Cherries are transformed into the perfect (not overly sweet) cherry pie filling that I use for numerous recipes at home and in my professional kitchen for Mili’s Sweets dessert catering. This recipe is naturally gluten free and vegan.

Ingredients

6-7 cups dark and tart pitted cherries about 30oz.
1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup filtered water
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons salted butter optional for when it’s time to bake a pie

Instructions

Over medium heat, place all of the ingredients (except for the butter) into a large saucepan, including: 6-7 cups of pitted cherries (frozen or fresh), sugar, cornstarch, salt and water.
Stir to dissolve the sugar. More water will created in the pan as the cherries start to cook. I typically use my wooden spoon to do all of the mixing for fruit pies. Bring the mixture to a boil. Once you see small bubbles forming around the edge of the pan, it’s time to continue stirring and stay with it as it thickens. If you walk away for the last 5-10 minutes, you could burn the bottom of the filling and your pot. From start to finish, it will take a total of 30 minutes to cook the cherries down to a nice thickness, perfect for pie filling.
Once the filling is done cooking, pour the hot prepared filling into a storage container to cool or pour directly into a prepared pie crust.
If you are storing it for later use, cover it completely and store in the refrigerator for up to a week. Store in the freezer for up to a month.

This one recipe can be used for multiple applications. Here are some recipes found here, where this cherry pie filling us used.

cherry pie filling recipe uses

Fresh-pitted at peak season, is my favorite way to savor cherry recipes. The alternative is finding prepared cherries in the frozen-food section of most grocery stores. Fresh or frozen: the end result with cooking your cherries will be almost identical.