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What do you do if you find yourself with a ton of homegrown lemons? You can make lemonade, yes - but in this video, I show my favorite ways to store lemons for long-term use. After waiting for your lemon harvest all year, use these tips to save every scrap of precious lemon!
Thanks for watching!
RECIPES:
Whole Lemon Yogurt Breakfast Cake
https://thefruitgrove.com/whole-lemon-yogurt-breakfast-cake/
Easy Lemon Muffins with Pistachio-Lemon Streusel
https://thefruitgrove.com/easy-lemon-muffins-with-pistachio-lemon-streusel/
Harvest Salad with Green Apples and Meyer Lemon-Tahini Dressing
https://thefruitgrove.com/harvest-salad-with-green-apples-and-meyer-lemon-tahini-dressing/
LEARN MORE:
How to prune potted lemon trees:
https://youtu.be/4uuHySXtXto
More ways to freeze lemons:
https://thefruitgrove.com/5-ways-to-freeze-lemons-make-your-harvest-last-for-months/
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0:00
I just recently harvested the lemons off of my potted Meyer lemon tree and I was really happy
0:05
with the harvest. These are the biggest juiciest lemons I could have possibly hoped to grow myself
0:12
So today I wanted to show you my favorite ways to store and freeze and preserve my lemon harvest
0:19
to keep that fresh pick taste for as long as possible. So I'm growing my Meyer lemon tree in a container because it's just a little too cold in my area to
0:28
plant one in the ground and with that it's only a couple years old and I was really really happy
0:34
with how many lemons I got. I got about 20 lemons this year. They were all big and just glorious
0:39
Now this is not 20 lemons here. This is what I have left because I've already used a lot of my
0:45
lemon harvest to make many many tasty things. But today I wanted to take a little break from that
0:51
but today I wanted to take these last few lemons and preserve some and freeze some and just store
0:58
them long term so that I can keep using them for the next several months. There's a lot of great
1:03
ways to do this. These are just the ones that I have found to be the most useful in my kitchen
1:08
So my goal is to use every scrap of these precious lemons. So the first step is to wash them really
1:14
really well. Now since I grew these myself I know I didn't spray anything harmful on them
1:21
or there's nothing that I need to worry about. There's no coating or anything like that. There
1:25
haven't been a bunch of people handling them in a grocery store. So for me it was as simple as
1:30
taking a produce brush and just running them under some cold water and giving them a light scrub
1:36
If you're using store-bought lemons I would suggest using some vinegar water. So put the
1:41
lemons in a bowl and top it off with water and I don't know maybe like a half a cup of vinegar
1:47
quarter cup something like that. Swish it around let it sit for a bit and then rinse and scrub the
1:53
lemons like I mentioned before. Now whatever way you use to wash them be sure that you dry them
1:59
completely. So I like to towel dry them first and then let them sit out to air dry the rest of the
2:04
way. Because any way you store them it's going to be better to remove that outer moisture. They're
2:08
going to last longer. So this is the way I store my lemons short term. These have been in my fridge
2:14
for I don't know two to three weeks already and they're going strong. Just washed, dried, put in a
2:19
ziplock bag and I take as much air out as possible and keep them in my fridge. Bonus if you keep them
2:25
in a crisper drawer they're going to last longer. But the key is air is really the enemy here
2:31
Because even though it seems like the rind of a lemon is strong and sturdy a lot of moisture
2:36
evaporates through the rind. So whether you're storing them in the fridge or when we talk about
2:41
freezing them you want to keep air away. I just so happen to have an example of what happens if you
2:47
don't keep your your citrus fruit in some kind of bag or container. Because this is not a prop
2:54
for this video. This is just something that I found in my fridge because you know life and I
2:58
don't do everything perfectly. So let me show you. Okay so these are some limes that have been in my
3:06
fridge for a few weeks probably about as long as these lemons maybe a little bit longer and they
3:11
just look terrible. They're just drying out this one especially they're turning brown
3:18
they're wrinkly. The inside the juice may be viable for a little bit longer but like you don't want
3:23
your homegrown lemons to end up looking like this. So keep them in a bag or jar or something to keep
3:30
the air away. Okay so now let's talk about freezing. I like to freeze. There are a lot of different ways
3:35
you can do this. I like to do a few different things so that way I have lemons in different forms
3:40
that I can use for all sorts of recipes. So first of all my first favorite way to freeze lemons is
3:46
just like this whole in a freezer bag. If you have like a vacuum seal kind of bag that would be even
3:54
better but just keeping them whole. You can freeze them whole and as long again as long as they're
3:58
airtight they're going to keep for several months this way. And then you can just cut them up frozen
4:04
and throw them in whatever you want to do. You can grate them frozen into different recipes
4:09
A great thing to do with frozen lemons that you've kept is to make my whole lemon breakfast cake
4:15
So I will link to that but yeah this is that's all you need to do. It's as simple as that
4:21
An extra step would be to wrap each lemon in plastic wrap so that again they're sort of
4:25
double protected from the air. That may help them to last a little bit longer. The next way
4:31
that I like to freeze lemons is simply by taking them apart a little bit. So I want to zest the
4:38
lemon and then still freeze the rest of the lemon. So two ways I like to hang on to my lemon zest
4:45
First I'll use a microplane to go ahead and zest it in smaller pieces to use in recipes and then
4:51
I'll dehydrate them in the oven or you can use a food dehydrator and just keep them in my pantry
4:56
It's really really simple. I also like to use a vegetable peeler to peel off the rind in bigger strips and then you can
5:06
freeze that in a freezer bag and I'll pull that out and you can chop it up and use it for recipes
5:12
or I've used it to make lemoncello which is a lot of fun. I highly recommend that. So that way the
5:18
zest is still usable and then what I do is I take the rest of the lemon that is now rindless. I'll
5:25
peel off as much of the white pith as I can with a paring knife and then wrap them in plastic wrap
5:31
and then just freeze them whole. So again I've got those whole lemons that I can use for all
5:35
kinds of things and they're great for juicing once they're defrosted. Another thing I like to do once
5:40
I've zested a lemon especially instead of just wrapping it up and freezing it whole I will cut
5:45
it open and go ahead and juice it and put it in an ice cube tray. That way I've got it for whatever
5:50
recipes or cocktails or whatever I need it for. I love these Meyer lemons. They're a blend of a
5:59
lemon and a tangerine so they're a little sweeter a little milder and I think they translate well
6:05
to just about any recipe. I love having them on hand. I told you it was juicy. I'm telling you
6:11
homegrown lemons is the way to go. So the last way I like to freeze them is just in slices. I like having these lemon slices on hand
6:24
especially for making tea. I like to also keep sliced ginger in my freezer and that way whenever
6:31
I want to just make a simple honey lemon ginger tea I just grab a couple slices of lemon a few
6:35
slices of ginger squeeze some honey and pour over boiling water and then that is all I need. I drink
6:41
that all through the winter and you know they're great for recipes too. You could put frozen slices
6:47
right on top of fish that you're baking or some other kind of meat so I really like having them
6:52
on hand. You can also just cut it in wedges especially if you like to drink iced tea or
6:56
if you like your water with lemon wedges but I like to have some wedges or slices on hand
7:07
All right so I've got my tea. So the last thing that we're going to do is preserve lemons and I'm actually pretty new to
7:16
this although it has been around for like a thousand years or more but it's the idea of
7:20
preserving or fermenting lemons in some sort of salt. Sometimes there's a lot of different ways
7:27
to do it. Plain salt, salt you can add spices, some people do it in a brine, you can do it with the
7:34
lemons cut up or whole, there's all sorts of options. The way I'm going to do it today is
7:38
actually with salt and sugar and I like this idea because it keeps a little bit of the sweetness of
7:43
the lemon still present. So the first thing to do is to just cut up your lemons. Traditionally what
7:50
you would do is cut them vertically into quarters like this but leave the bottom part of the lemon
7:59
attached so that it stays like this. Then you would put your salt or in my case salt and sugar
8:04
in that opening. For me I'm going to cheat and I'm just going to go ahead and cut it because I think
8:08
I can fit more lemons in my jar if they're all the way cut through. Okay so for this version
8:15
you want to use basically twice as much kosher salt as you use sugar. So in my case I use just a
8:22
quarter cup of kosher salt and two tablespoons of sugar for three pretty good sized lemons
8:28
So you can scale up or down as needed. All right so now I'm just going to cover it in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge
8:39
overnight. So tomorrow this will have pulled out a lot of liquid and then it's simply a matter of
8:46
putting all of the lemon salt sugar mixture including all of the juice into a sanitized jar
8:54
You want to sanitize it just as if you were making any sort of other preserves because we don't want
8:59
any bacteria to get in. The good thing this is such an acidic environment that I think it's very
9:06
very likely that you won't have any problems with bacteria but we're going to follow the proper
9:10
procedure. So make sure that your lemons are completely submerged and then you're going to
9:15
put a lid on it as long as the the air can escape so you don't want a completely airtight seal
9:21
Put it in the back of the pantry for three four or five days and then transfer it to the fridge
9:26
and it'll be good for up to I don't know a year probably. So these are great to use because of
9:31
all the salt they're great to use for savory dishes especially because of how salty they are
9:38
but they have a lot of umami and they have that complex flavor that fermentation gives
9:44
I haven't tried it yet but I believe you can do this also with whole lemons with like a salt water
9:50
brine and that will preserve them similarly but they get a little less salty and they stay more
9:56
juicy so you may still be able to use them in some sweet recipes. So I may try that next season
10:02
with my next lemon harvest if I have a few more lemons to play with. So those are all the ways
10:06
that I like to store my lemons for long-term use. Let me know in the comments what do you do to
10:12
freeze or store your lemons? Have you tried fermented lemons? I'd be really curious to know
10:17
and also feel free to share your favorite lemon recipes that you like to do with your homegrown
10:23
lemons. I'm always up for trying new things, new recipes, so let me know in the comments
10:28
Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video
#Fruits & Vegetables