Learn How to Preserve Lemons with Fermentation

Sour, sweet, salty. Fresh citrus comes around in the winter and if you want to preserve that amazing flavor all year, try preserving your lemons in salt through a fermentation process.

Stacks of fresh lemons lined my counters when we lived in Arizona.

Is it safe to preserve lemons?

People all around the world have been preserving lemons and other citrus for many hundreds of years. This old world style of preserving is still safe today, and is a great way to use lemons year round.

Harmful bacteria cannot grow in such a salty environment as we will be making with these preserved lemons and so it is perfectly safe to leave them out in room temperature to enjoy for many months or up to a year.

Are there any health benefits to when I preserve lemons like this?

When preserving lemons like this a good bacteria can grow – just like it does when you are making sauerkraut. It is called lactobacillus which is what you want for your gut to be healthy. Just Google gut health and you will see how important it is for you to make sure you are taking care of the flora in your gut with good probiotics like lactobacillus. Along with helping with digestion, this way of preserving can also increase or preserve the vitamin and enzyme levels of the lemons.

So in this beautiful jar of fermenting lemons, you have the lactobacillus growing and feeding on the lemon rinds, which breaks them down. As they break down, they create more juice. It also produces lactic acid. The lactic acid will help preserve the lemons.

Another creation of this preservation is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide grows and takes the place of the oxygen in the jar. Which is why I found a little bit of the sticky lemon juice on my counter as the carbon dioxide pushed some of it out, or “burped” as it grew. So why is this good?

Mold cannot grow without oxygen, and we certainly do not want to have mold on our preserved lemons.

How do I preserve lemons?

You only need a few items:

lemons (organic is best since you will be using the rinds)
kosher or sea salt (avoid iodized table salt)
optional: fresh herbs such as bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, maybe some peppercorns or cinnamon sticks
clean quart glass jar and lid

First you will need to make sure you have a clean quart jar.

If you are going to add any herbs, go ahead and throw them in the bottom of the jar before adding the lemons to make it easy.

You can slice the lemons several different ways, but I like to cut them the traditional way. Stand the lemon up on the end and slice it in half, but not quite all the way to the bottom. Then slice it in fourths, again leaving the bottom in tact. This way the 4 quarters are still attached at the bottom.

Cut open the lemons like this to put in the salt to ferment them for preservation

Now take about a teaspoon of salt and dump it into the bottom of the lemon. After the salt is in the lemon, place it in the jar. Continue slicing lemons, filling with salt, and squishing down into the jars.

You want to fill up the jar with as many lemons you can fit. As you smush them down, they will start juicing and the juice will fill up the jar. If you run out of lemons and your jar does not fill up all the way, that is ok. But it is also ok to have it filled as much as you can.

Smash down the lemons in the glass jar to make more room.

Depending on how much juice is present in the jar, you might want to add more fresh squeezed at this step. It can also be added in a few days after the lemons have continued to produce more juice.

Pop on the lid and let the jar sit out at room temperature.

Now what?

You will leave the jar on your counter for 3-5 days. Either turn the jar upside down or shake it around one to two times a day. I turned mine over 2 times a day.

So after about 5 days or so, you will want to make sure that you get those lemons all the way under the juice if they were not already. Usually I will add extra juice to make sure the lemons are not exposed to any oxygen.

After the 3-5 days, you will want to move your lemons to a cooler environment. You can place them in the fridge or if you have a cellar or other cool area (about 55 degrees or below) they can be placed there.

The lemons should be stored that way for about a month. After about a month, you will be able to use the lemons in recipes.

You can continue to keep them stored in the fridge, in cold storage, or if your kitchen isn’t too hot, you can keep them out because they are lacto fermented. Remember that bad bacteria is not going to grow in this environment.