• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Lavender Homefront

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Work with Me!
  • Privacy Policy & Disclosure
  • Home
    • DIY
    • Food Preservation
    • Recipes
    • Up-Cycling & Repurposing
  • Garden
    • Flowers
    • Herbs
    • Vegetables
  • Life
    • Self Care
    • Pregnancy and Birth
    • Natural Parenting

How to Can Sweet Cherries in Apple Cider

September 21, 2017 by Elizabeth 4 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may make a small commission from a sale used through a link in my blog. Please visit my Privacy Policy and Disclosure page to find out more.

Sweet cherries are usually best served as a snack. Most canning and baking is done with sour cherries. However, there are many recipes that use sweet cherries. Learning how to can sweet cherries in apple cider is a great way to preserve this summer fruit without adding too much extra sugar. The best part is the apple cider really helps them taste like the holiday season.

cherries in a jar waiting to be canned in apple cider

So How do You Can Cherries in Apple Cider?

What’s great about canning fruit is you can do it in syrup, water, or juice! What is even more festive is canning in apple cider for a nice holiday treat. All of these options are pretty safe and easy. They are also much cleaner and easier than canning jams.

Canning cherries a pretty simple process, especially if you have ever canned jellies or jams. The process is going to be much of the same, however, it’s not going to be as messy. If you have never canned before, please reference my Canning 101: Water Bath Canning and Strawberry Jam.

Getting Started with Your Cherry Canning

Starting is the hard part of anything. In order to can cherries you will need the following supplies:

  • Canning pot and accessories
  • 3 lbs Ripe Sweet Cherries
  • Apple cider
  • Jars, lids and rings

How to Prepare and Can Your Sweet Cherries

For this recipe I used about 3lbs of cherries. The first step is the most time consuming; pitting the cherries. I literally just cut them in half and pulled the pit out. It is messy, and if you choose not to use gloves, then your hands may be stained red for a few days.

Once you do that, make sure to put your cherries into a cold water bath mixed with lemon. The acidity prevents the cherries from browning because of the exposure to oxygen.

You can choose to process your cherries un-pitted. Just make sure to poke the skin with a needle before processing. Otherwise, your cherries will/may explode. I choose not to do this because you have to pit them once you take them out anyway.

cherries sitting on a jar on the table

Canning The Sweet Cherries

After you have pitted your cherries, begin heating up your canning jars in your humongous canning pot. You will also be heating up your lids in a separate pot.

Begin boiling your apple cider.

Once the cider has reached a rolling boil, let it boil for about 2 minutes.

Remove the hot jars, fill them with cherries and then slowly ladle the juice into the jars, leaving half an inch to an inch of space on top. You want to make sure that the cherries are completely covered with the juice and there is enough space on top.

Wipe the rim of the jar, then place the lid (which you have just warmed up) onto the jar. Tighten the ring onto the jar just enough to stay on. Repeat for all jars and then process like normal. I provided information below for reference on how long your cherries should be processed.

Processing the Cherries

If you hot pack: Process pints 20 minutes and quarts 25 minutes. Hot packing means you boiled the cherries with the juice before filling the jar.

If you raw pack: Process pints 25 minutes and quarts 30 minutes. Raw pack means you filled the jars with raw cherries before you added the juice. I processed mine this way.

canning cherries in apple cider sitting on a table

When Canning Don’t Forget to Adjust for Altitude

Below are Altitude Adjustments for Water Bath Canning

Altitude in Feet Increase processing time by:

1,001-3,000 feet – increase by 5 minutes
3,001-6,000 feet – increase by 10 minutes
6,001-8,000 feet – increase by 15 minutes
8,001-10,000 feet – increase by 20 minutes

When your cherries have completed the water bath canning process, they will have a wonderful “spice” taste added from the apple cider.

How to Use Canned Sweet Cherries

These cherries can be eaten right out of the jar. This makes for a great Christmas or holiday gift. You can dress up the jar or place the jar in a basket for gifting with other treats. Consider canning of few other items and place alongside the cherries (like strawberry jam! If you’re really adventurous, you could even soak them in rum after opening.

These canned sweet cherries can also be cooked in a stove with the apple cider, adding a bit of corn starch to thicken the sauce, then added as a topping on ice cream.

Other sweet cherry recipes:

  • Sweet Cherry Muffins
  • Sweet Cherry Pie
  • Sweet Cherry Cobbler

PIN THIS FOR LATER
canning cherries in apple cider pinnable image

 

Related posts:

10 Apple Recipes Perfect for Fall
From Drab to Fab: Laundry Room Renovation
How to Prepare For an Emergency In The Suburbs

Filed Under: Food Preservation, Homesteading, Recipes Tagged With: Canning, canning food, Holiday, Holiday Recipes, water bath canning

Previous Post: « Having a Miscarriage was Harder Than I Thought
Next Post: Nine Things I Try and Do for My Kids Daily »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. G Sullivan says

    October 3, 2017 at 1:01 am

    At what altitude is the original recipe calculated? If its calculted at a higher elevation than I am, then do I subtract that time from processing?

    Reply
    • Semi-Crunchy Mama says

      October 10, 2017 at 11:12 pm

      The recipe has instructions for sea level canning, below it there is also the adjustment to be made according to your altitude!

      Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

      Reply
      • Linda says

        July 8, 2020 at 10:43 pm

        Suggestions for eating? What to do with them? Any recipes?

        Reply
        • Elizabeth says

          July 19, 2020 at 6:38 pm

          I just updated the post with some suggestions! Thank you for commenting.

          Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

About Me

Author of Lavender Homefront Standing among trees

Thank you for visiting! I'm an outdoor loving, mom of 4, doing my best to live sustainably! Join me in learning gardening tips, upcycling techniques, DIY projects and natural parenting tips. Let's create a sustainable home and healthy life!

FOLLOW ME

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Featured Posts

Chalk Painting for Beginners

Bleaching Pinecones for Decoration

Apple Butter

How to Pick Out Furniture to Chalk Paint

Categories

Use the code LAVENDERHOMEFRONTFREE for a $40 dollar giftcard!

simply earth essential oils subscription box

Get Updates!

Footer

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Country_Chic_Chalk_Paint

Amazon Associates Disclosure

The Lavender Homefront is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Copyright © 2021 · Midnight theme

Copyright © 2021 · Midnight Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.