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Home / Fruit / Home canned cherries

Home canned cherries

Filed Under: Fruit, Seasonal Summer Tagged With: Cherries

Canning-Cherries-PN-1

You can home can delicious sweet or sour cherries for future use in cooking or for eating on their own.

Here, we are canning them plain in water, to provide total flexibility in how they are used in the future. If you canned them sweetened, that could restrict their use.

Canning them in different sized jars provides maximum flexibility in reaching for just the jar size you need at the time.

There is an option to can them unpitted if you choose, but here we’re going to bite the bullet and do the pitting upfront, so they are ready to use the second a jar is opened.

These canning directions apply to both sweet and sour cherries.

Contents hide
  • 1 Quantities of cherries needed
  • 2 The recipe
  • 3 Canning cherries
    • 3.1 Ingredients
    • 3.2 Instructions
    • 3.3 Notes
    • 3.4 Nutrition
  • 4 Raw pack method
  • 5 Canning unpitted cherries
  • 6 Pressure canning process
  • 7 Reference information
  • 8 Recipe Source
  • 9 Nutrition

Quantities of cherries needed

Numbers are approximate guidelines.

On average, as a very rough guideline, expect to need about 1  kg (2.5 lbs) of cherries per 1 litre (US quart) jar of canned cherries

  • 8  (17.5 lbs) of cherries = 7 litres (US quarts) canned cherries
  • 5  kg (11 lbs ) of cherriess = 9 x ½ litres (US pints) canned cherries

The recipe

Jar size choices: Either half-litre (1 US pint) OR 1 litre (1 US quart)

Processing method: Water bath OR steam canning OR pressure canning

Yield: varies

Headspace: 2 cm (1/1 inch)

Processing time: half-litre (US pint) jars for 15 minutes; litre (US quart) jars for 20 minutes

Note that because we are doing here the USDA’s sugar-free option, we must use the hot pack method.

Print

Canning cherries

How to home can cherries following tested USDA methods
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Cherries
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 1 varies
Calories 80kcal

Ingredients

  • cherries (sour or sweet)
  • water

Instructions

  • Prepare a very large pot or bowl of water that has been acidulated (by adding lemon juice or ascorbic acid.)
  • Wash the cherries, stem them, and pit them.
  • Place pitted cherries in that acidulated water to prevent the exposed flesh from browning.
  • Continue until all your cherries are prepped.
  • Remove cherries from water, drain well.
  • Measure them as you put them into a pot.
  • For each 750 g (1 litre / 1 quart / 4 cups volume / 1 ½ lbs) of fruit you put into the pot, you will add 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) of water.
  • Bring this pot to a boil and let simmer for a few minutes until all cherries are heated through (don't cook them.)
  • Pack cherries into jars.
  • Leave 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
  • Top up with the water you boiled them in from the pot or if there isn't enough, clean boiling water (such as from a kettle, for instance).
  • Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace after being filled with liquid.
  • Debubble, adjust headspace.
  • Wipe jar rims.
  • Put lids on.
  • Process in a water bath or steam canner.
  • Processing time: ½ litre (US pint) jars for 15 minutes; litre (US quart) jars for 20 minutes. Increase time as needed for your altitude.

Notes

Optional: ¼ to ½ teaspoon of liquid stevia per jar.

Nutrition

Serving: 125g | Calories: 80kcal | Carbohydrates: 19.6g | Protein: 1.8g | Fat: 0.5g | Potassium: 268mg | Fiber: 2.7g | Sugar: 17g

For the canning liquid, you could also use a juice such as apple or white grape juice. Heat your cherries up in that before packing instead of the plain water. Note that juice can be more expensive, though.

You may also use a sugar syrup as your packing liquid. For recipe directions to make the sugar syrup, see: Using Sugar Syrup as a Canning Liquid.

Raw pack method

The USDA also offers a raw-pack method for packing cherries unheated into a jar.

However, if you are canning your cherries sugar free, using water or juice as your canning liquid, most experts advise you definitely to use hot-pack. The Ball / Bernardin Complete Book says, “If you’re preserving fruits using fruit juice or water…you must use the hot-pack method.” [1]Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Page 143.

Note that you don’t really save much time doing raw pack, because you still have to heat the canning liquid, anyway, and, raw pack jars must be processed longer.

See here for the USDA’s raw pack processing times for cherries.

Canning unpitted cherries

The USDA’s method does allow you to can cherries unpitted.

If you prefer to do that, go ahead. It doesn’t change the packing or processing recommendations with the exception of this additional work: “If canned unpitted, prick skins on opposite sides with a clean needle to prevent splitting.”

Pressure canning process

The USDA also offers a pressure canning process for either the hot-pack or raw-pack method.

See here for pressure-canning cherries directions.

Reference information

How to water bath process.

How to steam can.

When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.

How to pressure can.

When pressure canning, you must adjust the pressure for your altitude.

More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.

Canning-Cherries-PN-3

Recipe Source

Cherries – Whole. In: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Complete guide to home canning. Agriculture information bulletin No. 539. 2015. Page 2-12.

Modifications made:

  • None

Canning-Cherries-102

Nutrition

Nutrition figures presume canned in water, as opposed to a sugar-syrup, or juice. Liquid stevia in the water would not affect nutritional values.

Per 125 g (½ cup):

  • 80 calories, 0 mg sodium
  • Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 0 points (cherries with no additives are free on Weight Watchers.)

Cherries nutrition

* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com

* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.

Canning-Cherries-PN-2

References[+]

References
↑1 Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Page 143.
Tagged With: Cherries

Filed Under: Fruit, Seasonal Summer Tagged With: Cherries

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Anna Lindgren

    July 06, 2021 at 4:43 am

    Doesn’t say the syrup. How much sugar and water

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      July 04, 2022 at 8:56 pm

      We’ve now had time to add a page on making sugar syrups, and provided a link from the canning cherries page to the sugar syrup page. Thanks for the idea!

      Reply
  2. Patricia Watson

    November 19, 2020 at 5:27 pm

    I found a jar of my mothers preserved cherries (with pitts) in the fruit cellar. along with one of her crabapple jams. They must be 15 years old. Would they still be edible?
    thank you
    Patricia

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      June 21, 2021 at 12:00 am

      See: Storage life

      Reply
    • Renie

      June 30, 2021 at 11:12 pm

      If kept cool & in the dark & there is no leakage, according to the University of Utah testing, canned food can last nearly forever. If the color is off or the texture is lost it probably won’t taste very good.

      Reply
If you need FAST or relatively immediate canning help or answers, please try one of these Master Food Preserver groups; they are more qualified than we are and have many hands to help you. Many of them even operate telephone hotlines in season.

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— Dr Barb Ingham, 5 Tips for a Successful Home Canning Season. May 2011.
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