30+ Juicy Cherry Recipes You'll Love This Summer

Cherry Flag Pie Recipe

Your guests will be wowed not only by the delightful presentation, but also by the taste of this quintessential summer pie. For a great looking piecrust, brush the piecrust with a mixture of egg yolk and water to create a deep golden brown crust. You can use thawed, frozen cherries if fresh are not available.

Port-Cherry Sauce Recipe

This elegant and easy sauce is a simple way to elevate your go-to roast pork tenderloin recipe. The sweet and tangy balance also makes it a show-stopping topping for baked Brie or vanilla gelato.

Almond-Cherry Bars Recipe

Making snack bars at home doesn't have to be complicated. These take just 15 minutes to make, and use wholesome ingredients such as oats, almond butter, and maple syrup for a sweet-but-healthy treat.

Kale and Wheat Berry Salad with Fresh Cherry Dressing Recipe

Fresh summer touches bring what is typically a cool-weather salad firmly into the season. Fresh cherries perform double duty, featuring in both the dressing (in which they're pureed) and the finished salad. Curly kale has a hearty, slightly tough texture, but massaging it with the salt tenderizes it nicely. If you'd rather use baby kale, you can skip the massage. If you have trouble finding watermelon radishes, any radishes will work beautifully.

Cherry-Nectarine Pandowdy Recipe

Flawless pastry crusts are expected when you are making a lattice-top or double-crust pie, but if you're in need of a more forgiving fruit dessert, look to the pandowdy. Popular in the 1800s and early 1900s, it is essentially cooked fruit under a pastry crust. But unlike a cobbler, the cook uses a fork to break, or "dowdy" the crust. As the dish cools, the broken crust absorbs the sweet juices from the cooked fruit, creating a deliciously messy dessert. While developing this recipe, Test Kitchen Professional Deb Wise was reminded of a favorite childhood dessert. Made with gooseberries, boysenberries, or blackberries, the dessert had a double crust that Deb's grandmother would "break open to let the juices bubble up and over it."  Deb adds her own twist to the pandowdy by using plump nectarines and cherries and a pretty patchwork-style crust, thick enough so that it doesn't disappear into the filling.

Fresh Cherry Relish Recipe

Fresh cherry season is fleeting, so enjoy them as much as possible. Great for eating right out of hand, cherries are also a great base for savory sauces, like this tangy fresh cherry and fennel relish. For the best relish texture and presentation, be sure to evenly and finely chop all of the ingredients. A food processor would be a good shortcut, but chopping by hand gives the nicest result. Serve with grilled pork tenderloin, lamb chops, or grilled turkey cutlets. Enjoy any leftovers on a baguette spread with goat cheese.

Cherry, Chicken, and Pecan Wheat Berry Salad Recipe

What a fantastic combo! If you can't find fresh cherries, add 1/4 cup boiling water to 1/4 cup dried cherries. Let stand 10 minutes; drain and chop.

Cherry-Plum Pie with Cornmeal Crust Recipe

If you don't have a cherry pitter, try inserting a wooden chopstick through the stem end of each cherry to remove the pits.

Cherry-Thyme Upside Down Cake Recipe

Using a blend of Bing and Rainier cherries, this easy upside-down cake is a real looker, sure to impress any group you share with. If you can't find Rainier cherries, you can certainly use all sweet or a mix of whatever varieties of sweet and tart cherries you can find locally. Fresh thyme leaves delicately scent the cake with a herbaceous aroma, which makes a wonderful complement to the sweetness of the caramelized fruit topping. For a perfectly tender and moist cake, finish incorporating the ingredients by hand, as this will prevent over-mixing your way to a tough texture. You'll also want to be sure to arrange the cherries as tightly as you can in the cake pan; fruit shrinks slightly as it cooks and you don't want too much unadorned cake poking through.

Cherry-Wheat Germ Muffins Recipe

These healthy muffins (which come together in only half an hour) make the perfect weekend summer breakfast.

Mixed Grain, Cherry, and Snap Pea Salad Recipe

Fresh cherries take the place of tomatoes in this triple-grain salad. Bulgur, quinoa, and brown rice make for a nutty, wonderfully textured base, though you can omit the bulgur and double the quinoa for a gluten-free version. Extra crunch comes from fresh snap peas and red onion.

Sweet-and-Sour Cherry Tartlets Recipe

We like the "naked" look of a couple of tartlets with just a few star cutouts, as shown. If you don't, this recipe makes enough dough for each tartlet to have its own pastry lid.

Grilled Chicken Drumsticks with Bourbon-Cherry BBQ Sauce Recipe

This fruity, boozy take on barbecue has all the characteristics of your favorite sauce--deep caramel notes, a savory backbone, and a pleasant vinegar tang. You can sub sweet cherries for sour, adjusting the amount of honey and vinegar to taste. For a shortcut, start with 1 cup purchased unsweetened cherry juice.

Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Fresh Cherry Salsa Recipe

The meaty texture of fresh cherries holds up in a salsa that goes well with the charred sweet potatoes.

Cherry-Basil Lemonade Spritzers Recipe

Instead of the fluorescent cocktail-cherry garnish, fresh cherries take center stage in this refreshing lemon-and-vodka sipper. Macerating the cherries in sugar helps to soften their thick skins and release their juices, which become gorgeously syrupy in the pan.

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt with Fresh Cherry Swirl Recipe

Creamy and luscious with a touch of tart, this simple fro-yo was a clear staff favorite. A combination of half-and-half, plain whole-milk yogurt, and a little corn syrup gives the frozen yogurt its supersmooth texture.

Red Cabbage Agrodolce with Dried Cherries Recipe

This sweet-and-sour cabbage side will perk up any pot roast or pork loin. Plump dried cherries are the tart, hidden gems in the dish. A little butter rounds out the acidity and helps bind everything together.

Mini Cherry Pies Recipe

These budget-friendly beauties are the perfect dessert solution. Mini pies take the effort out of cutting and serving pie, making them ideal for buffet spreads.

Apple and Cherry Pie Trifle Recipe

This eye-catching trifle allows you to fully embrace the convenience factor of a prepared dessert from the freezer aisle without being obvious about it. Frozen Marie Callender pies make an amazing shortcut to creating fruity layers (accented with pieces of flakey, buttery crust) in this easy dessert that's completed with a couple of other convenience items, like pudding mix and frozen whipped topping. It's perfect for any occasion when you're short on time, but still need something decadently impressive. Feel free to swap apple and cherry for your own favorite pie flavors.

Smoked Cherry Bounce Will Make Your Summer Weird Recipe

This drink takes a little patience. You'll spend the peak summer months staring at the jar, willing it to be ready, but if you start now, you can spend the very last week of the season in a smoky, cherry-scented haze just savoring the fruits of the season past.

Savor This Sour Cherry Breakfast Parfait While You Still Can Recipe

If you're a loyal local shopper and you spot sour cherries at the farmers' market, grab as many as you can. Sour cherry season is so short, you need to make the most of it while it's in full swing.

Cherry-and-Leek Couscous Recipe

Add the dried cherries to the cooking liquid with the couscous so they can plump, soften, and flavor the grains. Leeks are slightly milder than green onions; they become tender and silky when sautéed. Serve the couscous mixture with roasted pork or chicken.

Pork Medallions with Red Wine-Cherry Sauce Recipe

The pan sauce gets its concentrated fruit flavor, body, and thickness from tart-sweet cherry preserves, a great complement to the pork and red wine. Try a Merlot or Cabernet for the wine, or sub in unsalted chicken stock.

Poached Cherry and Goat Cheese Crostini Recipe

These elegant toasts, featuring sweet poached cherries and tangy goat cheese, are the perfect pre-meal nibble for a summer dinner party. While the recipe sounds fancy, it's super easy to prepare. You're simply simmering fresh cherries in a poaching liquid made by mixing orange liqueur, water, and a few other ingredients.This enhances the stone fruit with sweet, zesty flavor and creates a stunning crimson-hued sauce, perfect for spooning over rich and tangy goat cheese. A toss with fresh herbs and a light sprinkle of black pepper brings mellow earthiness for full harmony in every bite. 

Fizzy Gin and Black Cherry Sorbet Float Recipe

This sophisticated, boozy float is the perfect treat to make any hour exceptionally happy. Sip it slow or eat it with a spoon—either way, this simple dessert-meets-cocktail recipe is essentially stress relief in a glass. The recipe below is for one serving, but it's easily multiplied to make more floats. As simple as they are to whip up, these spirited, bubbly floats are excellent for entertaining. And if gin and cherry isn't your jam, give our Boozy Root Beer Floats a go. 

Salmon Salad with Cherry Vinaigrette Recipe

Cherry juice is a year-round alternative with the same anti-inflammatory benefits as fresh cherries. If you're taking this salad to work, store the dressing separately and drizzle over the salad just before eating.

Cherry Cream Paletas Recipe

Cool off with these delicious Cherry Cream Paletas that practically scream "summer."

Cherry-Ricotta Toast Recipe

Move over, avocado toast! This ricotta toast is a world of textures thanks to the creamy fresh cheese, thick cherry spread, and crunchy pistachios.

Cherry-Gingerbread Muffins Recipe

Wheat bran and yogurt bump up the protein and fiber so you'll stay fueled. Mashed banana adds moisture and sweetness without noticeable banana flavor, while browned butter lends nutty depth.

Papaya-Blueberry-Cherry Breakfast Bowls Recipe

A feast for your eyes and your mouth, this bright bowl pops with a myriad of tasty, crunchy components. 

Farro Salad with Toasted Pecans, Feta, and Dried Cherries Recipe

This sophisticated side dish is sure to stand out on your dinner table. Made from tender farro grain, this light side brings plenty of fresh fall flavors to your menu. Packed with sweet dried cherries, sharp chopped scallions, fresh parsley, tangy lemon juice, crunchy toasted pecans, and crumbly feta cheese, the farro salad recipe is completed by a drizzle of olive oil that unites the multiple flavors into one side dish you won't be able to stop scooping.

Easy Cherry Cobbler Recipe

Our easy cherry cobbler recipe is a fan favorite for a reason: It's a simple solution for anyone with a sweet tooth. This versatile recipe works well with fresh cherries or canned cherries. Summer never tasted so good.