4 Ways to Pit a Cherry [VIDEO]

I have always wondered how to pit a cherry. I assumed you needed some fancy little gadget. Little did I know that it’s super easy. No cherry pitter necessary. And I made a little video to show you how.

Whether you are making a cherry pie, a cherry tart, or some other wonderful cherry deliciousness, you’ll need to figure out how to get those small little pits out. It’s actually easier than you think.

When preparing my cherries for my Simple Cherry Tart recipe, I did a little experimenting on the easiest and quickest ways to pit a cherry. Here’s what I tried:

1. The chopstick method: Press the end of a chopstick into the stem end of the cherry and wiggle until pit pops out the other side. This works OK if your cherries are super ripe. The process is a bit messy. Be sure to work over a bowl. You can also place the cherry on top of a clean empty wine bottle (stem side up) and press chopstick through cherry while pit falls down into bottle. I felt like I lost a fair amount of cherry juice with this method.

2. The straw method: Same concept as above but a bit less effective. I found that the straw got bent and damaged easily. And the process was quite messy. I’m also actively trying to reduce plastic waste in my life and straws are some of the worst offenders. Using a reusable stainless steel straw for this method would be ideal.

3. The paperclip method: Unfold the paperclip in the middle, press the end into cherry, rotate around and pop the pit out. Again, moderately successful. I was able to easily get the pit out of about half of my cherries. The rest I had to twist and turn a lot, which made the process messy, and I lost a ton of juice.

4. The pastry tip method: Hands down my favorite method to pit a cherry. Simple place a pastry tip narrow side up on a cutting board. Place cherry stem side down onto pastry tip and press down. The pit pops right out. I was able to easily pit all of my cherries with very little mess. I even made a little video to show you how.