My family has a pear tree and lots of extra pears this year so my mom shared two big grocery sacks full of pears with us this week. I've been having fun coming up with creative ways to use them.
I've already made some pear sauce and am thinking of pear muffins or pear crisp, but I'd love to hear any and all ideas you all might have for ways to use the abundance of pears I have on my hands right now. I'm especially looking for very inexpensive, fairly simple ideas which are also nutritious.
Any input? I'll share what I end up doing with them in a post soon!
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We use pears all the time in our fresh juice. Apples, carrots and pears are our staples in the juicer… it makes it nice and sweet and gives it a kind of creamy texture!
If you are short on time, you can can pears after washing their skins and coring them and when you open the jar skin them then. I did this when I had a bushel to get done up fast. Have a great day!
Make Pear Butter! It is so good on biscuits and your little ones would probably love a pear butter sandwich on your homemade bread. I know my little guy does.
We got a plethora of pears this year too. The neighbors to my Hubby’s work has a pear tree that he planted 45 years ago (!) and he gave an over abudance this year. Hubs got permission to pick pears every day after work. I would send him with bags to fill and he would surely fill them. THis happened everyday for a week. I finally had to tell him to stop.
SUch a blessing!
After two big batches of pear butter and several pear crisps I finally decided to process them for the freezer. I just peeled, cored, and cut them up. I then put 3 cups worth into a freezer bag with a light syrup pack and some Fruit Fresh. They come out of the freezer still crisp and delicious. We will have pear crisps for the rest of the winter. YEAH!
I poach them with maple syrup and cloves or all spice in the water. I then serve with vanilla ice cream. Yum.
I agree that they go great with pork. You could use some of the pear sauce as a side also.
I had the same luck this year though mine was from a pear tree on a vacant lot near my house and I had 3 five gallon buckets full! I had lots of luck with pear sauce and also Pear butter (just like apple butter but with pears and I think it is even tastier with pears!)
I usually cut mine up like you would apples for a pie. Put the pears in a saucepan and just cover with water and boil til they start to get soft. Then put them in a freezer bag and freeze til ready to use. Use them to make pear pie. Same as you would make apple pie. You can hardly tell the difference.
I just made a batch of pear-apple cinnamon pancakes. I just chopped them really small and through them in the mix. They were so yummy! They would still be good too with just pear and cinnamon.
My neighbor’s pear tree was overloaded this summer and they allowed us to pick a bushel of fruit! I canned some in cinnamon syrup, some in light syrup, and I also made pear preserves. I had never done much canning and this year I did that stuff plus applesauce and tomatoes. I found the pears to be the easiest. The preserves were easy as well, and you can do a low sugar variety also- they make two types of pectin you can use. Yummy!
Pear Cranberry Crisp
Toss pears with fresh cranberries and a bit of sugar (and any spices that you like). Add a streusel topping and bake until bubbling. Serve with a side of vanilla ice cream.
Yay! I love reading these. We have a huge pear tree with BEAUTIFUL pears! We got 15+ laundry baskets full this year. We canned 5 and gave the rest away to church family. I never knew what I could do with them all. Thank you for posting this!! I am excited for next year!
I was also the recipient of some pears and made pear jelly. It was soooooo easy. The hardest part was cutting up all the pears. I just followed the directions inside the SureJel package. We now have several jars set up and the girls love it on their peanut butter and jelly snadwiches. Also I’ve noticed the jars on clearence at Walmart on occasion so I buy them all up.
I have made fruit bread/muffins with them and also pureed them and made fruit leather.
I just got some pears from my parent’s trees as well. I bought the premade pizza dough mix from walmart – $0.33 a bag and found goat cheese on manager’s special at the grocery store. I made pear and goat cheese pizza with a little drizzle of honey, some ground black pepper and a little salt. Its sounds a little weird but it was fantastic and seemed very gourmet compared to a lot of my bargain meals…
I often find that the commercial grower sites have some of the most wonderful ideas! calpear.com (California pears) has wonderful recipes for appetizers, and main dishes as well as sweets (which I am trying to limit!). There are some pork with pears recipes that sound scrumptious. Perfect for fall.
I love pear butter on toast. Mmmm.
I know it’s not the healthiest, but pear pie is delicious!
Sliced pears on salads add an unexpected yummy kick, esp. with a bit of crumbled bleu cheese. (I see crumbled bleu cheese in the fancy cheese case on manager markdown for .99 cents every now and then at Dillons!)
I am allergic to apples so I use pears in any recipe that calls for apples. Pear sauce freezes well. Also pear pie and pear crisp are wonderful. You may need a squeeze of lemon juice to give the tartness of apples if your pears are very sweet. What a blessing to have all those wonder pears!
Hi Crystal,
Here is one of my favorite recipes for using pears:
Fresh Pear Cake
2 eggs
1 egg white
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. honey (can substitue for more applesauce)
1 c. applesauce
3/4 c. oil
1/4 c. plain yogurt
1/2 c. pumpkin or cooked squash
3 c. flour (I used 2 whole wheat and 1 white)
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 c. finely chopped, peeled pears (2 or 3 med.)
1 t. vanilla
1 1/4 c. powdered sugar
2 T. milk
In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs on medium speed. Gradually add sugar, honey, applesauce & oil. Mix together yogurt and pumpkin, set aside. Combine all dry indredients. Alternate dry mix with pumpkin mix into the eggs and sugar. Stir in pears and vanilla. Batter will be stiff.
Spoon into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan (angel food cake pan or bundt). Bake at 350 for 60-65 min. or until cake tests done. Let cool in pan for 10 min. before inverting onto a serving plate.
In a small bowl combine powdered sugar and milk. Drizzle over warm cake. Cool completely.
Yields: 14-16 servings.
This is a favorite in our house during the fall season. But here in Florida, I’m not sure if we will find pears. Still learning all the “seasons” and what is available during the fall. God bless you as you find ways to use up your pears.
Blessings, Pamela (Oregonian, turned Floridian)
my aunt had a HUGE pear tree when I was growing up and she and my mother would put up pears for days! My favorite was the pear preserves the canned.
We dry them on drying racks in a dry place… they are so sweet and just like candy… if you have a wood stove in your basement, that’s the perfect place!
I had the same pear “problem” recently. So I found a recipe on the internet on how to make pear bread. I made 4 loaves. I froze some loaves and used them for a camping trip breakfast during the summer. The pear bread was a huge success. Now many of my friends want pear bread for Christmas!!!
this works best with very ripe pears.
A few ideas that came immediately to my mind were pear butter, dried pear rings, and pear juice for smoothies.
I have never made pear butter but I would guess it is similar to apple butter. We have bought dried pear pieces at the store and they were very good as a snack or to add to granola or trail mix. These would work with a dehydrator. If you have a blender or juicer, pears make an excellent base juice to go with other fruits that are less plentiful (berries, pineapple, kiwi, citrus, etc.). Then you could freeze the juice in smaller containers or add yogurt or milk to make smoothies.
I am sure others have more creative ideas. Those are just a few that popped into mind.
Enjoy your plentiful pears!
Hey Julie,
I had someone give me some pears this year and she said, “you’ll have to cook them” I asked if they were “cooking pears” and she said yes, so apparently some varieties are only good cooked-hope this helps!
Have you made pear butter?
Pear Honey. It’s easy to make and tastes great on biscuits. Do a google search and it will bring up a bunch of recipes.
Check out this blog, http://www.reluctantentertainer.com/
I think it was October 30th she posted that she made her NO Peel Apple cake using pears. You have to scroll down to find it but it looks yummy!!
Our family loves Baked Pears– try this recipe. It’s delicious on a cold winter night.
2 T unsalted butter
2 T sugar
2 pears, unpeeled, halved and cored.
1/2 c. heavy cream
Butter shallow baking dish with 1 T butter. Sprinkle 1 T sugar over bottom. Put pears,cut side down in dish. Sprinkle remaining sugar and cut-up butter. Bake 10 min. at 400 degrees. Pour cream over pears and return to oven or 20 min. Serve warm.
If you have a food dryer (or can pick one up at the local thrift store) they make absolutely DELICIOUS dried pears. I’m telling you, they taste just like candy!
Just slice them thinly (about 1/4 inch thick), they take about 8 hours to dry.
The November Cooking Light has a recipe for a pear pie that looks good!
Here’s a great pumpkin pears soup that i found @ shoplifting with permission’s site (http://www.shopliftingwithpermission.com/):
http://www.recipezaar.com/Pumpkin-Pear-Soup-82943
She said it was awesome and we’re making it this weekend!!! (Tons of pear sales @ our local san diego stores for the past few weeks.)
We love pears in salad. Or you can use this recipe in lieu of salad:
Pear Halves with Blue Cheese and Toasted Nuts—Halve and hull ripe pears, place one packed, generous tablespoon of blue cheese in pear. Sprinkle with toasted walnuts or pecans. Serve.
Pear sauce! Just like apple sauce, but with a new fruit!
We wash ours, slice them to about a 1/4 inch and dehydrate them. The sugar gets concentrated and they taste delicious, so we just eat them like you would apple slices, but you can freeze the slices, too.
Fruit Pizza! A sugar cookie crust, frosted with cream cheese (a little honey & vanilla mixed in). Arrange sliced pear sections on top along with whatever other fruits are on sale (or free). Grapes, mandarin oranges, and strawberries are good choices. Delicious and healthy!
Dehydrated pears are delicious and pretty easy to make. I canned a couple dozen jars of pears a couple of months ago and we opened our first can last night and they were delicious!
We have an overly productive pear tree here as well. This year I decided to try something beyond pear butter but couldn’t find a recipe I was happy with. I pealed and sliced about 30 of them and cooked them down in the crock pot overnight and refrigerated them to give myself a bit more time to decide. This morning I cooked them down with about 1 cup or sugar for an hour and then added about 1 tablespoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg. When my daughter got up (and mind you this is the child that has historically disliked all forms of cooked fruit for 17 years), she immediately went to find the yummy smell, made pancakes, and ate them instead of syrup
.
I’m freezing the rest for the same purpose for winter breakfasts. I believe this mixture will also make yummy pies or crisps as well.
I’m off to harvest another few buckets to work on while its too cold to do much outside.
My dearly departed grandmother used to get pears each year from her next door neighbor. She simply peeled, cored, and cubed the pears and cooked them down in a sugar syrup, then sealed them in hot jars in a water bath. Depending on how thick the syrup was, we either used them as preserves on toast or as regular canned pears. These cans of luciousness were a coveted gift from Grandma.
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