Beautiful pomegranates are in season right now. Ruby red jewels inside tough skin. We could go deep and get philosophical about how that’s how so many people are… Tough on the outside, but when you get to know them, deep down, past the sometimes brittle skin, there are jewels to be found.

As there are many ways to get to the center of who a person is, there are different ways to deseed a pomegranate (like that segue?). But, in trying a few different ways, I found one that was far superior. 

The first way is how I used to eat them as a kid. I didn’t care about the mess, so just cutting it in half and kinda scraping them out and pulling the peel down worked alright.

You can also whack the pomegranate with a wooden spoon, over a bowl or holding your hand underneath. This didn’t work very well for me. It splattered juice everywhere and the seeds didn’t really come loose.

Here’s the way that did work. It wasn’t messy and didn’t take long.

Quarter each pomegranate.

Place them in a bowl.

Cover with plenty of water.

Using both hands (or one if you’re photographing the experiment and don’t want to hold the camera with your shoulder and risk dropping it into the pome-water), peel the skin back, keeping it under the water. Once the peel is free from the seeds, discard.

Grab a handful of seeds and rub them around, under the water, getting the pith (or membrane) to separate from the seeds.

The pith will float to the surface and you can skim it off, leaving you with a bowlful of seeds.

Drain the seeds (save the water for your garden).

Transfer the seeds to a storage container.

Now that they’ve been harvested with minimal mess, let’s talk about how to serve them.

First of all, you can just eat them the way they are (yes, even the white part of the seed that’s inside). You could freeze them for a hot day, or just stand at the counter eating them out of the bag that you’d intended to freeze…

You could make them into a salad dressing, or use them as part of a salad.

To indulge your sweet tooth, add them to a crisp or a crumble, or you could dip them in white chocolate.

They’d be lovely tossed with lemon juice, chopped avocado, chile peppers, and cucumber, for a spicy and refreshing salad. Or with some apples as salsa.

You might roast some beets and top them with cool pomegranate seeds and a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.

Pomegranates pair well with meats like chicken, fish, and lamb. Serve a salad with fresh pomegranates, almonds, and orange slices alongside one of these meats that has been roasted.

Deseeding Fruit How To Pomegranates Tips