How Do You Pit Cherries? Why Each Step Exists

To pit cherries, wash them under running water, then push each pit out through the stem cavity so the fruit stays whole. A dedicated cherry pitter is faster than the bottle-and-chopstick clip once the bowl is more than a handful. Rochelle Bilow, in a one-minute sprint for Serious Eats (updated 7 April 2026), cleanly pitted 28 cherries with a Leifheit hopper and 28 with an OXO six-well pitter, against 13 with a handheld OXO. America's Test Kitchen timed 1½ pounds at 2 minutes 55 seconds on the Leifheit Cherrymat and 6 minutes 50 seconds on the handheld OXO. Split with a paring knife when the recipe wants halves.

Printed cookbooks lag kitchens. Oscar L. Robinson of Owosso, Michigan, received U.S. Patent 66,889 for an improved cherry-stoner on 16 July 1867. Charles A. Fisher of Philadelphia, in U.S. Patent 103,317 (24 May 1870), declined to claim the mold-and-plunger stoner because, he wrote, “machines operating on this principle are in common use.” The bottle clip is that lag in reverse. It preserves one cherry on camera.

Why does batch size decide how you pit cherries?

A method that looks fast on one fruit can lose on a pound. The USDA National Nutrient Database, Release 28, lists a raw sweet cherry at 8.2 grams. At that weight, 1½ pounds is about 83 fruit. Michigan State University Extension’s Michigan Fresh cherry bulletin, revised July 2023 by Kara Lynch, gives the cook’s volume: 1 pound of unpitted cherries yields 1¾ cups pitted.

Sarah Jampel, then a recipe developer at Epicurious, timed a cup: 3 minutes 17 seconds by hand, 1 minute 47 seconds with an OXO. On Bon Appétit, a straw-and-chopstick hack took “a full minute longer” than the same handheld pitter on one bag; the six-well OXO needed 36.5 seconds for six seated cherries. Neither test kitchen timed the bottle trick at 1½ pounds.

Bilow subtracted torn cherries and skipped washing and cleanup. ATK included feed time. The two sheets disagree on the same OXO handheld: Bilow recorded 16 fruit in a minute, 13 of them clean; ATK’s 6 minutes 50 seconds for about 83 fruit is closer to 12 a minute. Both still put a dedicated pitter ahead of a hand method on a crust’s worth of fruit.

Gabriella Gershenson, kitchen editor at Wirecutter: “I have a summer ritual of pitting pounds of sour cherries and freezing them for the year, and I would never deign to attempt that without my OXO pitter.”

Why wash cherries before you pit them?

Opening the fruit first carries whatever is on the skin into the flesh. The Food and Drug Administration’s Selecting and Serving Produce Safely, current as of 5 March 2024, tells consumers to wash all produce under running water before preparing it, “even if you do not plan to eat the skin,” so dirt and bacteria are not transferred when peeling or cutting. Soap, detergent, and commercial produce wash are not recommended. Dry with a clean cloth or paper towel. MSU Extension’s 2023 cherry bulletin stores cherries at or below 41°F, washed under cool running water, away from raw meat.

Wash first, then pit.

Why a dedicated pitter beats the bottle trick on a working bowl

The bottle-and-chopstick trick is treated, in short videos, as the fastest way to pit cherries for every batch. On a working bowl it is slower than a pitter. The cherry sits on a bottle opening; a chopstick drives the pit through; the fruit on camera stays whole while the bottle wobbles and juice runs. Cleanup scales with the pile. A dedicated pitter already existed as a kitchen job in the 1860s: a cup, a plunger, and, on some models, a splash guard or a pit tray. They still spray.

| Tool | Clean / 1 min (Serious Eats) | 1½ lb (ATK) | Shape | Pits | |---|---|---|---|---| | Handheld OXO | 13 of 16 | 6 min 50 sec | Whole | Shield; ATK still saw spray | | Leifheit Cherrymat | 28 of 32 | 2 min 55 sec | Whole | Catch container | | OXO six-well | 28 of 30 | 4 min 38 sec | Whole | Tray, 75 pits | | Bottle and chopstick | Untimed | Untimed | Whole | None | | Paring knife | Untimed | Untimed | Halves | On the board |

ATK testers pitted nearly 50 pounds of cherries across 12 models. Only one model removed every pit. Two multi-cherry pitters took 7½ to 8 minutes on 1½ pounds, slower than most single pitters at 6 to 7 minutes, because seating six fruit and then fishing missed stones ate the gain.

Leifheit’s numbers split. U.S. retail copy for the Cherrymat, Amazon listing model 37200, says up to 25 pounds of cherries an hour. European listings for Cherrymat 3.0 (model 37211) say up to 15 kilograms an hour, or 33.1 pounds. ATK’s 1½ pounds in 2 minutes 55 seconds would scale to about 31 pounds an hour if that pace held. Print both figures. Neither is a guarantee for every cultivar.

OXO’s six-well spec, WebstaurantStore model 11303300 and OXO’s product page, pits six at a time; the pit tray holds up to 75 pits, also described as pits from up to a pound of cherries. At 8.2 grams each, a pound is about 55 fruit, so 75 pits is a maximum count.

How do you pit cherries without a pitter?

Wash and stem the fruit. Seat one cherry stem-cavity up. Drive a firm, narrow tool through that cavity until the pit exits the blossom end.

A metal straw matches the job: round mouth, no hinge, stiff enough for a firm sweet cherry. A plastic drinking straw is a neighbouring-drink hack. On a ripe sour cherry it can work. On a firm Bing it buckles, splits, or leaves a chewed hole and a pit still seated. Bon Appétit used a reusable plastic straw with a chopstick and still lost a full minute to the OXO on one bag. A chopstick, a sturdy pastry tip, or a metal skewer will do the same push over a bowl. This is a whole-fruit method for a garnish.

How do you pit cherries with a knife?

A paring knife is the right tool when the recipe wants halves or when the fruit will be cooked to a sauce. Garnish, preserves, and presentation still need the whole fruit.

Wash the fruit. Cut around the pit from stem to blossom and twist the halves apart, or stand the cherry, cut four petals, and pop the stone. The pit stays on the board.

USDA Agriculture Handbook 102 (1975) is the weight sheet. For sweet cherries without stems, pitted flesh averaged 90 percent of starting weight (range 88 to 91), pits 10 percent (range 9 to 12). Sour red cherries without stems averaged 87 percent flesh, 13 percent pits. The USDA Food Buying Guide for Child Nutrition Programs gives a lower yield for sweet cherries as purchased: 1 pound AP equals 0.84 pound pitted, or 84 percent. Handbook 102 is stemmed fruit after the pits come out. The Food Buying Guide starts from fruit as purchased.

ATK measured the hopper punch at about 1/16 teaspoon of extra flesh per cherry on its winner, whose 0.25-inch (6.35 mm) dowel is thicker than some plungers. On 83 fruit that is about 5 teaspoons, or 25 millilitres, leaving with the pits. A knife opens two cut faces that weep. Use it for pie filling and jam. Keep the plunger when the cherry has to sit whole.

Why juice and pits need a plan of their own

Cherry juice stains. Bilow finished her six-tool test covered in it. ATK called the handheld OXO one of the messiest models, even with a splatter shield, spraying walls and aprons. Work over a dishwasher-safe board.

Olmstead, Iezzoni, and Whiting, in the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science 132(5), 2007, calipered pits at Washington State University’s Prosser station. In 2004, ‘Bing’ pits averaged 7.4 mm in fruit 24.8 mm wide; ‘Regina’ pits averaged 8.0 mm in fruit 25.1 mm wide. Pit weight ran from 3 to 16 percent of whole-fruit weight by cultivar. That is why a pitter that clears a sour cherry can glance off a large Bing. ATK’s winning dowel was 0.25 inch (6.35 mm), a hair under a ‘Bing’ pit. The OXO six-well dowel was 0.5 inch (12.7 mm), which is why it made a bigger hole.

United States Standards for Grades of Sweet Cherries, 7 CFR 51.2646, set a U.S. No. 1 minimum diameter of three-fourths inch. The metric table at §51.2660 converts 48/64 inch to 19.1 mm. Pacific Northwest Extension PNW604 lists ‘Bing’ at 25.4 to 28.17 mm.

Do not send that pile down the sink. Consumer Reports, after talking to disposal manufacturers and plumbing experts, listed fruit pits among foods a modern disposal can grind. Hoffmann Bros., a St. Louis mechanical contractor, tells households not to flush cherry pits: the hard shells lodge in pipe. A disposal may survive a stray pit. A compact heap from several pounds is a plumbing load. Put the stones in the trash or the compost. Poison Control, in a 27 April 2024 article by Serkalem Mekonnen, RN, BSN, MPH, and William G. Troutman, PharmD, warns against blending stone-fruit pits. Crushing them releases amygdalin.

How long do pitted cherries keep in the fridge?

Whole cherries and pitted cherries keep on different clocks.

The FDA’s Selecting and Serving Produce Safely sets 40°F or below for perishable produce and says to refrigerate pre-cut fruit. Michigan State University Extension stores whole cherries at or below 41°F. Better Homes & Gardens, citing its Test Kitchen, gives dry, unpitted, refrigerated cherries about 5 to 7 days.

Once the skin is broken, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, citing FDA, says not to leave cut fruit at room temperature for more than two hours. Refrigerate or freeze it. FDA Food Code §3-501.17 holds refrigerated ready-to-eat TCS food in food establishments at 41°F or below for a maximum of seven days, counting the day of preparation as day one. That seven-day mark is the professional TCS clock used in food establishments. MSU treats freezing, pitted or unpitted, as the way to hold a glut; if the cherries are pitted, add ½ teaspoon of ascorbic acid per quart of syrup to limit browning.

Pit what will be cooked or frozen the same day. Leave the rest whole. For the next pie, the Leifheit hopper is the tool America’s Test Kitchen clocked through 1½ pounds in 2 minutes 55 seconds.

Frequently asked questions

Should I spit out cherry pits?

Yes. Poison Control advises spitting stone-fruit pits and not chewing them. An intact cherry pit usually passes through the gut. Amygdalin in the seed can convert to cyanide if the pit is crushed or blended. One whole pit is mainly a choking risk. Call 1-800-222-1222 if several were chewed.

What can you use instead of a cherry pitter?

A metal straw, a chopstick, a sturdy pastry tip, or a paring knife. Press from the stem cavity so the pit exits the blossom end. Plastic drinking straws collapse on firm sweet cherries. A knife that splits the fruit is the right substitute when the filling does not need a whole cherry.

How do you pit cherries with a straw?

Wash the fruit. Hold one cherry over a bowl and push a metal straw through the stem cavity until the pit pops out the far side. A flimsy plastic straw can buckle or splinter on a firm Bing. Bon Appétit timed a straw-and-chopstick hack a full minute slower than a handheld pitter on the same bag.

When is a dedicated pitter faster than hand methods?

Once the bowl is more than a handful. Sarah Jampel, then a recipe developer at Epicurious, timed 1 cup at 3 minutes 17 seconds by hand and 1 minute 47 seconds with a pitter. America’s Test Kitchen pitted 1½ pounds in 2 minutes 55 seconds with a Leifheit hopper and 6 minutes 50 seconds with a single OXO.

How do you pit a cherry in the kitchen?

Wash it first. Seat it stem-cavity up in a pitter cup or on a bottle opening. Drive the plunger, metal straw, or chopstick through until the pit drops. Collect pits in a bowl for the trash or compost, not the sink. Refrigerate the opened fruit at 40°F or below within two hours.