How to cut a pineapple

It may seem like a challenge cut open a pineapple to get to the delicious fruit inside – may people choose to buy canned or pre-prepared pineapple pieces – but the process is quite simple.

Supermarket sell fresh pineapples all year round, but they are best between March and July. Use your eyes and nose to pick a good fruit. It should smell sweet, rather than “green” which means the fruit is under-ripe, and not smell like it’s fermenting with would suggest an over-ripe pineapple. It should have a bit of a shine to the leaves and fruit, and not look dull.

Step 1 – Equipment

Find a good sized chopping board, and a sharp chef’s or vegetable knife. Make sure the board is flat and stable and that it won’t move around when you are cutting. Lay the pineapple on its side.

Step 2 – Remove the pineapple leaves

Begin by chopping off the leaves, about 2cm from where the leaves join the main part of the pineapple.

Step 3 – Remove the pineapple base

Trim another 2cm from the bottom of the pineapple.

Step 4 – Remove the pineapple skin

Stand the pineapple up, and make cuts from top to bottom, removing the skin. Be careful to leave as much fruit as possible and only cut away the hard outer skin. Don’t try and remove the “eyes” which go deeper into the fruit. We will remove those in the next step.

Step 5 – Remove the eyes

The “eyes” of the pineapple are inedible and need to be removed. You will notice they follow a spiral pattern around the fruit. Place the pineapple on its side, and starting at one end, make a shallow “V” cut in a spiral pattern around the pineapple. Only cut as deep as you need to remove the eyes, saving as much of the edible flesh as possible. Once you have done one spiral, move back and follow the next line of eyes. Continue until you have remove all of the eyes, and are left with a pattern like the photo above.

Step 6 – Split pineapple into quarters

We now need to split the pineapple into quarters so that we can remove the hard, inedible core. Stand the pineapple back up, and carefully cut the pineapple first in half, from top to bottom. You can then lay each half flat on your chopping board, and cut these in half again, leaving you with 4 quarters.

Step 7 – Remove the core

With each quarter of pineapple, you want to feel for where the hard core of the fruit meets the softer flesh. Again, only cut off just enough to remove the hard middle so that you don’t waste any of the edible part.

Step 8 – Slice & Enjoy

You are now left with 4 big pieces to either eat now, or chop up to use in your next smoothie creation.