While I was making this cherry salsa recipe I started thinking back to the first time I tried fresh cherries. Do you remember the first time you had a fresh cherry? Everett is so young he won’t remember eating his first fresh cherry (he commonly steals cherries when I’m trying to cook with them!) And I hope for your sake that you started cherry eating too early to remember too. For me, I was already in my twenties… crazy right?!
I didn’t grow up with eating cherries. Maybe they didn’t come to our local grocery store or maybe my mom didn’t like them but for one reason or another they didn’t end up on our kitchen table.
When I was in my early twenties I took a trip to Spain. While I experienced lots of first tastes there, like my first spanish tortilla espanola, my first croquette, and my first experience with drinking chocolate, when I sat down at the dinner table with an American family who joined a bunch of college students for the trip, everyone was shocked that I had never eaten a fresh cherry.
After careful instruction, I popped a juicy red cherry in my mouth and ate around the pit before awkwardly discarding it. Then again, and again, and again… until I became an expert at pitting the cherry quickly as to best enjoy the tart fruit and until the bowl was empty.
Since then, when cherries arrive at the market I pick them up and remember my time in Spain along with the sweet family who joined us and fed us. If any precious cherries survive the first day of simply eating, I make something like this salsa.
Here are a few more delightful cherry recipes:
Scallops with Cherries and Tarragon
Cherry Salsa Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups cherries, about 1/2 lb, divided
- 1/2 lime, juice and zest
- 1 shallot, diced (or 1/4 red onion)
- 1 small jalapeño, diced (1/2 for milder salsa)
- 6-8 mint leaves, chopped
Instructions
- Pit the cherries using a cherry pitter or a chop stick. Then slice in half. Chop up half of the cherrie and leave the other half sliced. Add in the diced jalapeño and shallot. Zest the half lime over the cherry mixture then squeeze out all of the juice. Add in the chopped mint leaves and toss to combine.
- Serve with chips, over meat (it's especially good with pork), on bruschetta with soft cheese, with tacos, or over black beans.
I remember picking cherries out of a tree at a neighbors orchard. I really don’t remember it fondly b/c my sister and I would have rather been doing something else during the summer. Now, I wish I had a cherry orchard next door.
I bet it was so much work!! But all of those cherries…. yum!!
I’m all over fruit salsas this summer, I would love this with pork tenderloin!
Sue, oh just wait… I have the perfect pork combo for you!! Posting today!
I eat cherries all of the time. So good for arthritis. I am going to put this together for a little extra something on top of my chicken.
Beautiful! I have some random leftover cherries and plums. I think I’ll turn your recipe into cherry-plum salsa!
Cherry Plum Salsa sounds perfect!! Hope you’re having a fabulous summer Kate!
Pretty! This has been an incredibly wonderful post. Thank you for supplying these details.
I have always been a cherry fan, but have let others do the work for me until now. These are the very best in the world and I am 54 not in my 20’s as you were when you experienced your first fresh cherries. I love the salsa recipe and I will be making this for my grilled pork chops this very Sunday! Thank you for your site, I will be enjoying regularly! God bless!
Donna your pork chops with cherry salsa sounds perfect! Glad to meet another cherry lover!