How to Preserve Honey Tangerines

Honey tangerines are delicious, but they are only available for a limited time during the winter. Preserving them into jelly, jam or marmalade is a great way to make sure that you and your family can enjoy the sweet taste of honey tangerines all year. Even if you have never canned preserves before you can make honey tangerine preserves without any special equipment. Everything you need to preserve tangerines, grapefruits, or specialty fruits like Honeybells is available at the grocery store. Preserving citrus fruits is easy because the natural sugars in the fruit and the natural pectin in the peel are both used to gel and preserve fruit. There are easy to follow guides on canning fruit preserves available both online and off line, but these tip from expert jam makers aren’t available anywhere else. Follow these suggestions to make picture perfect tangerine preserves on your first try:

Use the best fruit you can find – the quality of the finished product is directly related to the quality of the fruit that you use. Fruit that is already nearly spoiling will make bad preserves. To avoid that buy high quality fruit direct from the grower. Many growers will ship honey tangerines and other fruits to you as soon as they are picked. Those are the kinds of fruit that make the best preserves because they are freshest possible fruit.

You can mix fruit – If you want to use only natural pectin and not add any powdered pectin to the preserves try mixing a fruit with a high pectin content, like blackberries, with the citrus fruit that you want to preserve. Combining fruit is also a tasty way to get a more complex flavor in the finished preserves. Try mixing honey tangerines and grapefruit, or Honeybells and oranges, to get unique blends of citrus flavor.

Use the right sugar – Granulated sugar, the kind you have in the house for baking and for coffee, is fine for most preserves. If you are working with fruit that has a low natural pectin content you will get a better result if you use preserving sugar. Preserving sugar can make the finished preserves less grainy, but if you’re preserving fruit with a normal or high pectin content you can use granulated sugar and get a good result.

Use butter to get rid of scum – After you bottle the preserves some scum, or bubbles and debris from the hot preserves, will rise to the top. To get rid of it use a tiny bit of butter, it will dissolve the scum instantly.

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At Hale Groves, we believe the best gifts come from the land, not a factory. For generations, our fruit has been grown slowly under the Florida sun, picked at its peak, and delivered fresh to your door. From sweet Navel Oranges to rare Honeybells, every gift shares the simple joy of real flavor—perfect for holidays, milestones, or everyday moments worth celebrating.

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