Pit Cherries with a Chopstick

One and a half pounds of cherries to pit and I don't have a cherry pitter.

A quick Google search informed me that I could use a pastry tip, a paper clip, or a chopstick, or heck, even make a pitter out of an old fork. I went with the chopstick method since it made the most sense to me and I didn't have a fork to spare.

I started out doing it like this:


Sometimes the cherry would split as I was forcing the pit out.


And sometimes the pit would head straight out the end without tearing the cherry.


That worked, but after a couple of cherries, my forefinger started to hurt and I realized it was silly to put all the pressure on it.

Then I started doing it like this, nestling each cherry in the crooks of my fore and middle fingers with the stem end toward me, aligning the chopstick with the pit and then pushing it out of the cherry.


I pitted all 1.5 pounds in about 10 minutes.


It makes a little bit of a mess as cherry juice will splatter with the ejection of each pit, so you don't want to do it while sitting cross-legged in the middle of your bed atop your white bedspread. Do it where you have backsplash you can wipe down after. Heck, maybe do it in your kitchen sink which would be really easy to rinse out.

If cherry pitting turns out to be a craze around here, I might get a pitter. As it is now, I can't really justify it since I doubt the time savings would outweigh the cost (though they range from $5-20) or space.

Do you have a nifty pitting technique?

Pin It