How to Pit Cherries without a Cherry Pitter

How to Pit Cherries without a Cherry Pitter!  

Love it?  Pin it to SAVE it!

Follow Spend With Pennies on Pinterest for more great recipes!

 I have seen the pin on Pinterest where people use a straw to poke a cherry pit out while it sits on a bottle.  Genius I thought!  I tried it…  my straw bent.  I tried it with different straw, my cherry squished, my straw bent.

Weeks later, I tried it again.  It worked on the first cherry, but not the second or the third.  Maybe this method worked for you but it definitely DID NOT work for me.  Especially with lots of cherries to pit!

I tried it with a wooden skewer (too thin, didn’t work),  lollipop/cake pop sticks and other assorted pokey things in my kitchen and finally a chopstick & a piping tip to see if they would work….

Onto the next…  when I pulled out one of my piping tips (I used a Wilton #230 tip) and it occurred to me that this just might work.    Sure enough, the same concept as the “straw” but since the tip was stronger, it was able to get through the cherries easily!  So if you don’t have a chopstick handy, this is another great method to try!

Note:  These two methods are great if you don’t have a cherry pitter and are not doing massive batches of cherries!  I actually didn’t use these methods to pit all of my cherries, I used my magical cherry pitter that does 4 at a time …  quick, easy and totally perfect!  I was able to do about 5 lbs of cherries in about 20 minutes with it!  You can see more info on my favorite cherry pitter below!

Wash cherries under cold water, remove any bruised fruit.  Remove stems.

Place a single cherry with the “dimple” facing downward on a piping tip.  Using both hands, press the cherry quickly and firmly downward to remove the pit.  (Different tips will definitely have different results).

OR….  Place the cherry on a bottle with the “dimple” down.  I used a Japanese style chopstick because they have more of a point on the end.   Just simply poke the cherry with the pointed end of the chopstick… voila!

Step 4.  Repeat.

Now if you have huge batches of cherries to pit… the methods above are time consuming.  I have this amazing cherry pitter that does 4 at a time …   I was able to do about 5 lbs of cherries in about 20 minutes with it!  And speaking from experience, do not put it in the dishwasher…  I am enjoying my second one now since the first one melted! :)

You just simply put 4 cherries in the holder, slam swiftly close the lid and voila, 4 cherries ready to go!  If you close the lid slowly or softly it doesn’t work as well.