Cherry Crisp Recipe With Fresh Cherries – With Instructions For Frozen Cherries & Canned Pie Filling Too! {video}

This cherry crisp recipe with fresh cherries is the perfect summer dessert, but you can make it year-round with frozen cherries or canned cherry pie filling!

This old-fashioned dessert is easy to whip up and perfect for cookouts, barbecues, potlucks, or any summertime gathering. Let’s make it à la mode again, shall we?! (And yes, my nerd is showing because I’m absolutely being punny! Like pie, just about the only thing that makes a fruit crisp even better – other than serving it along with a fresh cup of hot coffee – is serving it à la mode topped with a scoop of ice cream.)

Because fresh cherry season is here and gone so fast, I’m including instructions on how to make this recipe using frozen cherries or canned cherry pie filling. The most time-consuming part of making this recipe is pitting the cherries. So if you decide to go the route of frozen cherries or canned pie filling, you’ll save a ton of time!

One of the best things about this dessert is that it’s delicious served either cold or warm. But if you serve it warm, might I humbly suggest a scoop of French vanilla ice cream on top?

Ingredients

Crumble Topping Ingredients

• Unsalted butter – Butter adds richness and helps our crumble crisp up and turn golden brown. You want the butter slightly softened but not melted.
• Light brown sugar – White sugar will also work, but brown sugar adds depth of flavor with notes of molasses and caramel.
• Salt – Skip the added salt if you use salted butter.
• All-purpose flour – When mixed with butter and brown sugar in the right ratios, flour forms large crumbles, essentially a streusel topping.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats – Oats add texture and subtle nutty flavor to the crisp topping.

Cherry Filling Ingredients

• Cherries – For this recipe, you’ll need 1 1/2 pounds of fresh cherries with the stems and pits removed, which ends up being about 4 to 5 cups. I used sweet Bing cherries because they’re widely available, but you can use any type of sweet cherries you like. I give instructions in the recipe on how to use fresh sour cherries as well.
• Fresh lemon juice – This brightens the flavor and helps balance out the natural sweetness of the cherries.
• Vanilla extract – For flavor and aroma.
• Almond extract – Almond extract is optional; its flavor echos and enhances the flavor of cherries.
• Granulated white sugar – Sugar not only lends sweetness, but also helps create a thick, syrupy sauce as the cherries cook down.
• Flour – We use just a little bit of all-purpose flour to thicken the fruit filling.
• Salt – Salt naturally enhances the flavor of everything else.

Instructions

Prep the Cherries

Rinse the cherries under cool running water. Remove the stems, and then the pits. You can use a cherry pitter to do this, or simply cut the cherries in half and remove the pits.

Make the Crumble Topping

Mash the butter with a fork or beat it with an electric mixer. Add the brown sugar and salt, and mix to combine. Add the flour and oats and use your fingers (or a fork) to combine until the mixture forms large crumbles. 

How to Make Cherry Crisp

1. Add the cherries to a large bowl along with the lemon juice, vanilla extract, almond extract, sugar, flour, and salt. Toss to coat. 
2. Let the cherries sit at room temperature for 45 minutes. Allowing the cherries to macerate like this helps the sugar start to draw out the cherries’ moisture.
3. Preheat the oven to 375F. Pour the cherry filling (including any juices in the bottom of the bowl) to an 8 by 8-inch (or equivalent) baking dish. Spread it out evenly. Sprinkle the crumble topping evenly on top.
4. Bake until the crisp is golden on top and bubbling around the outside, about 35 minutes.

Serve warm, topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Storage

Store leftovers wrapped in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Reheating

If you want to reheat a serving or two, the microwave is a good option. But if you want to heat up multiple servings (or reheat the entire pan), the oven is the way to go.

To reheat cherry crisp in the oven, put it in an oven-safe dish and pop it into a preheated 325F oven until warm. The length of time will depend on how many servings, but if you’re reheating the entire pan it’ll take around 20 minutes. If the top starts to brown too much before it’s warm, you can drape a piece of foil on top.

Variations

• The Proverbial Icing on the Cake – As if this wasn’t delicious enough on its own, serve this warm topped with a generous spoonful of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
• Black Forest – As soon as this is out of the oven, sprinkle 1/4 cup of chopped dark chocolate on top. Serve it with a dollop of freshly whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
• Parfait-Style – After baking, let this cool and then serve it layered with vanilla custard or pudding in individual glasses.

Cherry Crisp with Frozen Cherries

You’ll need 1 1/2 pounds of frozen cherries to make this recipe. Let them thaw to room temperature, and then drain off most of the juices so your crisp isn’t too watery. You can drain off all of the liquid, but I like to keep about 2 to 3 tablespoons for a little bit of moisture that makes this less dry and more like cherry pie filling. Keep everything else the same.

I have a confession. As much as I adore fresh cherries, my favorite way to make cherry crisp is with frozen! This is for a few reasons:

1. It’s a huge time-saver. Frozen cherries are already pitted! Which means in addition to saving time, you’re saving your hands, sink, and the wall behind your sink from looking like they partook in cherry bloodbath.
2. The end result is a bit more decadent. So, you know how pie filling walks the fine line between being dry enough to hold its shape, but not so dry that it’s, well, dry. Let’s just say, there’s a little more leeway with crisps and crumbles because they aren’t sliced and don’t have to hold their shape. And personally, I lean towards the side of a slightly more wet/gooey/decadent fruit filling. Using frozen cherries results in a pie filling-like consistency that has a bit more moisture than using fresh cherries. This is because once fruit is frozen and thawed, the cell walls burst and the moisture is released. On the other hand, fresh cherries will also release their moisture, but they need a bit more coaxing to do so. Typically, said coaxing comes in the form of heat, meaning fresh cherries need to be made into a pie filling on the stovetop before baking it up as a fruit crisp. When the point of this dessert is quick and easy, it seems counterproductive to do things that add extra steps and make it take longer, lol!
3. You can make this year-round. We all know how short-lived fresh cherry season is! Using frozen cherries allows you to make this delicious dessert all year.

Cherry Crisp with Pie Filling

To make this recipe with store-bought cherry pie filling, you’ll need one 30-ounce can of cherry pie filling. Omit all the ingredients for the cherry filling in the recipe, and keep everything else in the recipe the same.

Cherry Crisp Recipe FAQs

More Cherry Recipes to Try

• Bavarian Cream Recipe with Cherry Sauce
• Cherry Almond Brown Butter Blondies
• No Churn Healthy Cherry Garcia Ice Cream