The Best Way to Can Sweet Cherries

Discover one of the best ways to can sweet cherries, so they are packed with flavor and can be enjoyed by all!

The first time I had canned cherries, I wasn't a fan! Their soft texture didn’t resemble the fresh or frozen fruit in any way. However, over time they grew on me and after I discovered the best way to can sweet cherries, I thoroughly fell in love!

What is it?

The secret to delicious, home canned cherries is to preserve them in cherry juice! 

I have an old stainless steel steam juicer from the 70's that I employ whenever cherry season comes around. After steaming several loads of cherries, I then proceed to can whole fruits in the lightly sweetened juice.

Tools & Ingredients You'll Need

To make cherry juice:

• a steam juicer
• 12-15 lbs (roughly 3 gallons) of cherries for steaming

For canning cherries:

• 18-20 lbs of whole cherries
• 7 quart jars with lids
• 1/2-3/4 C honey (or as desired)

How Steam Juice Cherries

If whole cherries are dusty, go ahead and rinse them with cold water. There's no need to remove the stems; they won't affect the flavor of your fruit!

Fill the steam juicer's basket and process your cherries, one batch at a time (you'll do about 3 batches).

Collect the juice from each run, and set it aside.

After the 3rd batch is finished, measure your juice. To make 7 quarts (7 litres) of canned sweet cherries, you'll need 3 quarts (12 C) of cherry juice.

Helpful tip: if you don't quite have enough juice, you can add 1-2 cups of water to top it up.

I usually take a day to juice cherries, and store the juice in the fridge until I'm ready to actually start canning cherries. Juice can be refrigerated for several days, if needed.

When you are ready to preserve your cherries, heat the juice to a rolling boil. Add honey or sugar, and sweeten to taste.

How to Can Cherries

Preheat your cherry juice and add sweetener, just like you would with a water and sugar syrup.

Remove the stems from your cherries. You can pit them, or you can preserve cherries with the pits in. Around here, we leave the pits in.

Tightly stuff quart jars with whole cherries, leaving about 1 inch of headspace (open space) at the top of each jar.

Pour the hot cherry juice syrup into your stuffed jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace at the top. Wipe the rims, and fasten down canning lids with a band.

Boil the jars in your water bath canner according to your altitude.

This recipe is for quart jars, but I'll leave processing times for pints in the water bath canner as well.

• Pints:
  • 15 minutes at 0-1,000 ft in elevation
  • 20 minutes at 1,001-3,000 ft.

• Quarts
  • 20 minutes at 0-1,000 ft in elevation
  • 25 minutes for 1,001-3,000 ft.

How to Use Canned Sweet Cherries

Because we leave the pits in, we don't use these cherries in our baking. Instead, we like to eat a saucerful of canned cherries after dinner, for a quick and simple dessert.