John Myers
Have you received a rich harvest of cherries from your own garden or a large number of delicious fruits that you cannot possibly use all at once? Not bad, because there are various ways in which you can preserve cherries: freezing, waking, cooking into jam, pickling, or processing into cherry juice – the choice is yours!
The advantage of freezing is that most of the valuable nutrients in the ripe fruit are preserved. To do this, wash the cherries beforehand and remove the stalks. If you leave the pits in, the cherries will be less mushy later when defrosting. However, if you core the fruit beforehand, you can use it directly later. Both are possible and are up to you.
But what applies when you buy and store cherries – what do you have to pay attention to? We’ll tell you and give you practical tips.
Canning cherries on the stovetop or in the oven
To preserve cherries, put 250 g of washed, destemmed, and stoned fruit in a 500 ml mason jar that you have rinsed with hot water beforehand. Then put 250 ml of water and 100 g of sugar in a saucepan per glass, boil the mixture and pour it into each glass with the cherries. Leave about 1 cm to the top edge of the glass, wipe the edge of the glass dry and immediately screw the glasses tightly. Now you have two options:
- Preserving on the stovetop: Place the jars in a large saucepan on a wire rack so they don’t touch the bottom of the pan. Fill the pot with water until the glasses are three-quarters covered and heat the water to about 80 degrees. After 30 minutes in 80-degree hot water, remove the glasses and let them cool down.
- Preserving in the oven: Place the jars in a large casserole dish and fill them with water to a depth of 2 cm. Place the mold in an oven preheated to 150 degrees (convection) for 30 minutes.
- Then take the glasses out of the oven and let them cool down.
Preserve cherries: cook jam
For a delicious cherry jam, mix the washed, stoned, and halved fruit with jam sugar in a saucepan at a ratio of 2:1 and puree everything lightly. Add a dash of lemon juice and cook, stirring, for three to five minutes. Then pass through a sieve and fill into sterile glasses while still hot. The jam will keep for at least a year, maybe longer. If you want to preserve cherries without sugar, use agar-agar (1 teaspoon per 500 g of fruit) instead of preserving sugar: If you fill the cooked fruit puree into sterile jars while it is still hot, it will keep for about a month (even longer in the refrigerator). . If you want to preserve the cherries without preserving them, you can do this with guar gum, of which you add approx. 2 teaspoons to 500 g of pureed but cold fruit. Similar to freezing, all nutrients are preserved. However, you have to use the jam within a week, so it has a much shorter shelf life than jam with preserving sugar.
Kitchen knowledge: Read here how sweet cherries and sour cherries differ.
Storing cherries in alcohol: How to pickle cherries
Pickled cherries keep for a long time – and taste great with vanilla ice cream, waffles, or other desserts. Pour 1 kg of the pitted fruit with a quarter-liter of water and vodka or Korn and add 200 g of sugar, a cinnamon stick, a vanilla bean, and two cloves. Fill everything into clean jars and leave them unlocked in a dark place for four to six weeks. Then sweeten if necessary, close the jars, and store in a dark place until consumption.
Extra tip: cherry juice! If you have a steam juicer, juicing is a tasty and relatively inexpensive way to preserve cherries—for several months.
