How To Cut A Pineapple

We be lovin’ pineapple up in this house….that’s street slang (or as street slang as I can get). A fresh pineapple makes canned pineapple taste like sawdust. I really fell in love with fresh pineapples when I was in Trinidad…..we would buy them at road-side stands and come home, cut them up, and inhale them. They were SO good……almost made me want to move there – except for the whole 100+ degrees all the time thing. I like buying them when I can get them for a good deal ($1.99-2.50). How do you choose a good pineapple? Most people will tell you to pull the middle leaf out of the top….and if it comes easily, it’s ripe. That’s not been a good indicator for me. Here’s how I do it – your pineapple should have a yellow tint, starting from the bottom up. If it’s mostly green, it’s not ripe. Also, smell it…..at the bottom where it sits. If it smells sweet, and it’s yellow chances are it’s a doggone good pineapple. It’s a good idea to let your pineapple sit upside down about 30 minutes before you cut it. All the sweetness resides in the bottom (sorta like me!), so if you do that, it’ll let the juice distribute before you cut.  Let’s cut this bad boy!

I’ve seen lots of people just hack off the top of the pineapple….but I don’t do that. I like to take the top in one hand and the body in another hand and twist. The top will pop right off. It’s sorta like breaking someone’s neck. I watch a lot of CSI.

Get a really sharp knife and cut about ½ inch off the bottom. Please use a sharp knife. I’m living proof that dull knives lead to hacked fingers….of course, I’m also living proof that sharp knives lead to deep wounds. And if you follow me on Facebook you also know I have a problem with cheese graters and losing partial fingers. Go figure.

Cut about ½ inch off the top too. Blurry photo. Sorry.

Take your knife and slice off the sides. Don’t go too deep or you’ll get rid of a lot of juice fruit. There will be some pits left, but we’ll take care of those in a minute. Just get rid of the really hard stuff.

You’ll have some little pits left. The large ones you need to get rid of. The smaller ones are okay…..a large one is pretty hard to chew and it takes away from the pineapple happiness. I take the tip of my peeler and just use it to pry out those pits. It works well for this. You can sorta twist it around in a circle and they’ll pop right out.

Now, slice the pineapple. Try to make the cuts even….or be like me and just do it. I’m not very good at eyeing things…..and most of my pictures hang crooked.

Look very closely and you’ll see that the center of each slice is a different color. And if you poke it with your finger you’ll see that it’s hard. It’s the core of the pineapple and it’s tough…..sometimes Barry eats the core, but I don’t like it. It’s hard and I want the goodness on the outside. I threw mine down the garbage disposal so it would smell nice instead of like an animal died in there. Take a paring knife and cut the core out of each slice. It’s very easy.

Hand the top of the pineapple to your toddler to give them a lesson. Tell them it’s sticky…..and then watch. Annie touched it one time and recoiled, as you can see. 🙂 “It bit me!”

Finish cutting the slices into your desired shape and store it in the fridge. It’ll be good for about 3-4 days….if it lasts that long. Ours goes really fast since we all love it. Sometimes there’s a fight.

This post is also linked at Tammy’s Recipe for Kitchen Tip Tuesday.