Homemade Christmas Mincemeat: easier than you think
Did you know that Homemade Christmas Mincemeat is incredibly easy?
It’s really just a case of mixing up the ingredients, leaving overnight and then putting in a low oven for a couple of hours. Then it’s ready to put in jars!
Get making my easy but delicious Homemade Christmas Mincemeat between October and early December, and it’ll be matured and ready for making fab mince pies at Christmas.
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PROPER MINCE PIES
A staggering 370 million mince pies are sold in the UK over Christmas. But an estimated 20% are thrown away, uneaten. That’s 74 million mince pies and lord knows how many tonnes. In my opinion, we’d do much better to concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
For me, Christmas means a celebration of good things to eat that will cheer us through the darkest days of winter. And that means the tastiest mince pies possible.
Of those tens of millions of shop-bought mince pies chucked in the bin, I’ll bet plenty of them were labelled The Best, The Finest, Luxury and such like.
But almost all will probably contain ingredients like palm oil and glucose-fructose syrup which are completely alien to the home cook. They’re used to make mass production easier and cheaper, not a mince pie that’s better to eat.
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, no matter what the label, they don’t come anywhere near a proper, homemade mince pie.
HOMEMADE CHRISTMAS MINCEMEAT
I think that the bedrock of getting a proper homemade mince pie is to simply make your own mincemeat. And, trust me, it really is simple.
When I first researched making mincemeat, I expected the process to be similar to making chutney.
For chutney, the ingredients are boiled, simmered and stirred over a fairly long period. This is to achieve the right consistency and ensure it has good keeping qualities.
But I was pleasantly surprised to find that making Homemade Christmas Mincemeat requires hardly any work on your part at all.
USE YOUR FAVOURITE FRUITS, SPICES & NUTS
The ingredients for my proper mincemeat are: dried fruit, sugar, cooking apples, shredded beef suet (some people use butter instead, see note below), an orange and a lemon, chopped nuts, spices and brandy.
However, the joy of making your own mincemeat is that you can swap various ingredients to suit your own tastes. If you’re not keen on the traditional mixed peel, you could replace them with chopped dried apricots or glace cherries.
I mix up individual dried fruits, but to simplify even more you could buy a bag of mixed dried fruit.
You could substitute whisky, rum, amaretto or similar for the brandy I’ve used. If you want a no-alcohol mincemeat then just add more orange juice (or other fruit juice or even water) to make sure the mix isn’t too dry.
You can choose which type of nut to use too (I like chopped almonds and pecans) or leave them out altogether. For the spicing, I use lots of the British blend known as ‘mixed spice’ plus extra cinnamon. But you can swap in your own favourites.
ALTERNATIVES TO BEEF SUET: If you want to make vegetarian mincemeat then you may substitute cubed butter for the beef suet. However, please note that this recipe has not been tested using butter. Vegetarian suet is not recommended due to poor flavour and many brands containing palm oil which I prefer to avoid.
EASY HOMEMADE MINCEMEAT
To make Homemade Christmas Mincemeat, all you do is mix up your chosen ingredients, cover and leave to soak overnight.
The next day, you pop the whole lot in a low oven for two hours. Give it a stir a couple of times, not least to distribute the suet as it melts. If the mincemeat looks a little dry, you can add more alcohol, citrus juice or water.
You’ll need some clean, glass jars in which to put your mincemeat. Place them in the oven for the final 20 minutes of cooking to sterilise them and kill off any lurking bugs.
When the mincemeat’s ready, I cool it for five minutes then add another glug of brandy. Then all that’s left to do is pot up into the still-hot jars.
You’ll need to leave the mincemeat to mature. But just 2-3 weeks is fine if that’s all you have.
However, the beauty of mincemeat is that it’ll keep well for at least a year. In fact, my first batch of mince pies each December is usually made with a jar from the previous year.
I like to stir in another tablespoon of brandy to perk it up (and because I like boozy mince pies).
If you get your Homemade Christmas Mincemeat started in October or November it’ll be ready for making mince pies in December.
I make batches of pies over several weeks and freeze them. That way I can just take as many out as needed with no wastage.
I love them, slightly warmed, with a glass of brandy on the side.
Get my recipe for Mince Pies with buttery Sweet Shortcrust Pastry here
Have you made my Homemade Christmas Mincemeat?
Leave a comment below & don’t forget to rate the recipe!
Homemade Christmas Mincemeat
Super easy homemade mincemeat without the palm oil of many brands. Use my suggested dried fruit, spices, nuts and alcohol as a guide and swap in your own favourites (eg. glace cherries, dried apricots, prunes, figs, ground ginger, whisky, sherry). For a no-alcohol mincemeat, replace the spirit with more orange juice.
Ingredients
- 180 g raisins
- 150 g sultanas
- 150 g currants
- 75 g dried mixed peel
- 180 g soft brown sugar
- 2 cooking apples peeled & grated
- 120 g shredded beef suet see Recipe Notes for alternative
- 1 orange, zest & juice
- 1 lemon, zest & juice
- 25 g almonds chopped
- 25 g pecans chopped
- 2 rounded tsp mixed spiced
- 1 rounded tsp cinnamon
- 120 ml brandy (or whisky, sherry, rum etc.) see Recipe Notes for alcohol-free version
Instructions
The day before
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Mix all the ingredients (but include only HALF the brandy) in a deep baking dish.
Cover with foil and leave to soak at room temperature overnight.
The next day
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Preheat the oven to 120°C / 100° Fan / Gas 1/2 / 250° F
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Stir the mixture well, re-cover with the foil then put in the oven.
Cook for 2 hours (do step 5 during this time):
- After 40-50 minutes, check that it isn't drying out. Turn the oven temperature down a little if necessary.
- Stir 2-3 times during the cooking to distribute the melted suet throughout.
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Wash 2 large or 4 medium jars with screw-on lids in hot, soapy water. Rinse and leave to drain.
During the last 20 minutes of cooking, put the jars and lids on a baking tray and place in the oven.
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After 2 hours, take the mincemeat from the oven and leave to cool slightly (3-5 min) before stirring in the remaining brandy.
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Remove the hot jars from the oven and pot up the mincemeat, stirring the contents of the baking dish regularly so that the melted fat is distributed evenly amongst all the jars.
Important for food safety reasons both the jars and the mincemeat should be hot when potting up.
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Protecting your hands with a cloth, screw on the lids and leave to cool: when cool enough to handle, you may be able to tighten the lids a little more.
Store in a cool, dark place (a kitchen cupboard away from heat sources is usually fine) and leave to mature for a minimum of 2-3 weeks.
Should keep for a year.
Tip: if the mincemeat is quite firm when you come to use it, heat the jar (minus its lid) in the microwave for a few seconds or in a low oven for a few minutes. This will melt the suet and make it easier to spoon the mincemeat from the jar.
Recipe Notes
If you want to make vegetarian mincemeat then you may substitute cubed butter for the beef suet. However, please note that this recipe has not been tested using butter. Vegetarian suet is not recommended due to poor flavour and many brands contain palm oil which I try to avoid.
For alcohol-free mincemeat, leave out the brandy or other spirit and replace with more orange juice, apple or pineapple juice or water. However, add it ALL at step 1 rather than half.
Mincemeat isn't just for mince pies. Try it in Mincemeat Shortbread Squares with Almond Crumble or Mincemeat Christmas Tree Tear & Share Bread.
Recipe updated 2023
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I made this with my teen son this year after many years of talking about making homemade mince pies. It was a really easy recipe to follow. We didn’t have cooking apples, so used some stewed apples from my mother in law. We baked our first batch last night and everyone loved them! Even daughter who never eats mince pies! Husband likes them even more than the Genoa cake (your recipe) that I made the other week, and he LOVES the Genoa cake. We’re going to make your mincemeat shortbread squares with almond crumble later today. Thanks for another fantastic recipe. Merry Christmas!
Thank you Sadhana for another glowing review of one of my Christmas recipes! I’d love to think that, if they realised how easy it was, more people would make their own mincemeat.
So pleased everyone enjoyed the mince pies. Merry Christmas! 🧑🎄
What can I use instead of the brandy, prefer something not alcoholic
Hi Brenda, in the blog post I say you can replace the alcohol with more orange juice. I see I didn’t include this tip in the recipe card but have now amended it. Other juices like apple or pineapple would be fine too, or even just water to stop the mixture being dry.
Unlike with alcohol, you should add ALL the juice/water at step 1 though, rather than just half and the rest when done.
Many thanks for your interest in my recipe!
Thank you for the super recipe. Is there any substitute for suet? and would it change the final product too much?
Hi Kim,
I think the suet adds rich moistness and flavour to the mincemeat. Some people use butter instead and, although I haven’t done that myself, I don’t see why that wouldn’t work.
If you don’t want to add any fat at all, then you might be best to search online for a fat-free mincemeat recipe: I suspect no fat means more liquid would be needed to prevent it being too dry.
Hope this helps!
Looks good, and a manageable quantity. I will tweak it a little bit and add some mace as well!
Hope you like it Paula! Do come back and let me know how it goes.
Hi
I really like your Christmas Mincemeat recipe. I have just made my usual mince pies using the usual jar of mince and find it much too sweet. Can you tell me, 1) Is your mince as sweet? 2) If so, by how much can I reduce the sugar and still retain it’s keeping quality. I would really be grateful for a reply as mince pies look so yummy but I can only eat one. Love your blogs by the way.
Regards Carol.
Hi Carol.
That’s a tricky one! Not knowing how sweet your usual jarred mincemeat is, it’s difficult for me to know if my recipe is as sweet. As a guide, I’d say I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth, so while of course my mincemeat IS sweet (that’s just in the nature of the thing!) I doubt most people would regard it as unbearably sweet – although tastes naturally vary.
I couldn’t vouch for the keeping qualities if you did decide to reduce the sugar, so maybe only make the amount you’re likely to use up this year?
If you make the recipe as written but do find it too sweet, you can always give jars aways as presents!
I’d be interested to hear how you get on anway.