Is your tree overflowing with lemons? We are revisiting a post from 2012 with five unique ideas for what to do with all that citrus!
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Every year from December to April, we are gifted with an endless supply of lemons from our enormous lemon tree in the back yard. We do the “normal” things: make lemonade, cook recipes that call for fresh lemon juice, and give away bags of lemons to our neighbors and friends. But we are still left with hundreds of lemons. Now, thanks to Pinterest, I have some “outside of the box” uses for all of these lemons. I found these ideas so fun, I had to share them with all of you.
1) Juice and freeze the lemon juice in ice cube trays. This way, we have lemon juice for cooking sauces and other recipes all year long.
2) Make Limoncello for yourself and to give as gifts. I found several recipes online, but ended up using this one. I doubled the recipe and added fresh mint leaves when making the simple syrup. I also used clean Perrier bottles for each gift size portion, and I included a recipe for Limoncello Spritzers on each bottle. I think this is the perfect drink recipe for a beautiful spring day. Plus, you can store the Limoncello in the freezer for up to one year.
3) Slice the lemons into half circles and freeze on a cookie sheet. Store the frozen lemon slices in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. Enjoy lemon slices in your water or iced tea whenever you want.
4) Use lemon juice to whiten clothes that have taken on that dingy off-white color instead of bleach. Lemon juice can also be used in natural homemade cleaners to clean about anything you could imagine. I found a bunch of recipes online that are now added to my list of things to try with these lemons.
5) Make preserved lemons. I found this tutorial for making preserved lemons here. I can’t honestly say that I have ever tried preserved lemons before in any sort of recipe, but considering that they are very expensive to buy in the store ($10+ per jar), I am excited to have my homemade batch. Also, this was about the easiest project I have ever done. I already had a jar, salt and the lemons. Now I just have to wait. Preserved lemons can be stored in the fridge for one year.
Hi Angela, I read the notes on the limoncello recipe and now I’m confused about the peel. Do I zest 1/2 C? Do you think there is any way to speed up the process? I have a full Meyer lemon tree in the back and this would be fun to give as gifts.
Hi Casey, I did zest about a dozen lemons for the recipe (I doubled all the amounts). I have a 5 holed zester so it went pretty fast. But I would think you could use a vegetable grater or a cheese grater to get the same results. The only thing I read about this step is make sure you do not get any white parts, or it adds a bitter taste to the liquor. Good luck!!
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