Canned Cherries - Tips & Home Canning Recipes For Cherry Fruit

Is there anything better than home canned cherries?? They make the most delicious cherry desserts, and when canning fruits, or making other cherry recipes, cherry fruit is so easy to prepare.

The key is in choosing fruit that is perfectly ripe, blemish and spot free, with the skin intact.

In our home canning recipes, we don't bother to remove the cherry pit from the fruit, although this is something you can do if you wish. Leaving the stone in keeps the fruit intact, and doesn't affect the taste or quality of canned fruit after it has been processed.

Canned cherries will have a shelf life of 12 - 18 months, and if your house is anything like ours, they'll be long gone before that time is up!

Like our other recipes for canning fruit, the cherry recipes here use the same amounts of sugar to water for a light, medium, or heavy syrup.

Most cherry varieties are excellent for canning, and types of cherries you'll find in the Okanagan such as Bing cherries, Van cherries, Skeena, Sweetheart cherries, Santina, Lapin and Lamberts are all some of our favorites.

Lapin cherry variety is one the most common commercially grown cherry variety, and keep very well for other cherry recipes and cherry desserts. Bing's are also commonly found in supermarkets, and are great for homemade canned cherry pie filling. Van cherries are also excellent in all cherry recipes.

We use the raw pack method for canned cherries and our other recipes for canned fruits as well.

Syrup For Canned Cherries

Light: 1 1/3 cups sugar to 4 cups water or juice.

Medium: 2 1/2 cups sugar to 4 cups water or juice.

Heavy: 4 3/4 cups sugar to 4 cups water or juice.

4 cups = 1 quart

Cook syrup until sugar is dissolved. Keep hot until ready to use. Use about 1-1/2 cups of syrup for each quart of fruit.

If you plan on canning cherries or other Okanagan fruit, check the fruit ripening dates to make sure you can get them at the best time.

Tips For Canning Cherries

Plan on about 60 pounds of cherry fruit to make 24 - 25 quarts of canned fruit

Remove stems and wash cherries.

Wash fruits thoroughly under running water. Do not use detergent of soap.

Leave about a 1/2" head room to ladle hot syrup over the fruit. There should be about 1/4" headspace left for processing.

Remove all air bubbles using a knife or any other long flat object. Simply slide the knife around the inner sides of the jar.

Once processing is complete, canned jars should be left for 24 hours undisturbed before putting in storage. Check to ensure each jar is properly sealed (the lid is dented in) before storing.

Canned cherries should be stored in a cool room, away from direct sunlight.

For the raw pack method, add 1/2 cup of hot water, juice or syrup to each hot jar. Fill hot jars with cherries, shaking down gently as you fill up the jar. Add more hot liquid, leaving 1/4" inch headspace.

Processing time for canning cherries varies with the types of jars you use. For quart sealers, we process for 25 minutes.