Preserving Meyer Lemons

If you watch any type of Food TV or Top Chef - you may have noticed that every time they use lemon - its never just lemon. Its always MEYER LEMONS. Every since I have noticed this - Ive been dying to try them.

Meyer lemon, is a citrus fruit native to China thought to be a cross between a true lemon and either a mandarin or common orange. It was introduced to the United States in 1908 as S.P.I. #23028^[1] by the agricultural explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who collected a sample of the plant on a trip to China.^[2]


At a lunch trip to Whole Foods last week, I came across the stack of them. I only bought 3 to start with.

I found a few different recipes online to try. I decided to go with this plan from the blog Paupered Chef:

the paupered chef link

The set up seemed easy. Follow along!

Step 1 - get some pretty Meyer Lemons - remove any stickers and wash.

Step 2 - Boil the lemons whole in rolling water - 5 minutes. Shock in ice water. Wait till cool to the touch.

 Step 3 - Cut your lemons in half, then fourths, then eights. Take time to remove the seeds and cut away any white rind. Prepare a bowl that has a layer of kosher salt in it.

Step 4 - Coat each lemon slice in kosher salt. Knock off excess. Stack in glass jars. Repeat until jars are full. Take lemon juice and fill up liquid to the top. 

Step 5 - Seal the jar and turn twice a day to help preserve the lemons. Let sit minimum 5 days - the longer you can hold out - the better!

I still have many days to wait till my preserved Meyer Lemons are ready. Cant wait to try them in cocktails, with asparagus, maybe even on pizza!

Thanks for taking a look!
-Mindy