Traditional Scottish Rosehip Jelly (only 4 ingredients!) - Larder Love (2024)

It’s an autumnal classic, traditional Scottish rosehip jelly. All country-loving folks make this gorgeous sweet yet tart jelly every year. I’m no exception. It’s one of those preserves that you just have to make yourself. So let’s go make some.

Why you’ll love this recipe

• Rosehip jelly isn’t something you’ll find in the shops so it is really rather special and makes a great gift too.
• This is a super easy homemade rosehip jelly recipe.
• The taste – rosehip jelly is delicious and really useful too as a glaze for roasting meats, with a cheeseboard, adding to gravy and of course just on the side of your plate with chicken, baked ham etc.

To make rosehip jelly one first requires rosehips. This means a bit of foraging. These are tricky little buggers that look deceptively cute with their jolly red colouring adding touches of glory to an otherwise dull autumnal day. They tempt you on the hedgerows and you feel you just have to make something yummy out of them.

And come on, how difficult can they be?

Picking rosehips

It is at this point that the human mechanism for forgetfulness falls into place. That same mechanism that makes women forget (!) or at least subdue the memory of pain/agony/torture of childbirth and have another offspring. You have forgotten the scratches etc of former years. Hey ho, off you go again.

You head into the bushes reaching here and there to catch the tantalising little beauties. With each reach and gather you seem to become entangled in the thorns.

Pulling back is a huge mistake because now you are impaled. You end up with crisscrosses all over as if having had a bit of a turn on the self-harming front.

Homewards with the bounty.

Admire those gorgeous red beauties, you have struggled and striven to get the little sods! Onwards to the kitchen…..

The complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this recipe can be found on the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Processing rosehips

Do not be tempted to remove the seeds or anything remotely crafty like that. Settle instead for chopping off the tufty hard ends. This will be a boring in the extreme and take FAR longer than anticipated. You may well lose the will to live…..

Having done all that throw the damn things in the food processor and pulse them on and off to break them up and open the little monsters. Smirk with glee as you look at them whirring away and imagine their screams of agony that can hardly compare to your own in the bushes earlier.

By the way, try to avoid touching the furry bits inside these joyous little goodies, they cause you to itch like crazy. Did you know that rosehips were once the original components for itching powder!

Ingredients for rosehip jelly

There really aren’t many ingredients in this jelly, only 4 in fact!

There are rosehips, sugar, lemon juice and apples.

How easy is that! If you haven’t made any sort of jelly before then check out my Making Great Jelly page.

Do rosehips contain pectin?

They don’t have a lot of pectin themselves but apples do so they make up for the lack of pectin in rosehips. I add lemon juice to my homemade rosehip jelly and this adds to the pectin levels.

If you don’t want to use lemon juice you can use preserving sugar instead of standard granulated sugar.

Foraging

Foraging for fruits and berries is great fun. And when the results are as good as this amazing rosehip jelly then it is well worth the odd scratch and maybe falling in a ditch or two along the way.

When you are foraging for rosehips always leave some on the bush for the birds. Forage responsibly please.

Making Rosehip Jelly

Like all good jelly making this is an overnight job. You want to get the most of the juice from those rosehips and apples once you’ve boiled them together. Now the most important thing in making any jelly is NOT to squeeze the bag to get more juice out of it. Oh I know it’s tempting.

You’ve let it drip overnight and see there is a mass of fruity pulp in the bag and not a huge amount of juice in the bowl. DO NOT squeeze the jelly bag. Resist the temptation to squeeze that bag at all costs.

If you do squeeze out the last of the juice your rosehip jelly will end up cloudy and not that gorgeous jewel-like clear jelly you were looking for.

Next day measure the resulting juice that is in the jug/bowl and add the corresponding amount of sugar (see my recipe card for details) to a pan along with the liquid.

Heat this gently till sugar dissolves then boil to the setting point. All info on selling of jelly etc is in my How to make great jelly page.

Then simply carefully ladle the hot rosehip jelly into sterilised jars.

Pro Tips

If your rosehip jelly doesn’t set properly when you first make it. Simply pour it back into the pan and quickly reboil it but watch it doesn’t set too much. Be ready with those jars to pot it up.

How long will this jelly keep?

This will keep for up to a year in a cool dark place but once opened store in the fridge and use within a month.

How to use rosehip jelly

Serve this yummy jelly on toast in the morning or with a cheese board in the evening.

Rose hip jelly is a tart and sweet jelly that goes really well with cold meats too. So bring it out with a plowman’s at lunchtime too.

Use this as a glaze when you are baking gammon and other meats.

Add some rosehip jelly to your toasted sandwiches too and stir some into gravy for added flavour..

Now that you’ve got your rosehips you might want to make something else with them.

Rosehip Vinegar

How to make rosehip syrup

Scotch Hedgerow Jelly

Remember foraged fruits like rosehips can’t be bought in the shops. So this rosehip jelly makes a great wee foodie gift for friends and family.

Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.