops.
Cover the canner and process ½ pint or 8 ounce jars for 10 minutes.
Remove from the canner from the heat and let sit 5 minutes.
Remove the jars with a jar lifter and allow to cool completely, 12-24 hours.
Test the jar seals by pressing lightly in the centers to make sure that it doesn’t budge. Any jars that didn’t seal correctly need to be stored in fridge.
Dandelion Jelly Recipe
This sunny yellow dandelion jelly recipe is super simple to make. It tastes light and sweet with a flavor profile similar to honey and a hint of orange.
Ingredients
- 4 cups dandelion blossoms
- 4 cups white sugar
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice*
- 1 box (1.75 oz) Sure-Jell Fruit Pectin
- Optional: 1 (2 inch) piece orange peel without pith*
- Boiling Water
Instructions
Pick 4 cups of dandelion blossoms.
Remove all the green from the blossoms as this will make your dandelion jelly more bitter. To remove, you can either snip off as much of the base with scissors as possible, or pinch the base of the dandelion between your thumb and forefinger, squeezing and rolling it to separate the petals from where they are attached to the flower. This practically makes the petals fall out! Grasp them and they will easily pull from the flower.
Take the prepared dandelion petals and add them to 6 cups of water. They will want to float on the top, so you’ll have to push them under with a spoon. Bring this to a boil and all to boil for 5 minutes. Then let it sit and steep for at least 30 minutes, but up to 24 hours.
Cool and strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove all the petals, pressing them well to get as much of the liquid from them as possible.
Take 4 cups of the dandelion liquid, the lemon juice, and powdered pectin and add this to a large heavy-bottomed pan. Bring this to a boil over high heat.
Once the mixture is at a rapid boil, add the sugar to the pan stirring to combine.
Continue boiling and stirring for 2 to 2 and a half minutes.
Quickly and carefully ladle the hot jelly into sterilized jars leaving ¼ inch of headspace. Wipe the rims to remove any traces of jelly and add clean washed and dried lids. Add the bands and tighten until finger tip tight.
Water Bath Canning Instructions:
Bring the water in your water bath canner to a boil before you start making your jelly.
Place the jelly filled jars on a rack in the boiling water in the canner making sure they are covered by 1-2 inches of water over the tops.
Cover the canner and process ½ pint or 8 ounce jars for 10 minutes.
Remove from the canner from the heat and let sit 5 minutes.
Remove the jars with a jar lifter and allow to cool completely, 12-24 hours.
Test the jar seals by pressing lightly in the centers to make sure that it doesn’t budge. Any jars that didn’t seal correctly need to be stored in fridge.
Notes
*Instead of lemon juice you may use 1/2 citric acid.
The orange peel is optional for this recipe, I just like the light citrus flavor it adds to the jelly.
Some people choose to add a drop of yellow food coloring to their jelly to get a brighter and more vibrant colored jelly.
Love Foraging in the Spring? You might also enjoy this Forsythia Syrup recipe:
