What To Do With Unripe Pears | 3 Easy Pear Recipes

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Do you have a lot of hard, unripe pears? Each year our pear tree overproduces. Besides that, it wasn’t properly pruned for years, leaving us with smaller immature fruit. Over the years, I’ve learned what to do with unripe pears so they don’t go to waste.

If you’re in the same boat, I hope you enjoy these three simple pear recipes!

• Pear Pie
• Stewed Pears
• Pear Sauce

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What To Do With hard, Unripe Pears

Before we dive into the specific recipes, let’s learn some basics about pears.

Whether you have your own producing pear tree, or you are buying pears from the store, sometimes you just get stuck with a pear that won’t ripen.

Is it OK to eat unripe pears?

So let’s talk about this first. Is it ok to eat unripe pears?

Raw pears that haven’t ripened shouldn’t be eaten. They don’t contain the nutrients you need, they won’t taste good, and they can cause bloating and stomach pain.

However, you can certainly cook unripe pears!

How to Tell When a Pear is ready to Harvest?

Pears ripen OFF the tree.

If you leave a pear on the branch too long, it will turn mushy inside before it feels soft on the outside. So, how do you know when a pear is ready to harvest?

The easiest method is to try picking it. Grasp the pear by the bottom and gently lift straight up.

If the stem breaks off easily, it was ready. If it doesn’t break, leave it on the branch until it comes off without resistance.

Different pear species are ready at different times between August and October in most locations. Check your local area to see when it’s most likely time to start checking your pears!

How Can I ripen a Pear Faster?

Once a pear has been picked, the ripening process occurs when sitting at room temperature.

If you refrigerate your unripe pears, they will remain hard. Cold storage is a great way to store them for lengths of time until you’re ready to use them.

Once you’re ready for your pear to ripen, simply place it in a fruit bowl at room temperature. It will likely take up to a week to ripen.

If you want to ripen a pear faster, you can place it in a paper bag or next to bananas. The gases from the ripening process will help speed up the timeframe.

What to do with Pears that Won’t Ripen

However, if you’re like me, you inevitably have pears that just never seem to want to get ripe! There could be a few reasons for that.

The most common is that they were picked too soon. But even hard pears can be put to good use! So, what can I do with pears that won’t ripen?

Make these three delicious recipes!

• Pear Pie
• Stewed Pears
• Pear Sauce

Recipes for what to do with unripe pears

Let’s start with pear pie.

Baking unripe pears works wonderfully because they tend to hold their shape better.

Pear Pie Recipe

Often, baking with ripe pears results in mushy pear pieces. So I actually prefer to bake with slightly underripe pears.

Snag my pear pie recipe in this post.

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Stewed Pears Recipe

The next recipe for what to do with unripe pears is for stewed pears. This is a great recipe for less-than-perfect or bruised pears.

Stewed pears are the perfect sweet treat on their own. I also love to include them into:

• Yogurt and granola
• As an ice cream topping
• On oatmeal

This stewed pears recipe is also the foundation for pear sauce, which I will share next.

My stewed pear recipe can be made with or without skins.

Leaving the skin on can sometimes result in a bitter aftertaste. If you find that’s a problem, add in a few more tablespoons of brown sugar.

Pear Sauce Recipe

If you decide to try stewed pears, but have an overabundance that haven’t been eaten, take it one step further and make pear sauce!

Pear sauce is just like applesauce, but with pears.

You May ALso Enjoy…

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today! I hope you enjoyed learning about what to do with unripe pears. Please let me know what you think of the recipes!

You might also enjoy these dishes:

• Simple Salted Caramel Baked Apples
• Healthy Roasted Butternut Squash with Goat Cheese
• Glazed Rainbow Carrots

You can also visit my recipe archives here.

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~Sarah