Blueberry pie filling, because we love blueberries! With a few simple ingredients, we bring out the natural flavor and intense color of this beautiful berry. Pie filling is my first-step to making all the blueberry treats: pies, tarts, muffins, cake, ice cream, scones, pancakes, cheesecake… I’ll stop there. Let’s make this happen!
Jump to RecipeVegan and gluten free is happening here. No artificial dyes are ever needed or wanted for blueberries. Below I show you the switch-outs if you want to make this sugar-free and/or low glycemic.
If you don’t have fresh blueberries on hand, no worries. I love using frozen berries, and frozen and organic blueberries are available year-round. Orange juice is a wonderful compliment, and my preferred method, and I’ll even add orange or lemon zest to this if citrus will be in the mix. However, you can substitute with water without compromising the end-result of your dessert-berries. Some sweetener is necessary and to me, this ratio is really nice – not overly sweet. You will want a little corn starch for added stability that we like in both the berries as filling and some thickness in the cooked juices that we can enjoy as-is, or set aside and save to make a blueberry reduction, icing or glaze.
At home, I recently planted a blueberry bush in our backyard. It is still very young and now in late-spring, it is starting to do it’s thing. We think we’ll have enough fresh berries at one time to make a pie come next year. In the mean time, it is awesome to enjoy a little handful of homegrown blueberries. Even the big kids are excited about it.
Blueberry Pie Filling
Ingredients
- 4 cups blueberries – fresh or frozen
- 1/2 cup orange juice (or water)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar for a "sugar free," (berries have natural sugar) or low-glycemic sweetner option, substitute granulated sugar for Monkfruit Sweetner in a 1:1 ratio.
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Measure your ingredients.
- Pour into a pan to cook over medium-high heat.
- Stir to coat the blueberries and allow the additional ingredients to dissolve. The liquid will be light in texture and color.
- In about 10 minutes, with on-and-off stirring, you'll notice that the blueberries are darker in color and the blueberry filling liquid is thick and will bubbly and will match the intense color of the blueberries themselves.
- It will take about 15 minutes to complete the blueberry cooking. Once the amount of thickness has been achieved, remove from heat.
- You have the option to strain the thickened liquid from the berries and set this aside for use in other ways – natural flavor syrups, glaze, or making a reduction.
- If filling a pie crust, you can pour the thickened liquid right into bake your pie. If you are using it as a main flavor ingredient to make or fill cake/muffin, scones, allow it to cool to room temperature before refrigerating for up to a week or freezing for up to a month.
In future recipe-posts, I’ll share how to make the most of this blueberry pie filling. Many of these posts are here and live, and my Spring-cleaning on the blog is on-going, to make recipe finding and downloading easier, and without too much to unpack in one post. The next recipes you’ll find related to blueberries are classic or gluten free muffin or cake recipe, along with a vegan muffin or cake recipe and more on pie.
Take care and enjoy!
