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The best strawberry jam on the market is INNA Seascape, which, at $14.50 per jar, might lead you to think that the price of premium fruit spreads and preserves correlates with quality and flavor. However, as we found out in our recent taste test, it doesn't. Our second and third place jams sell for less than $5 per jar, a bargain compared to the $15 jar that came in 15th place. For our methodology and the full list of spreads we tasted, scroll to the bottom of the page; first up, the rankings!
Our Absolute Favorite Strawberry Jam: INNA Seascape
INNA makes two strawberry jams, both named after the berry varietal from which they're made. While the brand's Albion flavor came in sixth place, the Seascape variety came away with the grand prize. We liked its bold flavor that tasted of stewed fruit upfront and its bright, fresh finish. It's a little runnier than ideal for a strawberry jam—almost like a compote—but with its large chunks of meltingly soft fruit, it would still hold up to being spread on crusty bread with salted butter. The texture does make it ideal for spooning over yogurt or—since you're already being extravagant—ricotta.
BUY IT: INNA Jam Seascape Strawberry Jam, $14.50 for a 10-ounce jar at select Whole Foods or at innajam.com
A More Affordable Option: Crofter's Organic Premium Spread
We also tasted two samples from Crofter's—one from the Premium Spreads line and one from the Just Fruit Spreads line. We preferred the Strawberry Premium Spread, which, aside from cost, differs from INNA in that it's much jammier and thicker, with far fewer chunks of fruit. We really loved the actual taste of strawberries in this one—too many of the jams we tasted had middling strawberry flavor, or worse: an aftertaste of pineapple or raisin (more on that below). The ingredient list stays true to the berry in question, and the final result has a strong balance of tartness and sweetness. In short, this is the quintessential spread you need for the ultimate PBJ (or ABJ) or to use in any of our best recipes with jam.
BUY IT: Crofter's Organic Premium Strawberry Spread, $4 for a 16.5-ounce jar at Thrive Market
The Most Widely Available Strawberry Jam: Smucker's Natural
If you're looking for a strawberry jam to buy at any old grocery store, consider Smucker's Natural, which like Crofter's, boasts a simple ingredient list. Epi team member Erika Owen praised its "long-lasting flavor," declaring that she would "eat it on anything." Again, it has rich, stewed berry flavor with a bright, acidic finish. It has a nice spreadable texture with varying bits of chunky fruit—almost like a thick fruit purée.
BUY IT: Smucker's Natural Strawberry Fruit Spread, $3 for a 17.25-ounce jar at Walmart
What We Were Looking For
We started our search by looking for jams without excessive fillers or artificial sweeteners. Still, there are a lot of jams on the market—especially once we decided to include anything labeled fruit spread or preserves, but not jelly. For us, "jam" indicates soft bits of cooked fruit suspended in a viscous, spreadable mass (ditto fruit spread and preserves). Alternatively, jelly is a more gelatinous spread that's been strained to contain no solid pieces of fruit. Both contain sugar (for sweetening) and pectin (for thickening).
The best strawberry jams we tasted had very short lists of ingredients, with the first always being strawberries. In fact, if your local store doesn't carry any of our top picks, just go with whatever lists "strawberries" as the first ingredient. Of our 18 contenders, the top 10 listed "strawberries" first while the bottom eight tended to start with "sugar." Other jars listed fruit concentrates, such as pear, grape, pineapple, and date. We found that these samples didn't taste like the fruit they were labeled as and resulted in tasting notes like, "why does this taste like raisins?" and "this tastes like a Jolly Rancher—and not in a good way." There were a few jars that listed strawberries first that we didn't like. Those jars tended to taste over-cooked—as if the fruit had been stewed for too long, robbing it of any bright flavors. Erika compared the flavor of one such sample to a fruit roll-up. Ultimately, our favorite jams had a good mix of chunky fruit and—for lack of a better term—gloopiness, with balanced sweet-tart flavor.
How We Tested
All samples were tasted by a panel of Epicurious editors in a blind tasting. Voters tasted jams by the spoonful, with saltine-style crackers for palate cleansing. All jars were chilled overnight, then opened and stirred just before serving. No distinction was made between organic and non-organic products during testing.
The Other Jams We Tasted
In alphabetical order:
- 365 Organic Strawberry Conserve
- American Spoon Early Glow Strawberry Preserves
- Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves
- Cascadian Farm Strawberry Fruit Spread
- Crofter’s Organic Strawberry Just Fruit Spread
- D’arbo All Natural Fruit Spread Garden Strawberry
- Hero Strawberry Premium Fruit Spread
- INNA Jam Albion Strawberry
- Polaner All Fruit: Strawberry
- Trader Joe’s Organic Strawberry Fruit Spread
- Trader Joe’s Strawberry Preserve Made With Fresh Strawberries
- Smucker’s Simply Fruit Strawberry
- St. Dalfour Strawberry Fruit Spread
- Welch’s Natural Strawberry Spread
- Wilkin & Sons TipTree Little Scarlet Strawberry Preserve
The best thing you can do with expensive jam? Slather all over a skillet biscuit:
All products featured on Epicurious are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
