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Many Moroccan and Middle Eastern recipes call for preserved lemons, lemons that have been pickled in salt and their own juices. It’s quite easy to do, though takes at least three weeks before the lemons are ready to use.
How to Make Preserved Lemons
We use Meyer lemons for making preserved lemons because we grow them and because they are milder than Eureka lemons (the regular lemon you buy at the store), they work beautifully preserved this way.
Ingredients
- 8-10 lemons (Meyer if you have them)
- 1/2 cup to 1 cup of kosher salt
- Extra fresh squeezed lemon juice, if needed
- Sterilized quart canning jar
Method
1 Put 2 tablespoons of kosher salt at the bottom of your canning jar.
2 Rinse and scrub clean the lemons. With each lemon, cut off any stems. Cut off 1/4-inch from the tip of the lemons. Cut the lemons lengthwise in half, but keep the lemon attached at the base, do not cut all the way through. Then make another cut the same way, as if you were cutting the lemons into quarters, but not all the way through.
3 Gently pull open the lemons and sprinkle well with kosher salt, inside and out.
4 Put the prepared lemons in your canning jar and press them down so that their juices come out and rise to the top. Pack the jar with lemons, making sure that they are covered with juice. Add more juice if needed, and add a couple more tablespoons of kosher salt to the top.
5 Close the lid to the jar and let it sit at room temperature on the counter for a few days. Turn the jar upside down every so often. After a few days put the jar of lemons in the refrigerator for at least 3 weeks, until the rinds of the lemons soften. Turn the jar upside down occasionally while storing in the refrigerator.
6 To use preserved lemons in cooking, remove one from the jar and rinse it to remove the salt. Discard any seeds. Remove the pulp. Thinly slice or chop the preserved lemon rind to use in a recipe.
Preserved lemons can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
Note:
Experiment with adding spices to the preserved lemons—cardamom, vanilla, cloves, coriander seeds, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, peppercorns.
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
How to Make Preserved Lemons
Just made it…easy to make, got lemon tree…..waiting for result.
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I would like to know if you should use just smooth skin lemons. I have the thicker skin lemons and not sure whether I can use these. Please advise.
Hi Elizabeth,
I don’t see why you couldn’t use thicker skinned lemons. Doing this with Eureka lemons (the ones commonly seen at the grocery store) works, but we’ve not tried it with the thick-skinned ones that sometimes grown on ornamental trees, so we can’t assure you it’ll be a success. Lemons are either inexpensive or free, and salt is cheap, so I say give it a go and see what happens. Report back, we’d love to hear!
By using quart size canning jars, do we need to buy new inserts for the lids? Or can the inserts and lids be reused by sterilized in boiling water for 10 minutes? Thx
This recipe isn’t processed in a water bath canner, so you don’t need to use new inserts, no. It’s a great time to re-use old inserts, in fact (the salt can corrode them a little, so why waste new ones?) As long as they are very clean, you’ll be in good shape–no need to sterilize.
Do not reuse lids because the rubber may be compromised. The rings can be reused.
If I were to use the removable rubber rings I would reuse them.
Can a large plastic large be used instead of glass? I have a huge Biscotti plastic jar that is 2 lbs, 3 Oz or 980 g. I think it would hold at least 6-8 lemons. Thx!
Hi Nancy,
Sara with Simply Recipes here. Because lemons and salt are both caustic to some degree, it’s not advisable to preserve lemons in low-grade plastic. Biscotti jars are a terrific size and great to re-use, but only for dry food storage. That kind of plastic isn’t made to store liquids. We don’t want any bad endocrine disruptors leeching into your lemons, and then getting into your body!
Go ahead and spurge on a quart canning jar. It doesn’t have to be a fancy one with a hinged lid like you see in the post. A wide-mouth Ball jar works great–I’ve done a few batches of lemons in them before. Good luck!
Right, with the exception that lemons are acidic, not caustic (alkaline) and salt is corrosive, not caustic.
Thanks for the clarification, Matt! Precision is important.
It’s good with hot peppers
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