The Only Way You Should Cut up a Pineapple, According to Del Monte
This unwieldy, spiky fruit can be a challenge to cut up, but there's an easy method you can follow, whether you want chunks or rings.
Certain foods are so annoying to cut that I sometimes pass them up for that reason alone. They include most types of winter squash (thanks to their cumbersome size and often rock-hard flesh) and artichokes for their razor-sharp spikes. Unfortunately, there is a delicious fruit that is both unwieldy and spiky: pineapples. I still begrudgingly buy them, but I’ve far from mastered the art of breaking them down.
Lucky for me, Melissa Mackay, Vice President of Marketing at Fresh Del Monte North America gave me easy-to-follow instructions for turning one big, ripe pineapple into a big bowl of juicy, sweet chunks (or rings, if you prefer ‘em!). Keep reading to tune up your fruit carving skills.
What Is the Best Way To Cut up a Pineapple?
Of course, a pineapple corer will make light work of slicing the fruit into rings if you’ve got one, otherwise a good chef’s knife will certainly do the trick.
Mackay suggests starting by cutting off about one inch from the top and the bottom of the fruit. Make sure your cuts are straight so that the pineapple will sit straight upright, allowing you to remove the skin by cutting in a downward motion. Slice downward along the curve of the fruit, removing both the skin and the “eyes”—aka those pointy brown spots on the surface of the fruit.
Once the skin and eyes are removed, cut the pineapple into quarters lengthwise so that you have four long spears, each containing a quarter of the fruit’s core. Lay each wedge on its side on a cutting board, slice off, and compost the core. Cut the remaining fruit into chunks, spears, wedges, or whatever shape you prefer!
How Do You Avoid Waste When Cutting a Pineapple?
According to Mackay, the best way to avoid waste is by “using a sharp knife for cleaner, more precise cuts,” so make sure to give your knife a little TLC before starting this task. She also suggests using a small paring knife to remove the fruit’s eyes by “cutting small V-shaped grooves around each” to save more fruit. You can also just leave the eyes on if you don’t mind their texture.
When removing the fruit's core, Mackay explains that you don’t need to trim too much—in a ripe pineapple, the core is only about half an inch thick.
And before you throw out that spiky skin, consider holding on to it for a batch of tepache! This fizzy Mexican fermented drink is refreshing and surprisingly easy to make.
How Do You Cut Pineapple Rings?
Much like cutting a pineapple into chunks, Mackay recommends starting by removing the top and bottom of the fruit before standing it upright and slicing off the skin and eyes.
Tip the fruit onto its side and cut it into rounds. To turn these rounds into rings, Mackay suggests using “a round cookie cutter or a paring knife to cut out the tough core from each ring.” A small biscuit cutter would also do the trick.
