16 Cherry Recipes to Make the Most of the Season

Cherry season is as fleeting as it is sweet, so make these sweet and savory recipes before the season ends.

Cherry season has been in swing for a while here in California, and I've had some in my fridge pretty much constantly since they first showed up at the market. I love keeping cherries on hand for snacking, but, of course, that's not all these sweet little stone fruits are good for. While they're iconic in desserts like pies and cobblers, their rich fruit flavor can also do a great job of complementing grilled meats and vegetables, like grilled duck breast with cherry-port sauce or grilled heads of bitter radicchio with a sweet-sour cherry gastrique. And they're perfect for seasonal drinks, like a summery swizzle made with rum and Velvet Falernum. Cherries won't be around much longer, though, so before they start to disappear, make sure you've tried as many of our favorite sweet and savory recipes—16 in all—as you can.

Sweet

The Best Cherry Pie (With Fresh or Frozen Fruit)

The best cherry pie calls for a little math—use 25% of your cherries' weight in sugar and 5.5% of their weight in tapioca starch to make a light filling that's just thick enough to hold itself together. The tapioca starch also ensures that the filling cooks at the perfect speed, finishing at the same as the flaky crust. We especially love this pie (and all our pies) with Stella's Old-Fashioned Flaky Pie Dough, which does an excellent job of staying crisp even under a boatload of juicy fruit.

List Link: The Best Cherry Pie (With Fresh or Frozen Fruit)

Cherry Pit Whipped Cream

After prepping a few pounds of cherries for pie, you're going to have a lot of pits on your hands. Don't throw them out—they've still got plenty of flavor to take advantage of! Steeping the pits in cream overnight before straining them out and whipping makes an elegant topping infused with delicate cherry flavor and color. The intensity of both will vary depending on the quality of the fruit, but even a subtle cherry pit whipped cream makes a special accompaniment to cherry pie or chocolate cake.

List Link: Cherry Pit Whipped Cream

Chocolate Cherry Layer Cake

More of a cake person? Can't get enough of chocolate-covered cherries? This intense chocolate cake incorporates cherry flavor in two ways: Tart cherry juice in the batter helps bring out the fruity flavor of the chocolate (while its acidity aids in the cake's rise), and a frosting of whipped cream spiked with freeze-dried cherries makes for a pretty pink finish.

List Link: Chocolate Cherry Layer Cake

Cherry Ice Cream

For the deepest flavor and most vibrant color in cherry ice cream, we start by sprinkling the cherries with sugar and roasting them whole until they're wilted and juicy—keeping the pits in while roasting helps you fortify the cherry-ness in the final ice cream. To make even more use of the whole fruit, we borrow the same trick from our cherry pit whipped cream, steeping the pits in the cream to extract additional flavor. Those steps, plus the absence of milk and eggs, make this the best example of a Philadelphia-style ice cream, one that's dominated by pure, minimally adulterated cherry flavor.

List Link: Cherry Ice Cream

Classic Cherry Clafoutis

As impressive and fancy as clafoutis sounds, it's actually quite easy: Just whip up a simple batter of flour, egg, milk, and butter; pour it into a greased pan over pitted cherries; and bake. More rustic versions of the dish call for whole, unpitted cherries, but we prefer not to run the risk of a chipped tooth. If you have it, a little kirsch (cherry brandy) will enhance the fruit flavor.

List Link: Classic Cherry Clafoutis

Cherry and Pistachio Frangipane Tart

Dark cherries lend sweetness and acidity to a buttery frangipane tart, and we like to incorporate homemade pistachio paste, as it lends better flavor and texture to the frangipane than ground nuts. This recipe includes a two-hour rest to ensure the dough is cold and well relaxed, for a crust that's flaky and tender. It doesn't get much better than that!

List Link: Cherry and Pistachio Frangipane Tart

Cherry Pit Syrup

Like the above whipped cream, this syrup makes use of cherry pits that would typically be tossed. They're tossed with sugar, which helps draw moisture and flavor from the fruit left clinging to the cherry pits. In time, the residual moisture surrounding the pits will be enough to dissolve the sugar entirely, without the need for any added liquid. A little bit of almond extract and rose water is incorporated into the syrup to improve the flavor and aroma of cherries without contributing a distinctive flavor of their own.

List Link: Cherry Pit Syrup

Easy Stovetop Cherry Grunt (Stovetop Cobbler)

If you're not up for rolling out a pie crust (or using your oven in the summer heat), a grunt is a much simpler option. The whole dish—a cooked mixture of juicy sour cherries, sugar, cinnamon, and cornstarch, topped with dollops of simple biscuit dough—is made on the stovetop. Even in peak season, it can be hard to find fresh sour cherries, but frozen ones will do just fine for this recipe.

List Link: Easy Stovetop Cherry Grunt (Stovetop Cobbler)

Cherry Hand Pies

These little hand pies are made to be individual and portable, so they're perfect for picnic season. To add complexity to the filling of sweet cherries, we mix in lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla extract. Don't feel like making a pie dough (even a 10-minute one in the food processor)? The filling is delicious as a topping for vanilla ice cream, too.

List Link: Cherry Hand Pies

Savory

Sweet-Sour Macerated Cherries With Marcona Almonds, Mint, and Ricotta

Straddling the line between sweet and savory, this dish would be just as appropriate for breakfast or a light lunch as for dessert. We give the cherries a sweet-sour pop by macerating them with honey, red wine vinegar, and black pepper, then combine them with good ricotta—use the best you can find, with no gums or stabilizers—Marcona almonds, and fresh mint leaves.

List Link: Sweet-Sour Macerated Cherries With Marcona Almonds, Mint, and Ricotta

Cherry and Jicama Salad With Lime and Macadamia Nuts

This refreshing side, made by pairing halved cherries with crisp, crunchy jicama and buttery macadamia nuts, is a far cry from your typical fruit salad. Fresh basil and lime brighten it up, and a drizzle of olive oil tempers the acid. The mild flavor of the jicama allows the sweet cherries to shine.

List Link: Cherry and Jicama Salad With Lime and Macadamia Nuts

Grilled Radicchio With Cherry Gastrique

Bitter radicchio is delicious when grilled whole, though it has a tendency to get even more bitter prepared this way. It requires an accompaniment that's equally intense, which is why we pair it here with a cherry gastrique—a vinegar-based, sweet-and-sour sauce that's often made with fruit. Those sweet and tart flavors balance out the dark and brooding nature of the vegetable, and it all combines in a colorful side dish that pairs wonderfully with grilled meat.

List Link: Grilled Radicchio With Cherry Gastrique

Peppered Duck Breasts With Cherry-Port Sauce

Rich, fatty duck and sweet cherries are a classic combination. Here, we cook the cherries down with port, balsamic vinegar, and shallots to make a robust sauce that's sweet but balanced. It's cookout season, so it only makes sense to fire up the grill to cook the duck: Start it with the skin side down until it's crisp, then flip over and cook to 130°F (54°C).

List Link: Peppered Duck Breasts With Cherry-Port Sauce

Drinks

Grilled Summer Smash

Even cocktail ingredients can be improved with a stint on the grill, and this is just the cocktail to prove it. It's made with nectarine, lime, and cherries, all grilled until charred and slightly caramelized, which adds a dark, smoky edge and amplifies their sweetness. Rather than a more expected spirit, like whiskey or rum, we mix the grilled fruit with funky aged cacha?a.

List Link: Grilled Summer Smash