Preserve a bounty of lemons and add zesty flavor to soups, seafood, salads, grains and other recipes. This easy DIY recipe for salt brined lemons is a great way to use up a bumper crop of citrus.
Course:
Condiment
Cuisine:
Italian, Mediterranean, Moroccan
Ingredients
9largelemons, preferably Meyer lemons
1cupkosher saltgive or take
1 to 2tbspblack peppercorns
2 to 4bay leaves
Instructions
Sterilize 16-ounce canning jar in boiling water.
Thoroughly wash and scrub outside of lemons.
Quarter each lemon from the top to within 1/4 inch of the bottom, keeping fruit intact at bottom. Sprinkle kosher salt over the cut surfaces (approximately 1 tablespoons per lemon), then reassemble fruit.
Add bottom of the jar with more kosher salt to cover, approximately ¼ cup. Fit all the cut lemons in jar, pushing down with wooden spoon to smash them down and release juice. Sprinkle approximately ¼ cup additional salt on each lemon layer, along with some peppercorns.
Add bay leaves to jar. If released juice hasn’t covered the top of smooshed lemons, squeeze additional lemons into jar until full. Do not use water.
Tightly screw on lid to jar and let ripen at cool room temperature, shaking the jar every day for 2 to 4 weeks, or until the rinds are tender. At this time, store it in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
To use, remove a piece of lemon and rinse it. (Add more fresh lemons to the brine as you use them up.)