Jalapeño Pepper Jelly for Canning or Freezing (Low Sugar, Honey Sweetened)

With less than half the sweetener of traditional hot pepper jelly, this jalapeño pepper jelly recipe with honey is deliciously sweet with a jam-like consistency. Easily made with a lot more pepper-to-jelly ratio and no refined sugars.

Some links in this article are affiliate links and if you click on them I will receive a small commission at no cost to you.

When I started canning, jalapeño pepper jelly was one of the first things I made, along with simple berry jams and salsa (which I later refined to become my favorite salsa for canning).

Not only is jalapeño jelly easy to make, it has that great combo of spicy and sweet that goes with so many things - sort of like Asian chili sauce.

We use it as a meat glaze, a condiment on burgers and sausages, and as an appetizer with cream cheese. It's especially good spread on salmon patties.

I even gave it as gifts and it became one of my most requested canned goods.

The Problem with Traditional Jalapeño Pepper Jelly

But when I started moving our family away from heavily sugared foods, the 5-6 cups of sugar to only 1-1/2 cups of jalapeños in the standard recipe just didn't sit well with me anymore.

I searched for a less sugary replacement, but wasn't happy with the results, so one year I didn't make any at all.

But we all missed it (it's a favorite with sausages and Addictive Tomato Chutney), so I decided to try again with the garden jalapeños that were left after making our yearly batch of easy pickled jalapeño peppers.

The Adapted Recipe

This time I found a Ball Preserving recipe that was a hybrid pepper jelly recipe using both sugar and honey, though with mainly sweet peppers, that sounded like something I could adapt to create a less sugar jalapeño jelly sweetened with only honey.

Since this was a tested recipe, I kept the ratios the same, but used mostly jalapeños, a few milder Ancho and/or Anaheim peppers (which can be increased and the jalapeños decreased for a less-spicy end product), and only honey as the sweetener.

I used Ball's commercial flex batch no/low sugar pectin to give the jelly the best chance to set when using only honey to sweeten.

Jalapeño Jelly or Jalapeño Jam?

In the end, the jelly is more jam-like in both consistency and all the peppers included (vs. a stiff jelled product with only a few peppers floating around).

This has been perfectly fine for what we use it for - in fact, I've found it actually easier to use as a glaze for meats when it's looser like a jam.

So if you've been searching for a healthier jalapeño jelly product like me, I'm excited to be able to end your search right here.

And if you've never tried making jalapeño jelly, I would encourage you to try it - it may just become your most-requested gifts, too!

Ingredients

• Jalapeño peppers - you can use all green, a combo of red and green or all red (I used a combo, so the resulting jelly in the photos is more red/orange than if you used all green jalapeños).
• Mild hot peppers - anaheim, poblano, hatch, and banana peppers are all good choices.
• Vinegar - I prefer apple cider vinegar, but white vinegar will also work well.
• Ball's Real Fruit flex batch no or low sugar pectin
• Honey - you can use half honey and half cane sugar if you'd like (or even all cane sugar), but not any sugar substitutes - they will not work with the pectin to gel.

How to Make Jalapeño Pepper Jelly with Honey

Detailed quantities and instructions are included in the full recipe box below, but here are a few extra tips to help with each step:

Step 1. Gather boiling water canning equipment and prepare eight 1/2-pint (8-ounce) jars and lids (see tutorial video below). (See all my favorite canning supplies here - including the flat-bottomed canner I wished I'd known about sooner!)

Step 2. Finely chop peppers (I use this food processor, it makes it easy and chops finer than by hand), being careful to protect your hands with gloves - pepper juice has been known to leave a burning sensation in your hands for hours afterwards and often gets transmitted to your eyes (yes, this is first hand knowledge...).

TIP: Remove the seeds and pith completely from the mild peppers, but leave most of the jalapeño seeds and membranes if you like things spicy like we do - the more you remove from the jalapeños, the less spicy the jelly will be.

Step 3. Add the peppers, vinegar and pectic to a large stockpot.

Step 4: Bring to a roiling boil that can't be stirred down.

Step 5: Add honey, return to a roiling boil and boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly - this is important, as the mixture could foam up over the pan if left unattended. The mixture should feel a bit thicker as you stir by the end, but will not be like jam yet. It will set more as it cools.

Step 6: Use a metal ladle and canning funnel to transfer the pepper jelly to warm clean half-pint jars leaving a 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rim with a damp cloth.

Step 7: Attach lid and band to the jar, screwing the band on just to fingertip tight.

Step 8: Fill one jar at a time and transfer to a raised rack in a water-bath canner before filling remaining jars. (This is the glass-topped one I use now after retiring my wobbly old enamel canner!)

Step 9: Lower canning rack and process jars in canner for 10 minutes (timing after water comes to a boil with the jars submerged). Remove lid, turn off burner, and let jars sit in canner for 5 minutes.

Boiling Water Canning Step-by-Step Video

You can also read the full canning tutorial with more details here.

Step 10: Remove jars to a towel-lined surface to cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours. Remove rings, check seals and label with date before storing.

I love seeing the jars sitting while cooling, waiting to be labeled and added to the canning pantry - it's such a nice feeling of accomplishment.

How To Use Jalapeño Pepper Jelly

Here are just a few of the ways we enjoy this condiment:

• Spread on burgers and sausages.
• As a glaze for chicken, pork, and ham.
• Added on top of salmon patties or Costco's salmon burgers.
• Spooned over a block of cream cheese to eat with crackers for the easiest appetizer ever.

Again, you can see this isn't your typical clear jelly with a few peppers floating around in all the sugar, this is full-on pepper jam.

Both Brian and I like it much better, though - I hope you do, too!

Tips & FAQs

More Easy Recipes Like This

• Easy Addictive Tomato Chutney Recipe
• Easy Canned Chipotle BBQ Sauce Recipe
• Sweet and Spicy Canned Onion Marmalade/Jam

This recipe has been updated - it was originally published in 2014.

Disclosure: affiliate links in this article will earn commission based on sales, but it doesn't change your price. Click here to read my full disclaimer and advertising disclosure.