Preserved Meyer Lemons

By: Citruholic
Jun 25, 2008

Preserving a Meyer lemon captures its glorious perfume. We’ve adapted cookbook author Paula Wolfert’s quick method, our favorite, and made it even faster by blanching the lemons first. The rind of a preserved lemon is a common ingredient in Moroccan dishes; we also love it in all kinds of soups, stews, and salads and as a low-fat alternative to olives. Save the pulp for Bloody Marys or anything else enlivened by a little lemon juice and salt. Tip: There are some recipes for preserving lemons that call for you to slice the lemon, but not all the way through and pack it with the salt. This is not one of them. You will need a VERY sharp knife to cut the Meyer's into wedges, as they will be especially soft after blanching them. And you want to get rid of the seeds. No preserving of the seeds. Use a flexible cutting board to cut them on so you can save some of the juice that collects from cutting them. You can use some of that to help with the packing of the lemons. This recipe is adapted from epicurious.com. You can use pint jars or quart jars, it's your preference. I used pint canning jars, and kept some and gave some away as gifts. You may prefer to use one large canning jar to pack your lemons into.