Purple Clover Jelly Recipe (Yes, Clover!)

I have very fond childhood memories of picking purple clovers and pulling the petals off to suck out the tiny little bit of nectar that each one provided. I polled my friends and it seems that this was, and still is, a pretty common thing for kids to do. Recently, on the foraging page that I follow (but rarely actually do anything they suggest), I have seen several people talking about Purple Clover Jelly. 

Because we live on a small farm and have acres full of hay fields without any chemicals added, I knew I could pick enough clover to try it. And let me be honest, summer is fresh and my ambition is still existent.

I was a little skeptical while making it because it smelled like I was cooking grass and I figured it was going to have a weird taste. Once finished, I carefully tried it. Oh my! It is SO good and has a nice light honey flavor with the most gorgeous transparent purple color! The consistency is not quite as gooey as store-bought jelly, so it spreads on biscuits perfectly.

After that success, I decided that I needed to share this easy recipe because it would be a fun thing to do with kids of any age! Here’s the super simple recipe:

Ingredients:

4-6 cups purple clover 

4 cups water

1/4 cup lemon juice

4 cups sugar

1 box liquid pectin (two 3 oz packets)

Instructions:

1. Pick the clover. You want to remove any green leaves and just try to leave the blossoms. You can rinse them if you want.
2. Boil the 4 cups of water in a large pan.
3. Add the clover blossoms and turn it off. You are just going to steep the clover like tea.
4. Place a lid on the pan and let it sit overnight.
5. Strain the clover out of the water. (I used a colander lined with cheesecloth and was able to just squeeze it to get all the liquid out.)
6. Pour the clover “tea” liquid back into the pan, along with the lemon juice, and pectin.
7. Bring to a rolling boil.
8. Add the sugar.
9. Bring back to a boil for 1 minute.
10. Pour into jelly jars and allow to cool. 
11. Place a lid on the jars and refrigerate.
12. Use within 2-3 months. 
13. You can water bath can the jars to preserve your jelly if you’d like to keep it longer, but I chose to just refrigerate mine for ease. 

That’s all there is to this fun, summer recipe! Get those kiddos and go pick some purple clover. Just remember to be pollinator friendly and don’t take too much of any one patch of clover. And Bon appetit!