I was really lucky to have so many yuzu for my cooking this winter. After making the delicious Yuzu Sorbet, I was able to pick more yuzu from my friends’ yuzu trees in their backyard.

This abundance of yuzu in my life made me smile cheek to cheek, but there was one problem. We were leaving for Taiwan in just a few days. There was no way to use up all these yuzu before the trip, and by the time we come home from the trip, 2 weeks later, the yuzu won’t be fresh anymore and could spoil. The solution? Make delicious homemade Yuzu Marmalade (柚子のマーマレード).

Making Yuzu Marmalade

My biggest challenge was that I have absolutely no experience with canning before. Time to research and try it for the first time. I was definitely a bit hesitant. But I had to save my yuzu! I quickly looked up the method of canning and making marmalade. It was pretty straightforward and simple. No problem! Since I had to make this during the weekday and Mr. JOC was at work, we couldn’t shoot this yuzu marmalade tutorial video (sorry!). I tried my best to take step-by-step pictures myself during this process but missed a few shots. Usually, Mr. JOC takes step-by-step pictures as we shoot videos and I haven’t taken step-by-step pictures by myself for a long time, so pardon me if the quality is not good as usual.

Can you guess what was the most difficult part of this WHOLE process? It was to slice 24 yuzu peel into julienned pieces. I cut each yuzu into quarters. So I had 96 pieces of yuzu rind to julienne. The peel is pretty thick and you need to press it down to cut. My hands were so sore from slicing yuzu peel even with a super sharp knife. I started in the morning maybe around 9 or 10 am and I think I finished around 4 or 5 pm in the evening, just before the sunset so that I could take pictures of the final product. As I was in and out to pick up my kids from school in between, I couldn’t record accurate prepping and cooking time for the yuzu marmalade recipe and I apologize for that.

Ways to Enjoy Yuzu Marmalade

I’ve been using Yuzu Marmalade for my hot yuzu drink (just add hot water and mix) and Teriyaki Sauce (add the marmalade to the sauce), and Mr. JOC makes Yuzu Chuhai (cocktail) with the marmalade. Yuzu is very rare to find in the U.S. or outside of Japan, but if you are able to get your hands on this delicious citrus fruit, I hope you can make this yuzu marmalade! After trying canning for the first time, I look forward to trying other recipes in the future. If you don’t plan on canning often at home, you don’t need a canner or pressure cooker at home for canning. You just need a large pot with racks that can go on the bottom so the jars don’t touch the bottom of the pot (for water bath). I hope you like the yuzu marmalade as much as my family does.

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