This post is from February, 2009 from the old blog.
There aren’t too many things you can put up in the middle of winter. One thing we don’t grow here in the northwest but I cannot do without are lemons. This time of year, though, I can purchase organic meyer lemons for $3.99 a pound.
Earlier in the week I preserved some so that we would have them for cooking when summertime rolls around and they will be the perfect addition to sorbets, chicken salad and pasta salads and dishes. I cannot make it through the month of July without at least one lemon curd pie and my kids love to make tiny bottles of lemonade to take on picnics.
To make preserved lemons you simply stand them up on a counter with the stem end down then carefully slice them into quarters, not cutting all the way through so they stay together. Fill a quart mason jar with them, layering with about 1/4 cup of coarse kosher salt. You should be able to get about 7 or 8 of them in there, pushing them down as you go to release the juices. Once you fill the jar, juice a few extra lemons to get the juice level in the jar about an inch below the top of the jar. Close the jar tightly then shake it to mix the salt in with the lemon juice.
Leave the jar on the counter for about a month, turning the jar upside down and rightside up once a day for the first week and then once weekly thereafter. You can eat them after a month or store them either at room temperature or in the fridge for about a year. To use them in recipes remove the pulp, rinse off the salt, and chop up the rind as finely as you like.
I also juice lemons and freeze the juice in ice cube trays then in freezer containers once they are individually frozen cubes. That way when I need lemon juice in a recipe I can take out as many cubes as I need.
I know it’s not exactly seasonal but it’s much better then buying them in August when they come from South America. And much tastier and less expensive as well.
Try these preserved lemons in my lemon chicken and pasta.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Preserved Lemons « Sustainable Eats // Aug 7, 2009 at 2:04 am
[...] how to make preserved lemons on the new [...]
2 Pasta with Preserved Lemons, Basil and Lemon Chicken // Aug 7, 2009 at 2:28 am
[...] This is one of my family’s favorite summer meals. The recipe is very loose, open for your customization. The only two necessary ingredients are the lemon chicken and the preserved lemons. [...]
3 Wardeh @ GNOWGLINS // Aug 7, 2009 at 11:38 am
So you can store these room temperature for a year? That is good news! I have to hold back on my lacto-fermenting because I don’t have enough fridge room.
4 Celina // Aug 18, 2009 at 12:38 pm
how beautiful – and so fantastic that you can leave them on the counter! where did you find this recipe?
what did you add that is green?
5 admin // Aug 18, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I’ve read various recipes for these, some say they last 6 months and some say indefinitely, some say to refrigerate and some say cool pantry. I personally keep mine in the fridge where they definitely last longer then 6 months but I’ve never kept a jar around too much longer then that simply because we adore to eat them! I put them chopped into sauteed greens, with pasta, simmered into chicken stew or stuffed into chicken before roasting. They work great in recipes in place of olives or capers as well.
I’d love to hear more ideas to use them (as if I need them!)
6 Lacto-fermented Orange Marmalade // Dec 27, 2009 at 3:28 am
[...] always loved orange marmalade so the hard part will be waiting for it to finish. The preserved lemons we made came out delicous – we’ve used them in pasta and they are so refreshing, healthy and [...]
7 Tigress’s Can Jam and Local Citrus // Jan 24, 2010 at 7:08 pm
[...] citrus I ended up getting some grapefruit, a case of juicing oranges, extra lemons and limes to salt preserve, lacto-ferment and to freeze zest and juice in ice cube trays for use in recipes the rest of the [...]
8 Oranges: Whole, Preserved, and Candied « bree's bumbling // Jan 28, 2010 at 2:12 am
[...] heard of them before, but recently I’ve read so much about preserved lemons on blogs like Sustainable Eats and Chiot’s Run that I just had to try my hand at making some. My only hurdle was that [...]
9 Teri // Aug 10, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Wow this is great? Can you use the whole lemon the way you normally would?
Wardeh…uhm you have to put the lacto fermented stuff in the fridge? I am so confused!
10 admin // Aug 10, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Teri you peel away the inside mush and use the peel which is now soft and lemony but salty so you may want to rinse. You can store in a cool pantry or fridge.
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