If you don’t have a cherry pitter or cherry stoner on hand and you’re wanting to use fresh cherries in a delicious recipe, take heart, we have a simple do it yourself fix that will have you cooking in no time with fresh, whole cherries.
Over the years, I’ve experimented with a number of different ways to pit cherries. I used to have a great little gadget called a cherry pitter, but alas, it wore out after a couple of seasons.
When we lived up north we used to make a trip just before the 4th of July to pick our own cherries at King Orchards in Central Lake Michigan. They have an absolutely amazing Cherry Salsa recipe which I have tried (unsuccessfully) for years to duplicate.
In any case, we came up with this super easy method of pitting cherries by hand using what we had in our kitchen, we hope that it makes your job easier too!
How to Pit Cherries
You’ll Need:
a Funnel
a Plate
a bowl
fresh cherries
Invert the funnel over a plate. Place the cherry (stem side down on the funnel, you don’t even have to remove the stem first), and then press gently with your thumb or finger. The seed will pop out of the cherry and drop to the plate below. Remove the cherry, place it in the bowl and repeat until you have pitted all of the cherries.
Over the years we’ve heard of these interesting methods as well, although they seem to lose a lot of the juice and make a considerable mess:
- Use a straw, simply press the straw/pipe through the top of the cherry (the bit you remove the stalk from) and then use it to push the seed out.
- Using a hairpin, similar to the paper clip. You insert the curved end through the top and scoop the seed out
- Using the top end of a long vegetable peeler, scoop the seed out.
