5 Blueberry Ideas

It’s currently still blueberry season in Michigan but I’m not sure how much longer that will last. Once the season wraps up it’s like fall is finally inevitable and all the kids start to head back to school. Of course this just means that all of the other canning and preserving that we have to do is also ramping up. It’s rather nice to have some early foods to get through and help us get back into the rhythm of preserving before it all hits at once. One of the first things that we preserve is strawberries and then blueberries quickly follow after that. Here are my top 5 blueberry ideas to help you make the most of those delicious little berries.

Freeze 

Every year I freeze blueberries. This is the very best way to make sure that you have them all year round. I don’t believe it’s possible to just can normal blueberries for eating. Actually, I think you could probably can them but they would end up as some sort of blueberry juice. Although, that actually gives me a good idea and I may need to try canning some blueberry juice next year! I’m not sure that it would be good on its own but I do think it would be good mixed with either grape or cranberry. 

Pancakes 

This has to be the most obvious of all the things to do with blueberries. If you are going to go spend time in the hot heat picking a ton of little berries you had better be putting them into a delicious stack of flapjacks. Having blueberry pancakes is actually one of the things that I freeze blueberries for. I love them so much that I want to have them all year round. You can use any sort of pancake recipe that you like and then just throw in the berries while they are cooking. The other thing that you can do is turn them into a blueberry compote. This is basically a thicker and chunkier version of blueberry syrup. Personally, I like to do both! The more berries the merrier for me. 

Muffins

This has to be the 2nd most obvious of my 5 blueberry ideas. Again, I say if you are going to spend time picking the blueberries then you had better be putting them into some delicious blueberry muffins. There are all kinds of recipes out there from the super fancy ones with the sugared topping or just the most basic ones. Honestly, I love them all! Blueberry, poppyseed, chocolate chip- you really can’t go wrong with some muffins. 

Cobbler 

One of the very best fruit desserts is cobbler. It’s a standard dessert that is super easy to make and you can scale it to be a large or small dessert. There are also so many different variations out there that you could make several different types of cobbler and still have something different each time. This is also a good way to use up a larger amount of blueberries. The pancakes and muffins might not take a lot of berries but the cobbler will take a bit more than those recipes. 

Jam/Jelly

The good thing about fruit is that you can turn pretty much all of them into jam or jelly. There are tons of different recipes out there to be able to do this but I prefer to make mine with Pemona’s pectin. I made blueberry jam last year so I didn’t need to do another batch this year, which was bittersweet. Between the two of us we just don’t eat that much jelly so we tend to go years between batches which is both exciting and sad for me. I love to make the jelly because it’s so easy and satisfying to make. Plus, you can mix fruits together to make your own concoctions. For instance, you could freeze fresh strawberries in the early summer and then use those to make a strawberry blueberry jam. Or you could save strawberries, blackberries, and use blueberries to make a mixed berry jam. My mouth is watering just thinking about them! 

Bonus: Blueberry Pie

This one was just too important to leave off the list! Blueberry pie is so darn good and super easy to make. In addition to making a fresh pie you could also can blueberry pie filling for later. We haven’t canned the pie filling yet but it is on my list to try next year. No matter what I do I end up with excess pie filling so I need to learn how to use up some more of it before we increase our supply.

In Summary: 5 Blueberry Ideas

There are so many fun things you can do with blueberries but these are some of my absolute favorites. You can even ask my husband! We will eat blueberry pancakes until we are so sick of them we don’t want to see a pancake for a long time. Of course this is a pretty limited list too. There are still other things you can do from just adding them to a bowl of oatmeal to scones to bread to coffee cake. One of the main things that I want to try is making blueberry donuts! I’ve bought them before and they were so good that I’m sure if I can figure out how to make them they’d be a great treat.

What is your favorite way to use blueberries? I still think that my number one favorite is blueberry pancakes!