How to Cut a Pineapple

Many of our mainland visitors ask how to cut a pineapple. I learned how on a vacation to Hawaii, at the Dole Plantation, long before we lived here. That's also where I learned a few pineapple facts.


People also ask how to choose a "good one", and how to tell if it is ripe. A pineapple will not ripen more after it is picked. The color of the skin will not tell the sweetness of the pineapple, either. Very sweet pineapples can have both bright green or yellow skin. Ready to choose a pineapple? Get your sniffer ready. The best way to tell if a pineapple is ripe is to smell the pineapple. We buy our pineapples at Costco. People are uninhibited about smelling pineapples in Hawaii. And people judge by the firmness, too. You just don't want a squishy one. OH! That is another thing. If you come to Hawaii and want to buy pineapple, Costco is the most economical place. They don't air pack them or agriculturally inspect them, which is required to get Hawaiian pineapple off the island. But if you want to indulge while you are here, stop at Costco.


The sugar does tend to pool at the bottom of the fruit, so turn it upside down 24 hours before you are ready to cut the pineapple. We really like the Maui Gold variety. They are a pineapple company on Maui. They tried for 80 years to get a hybrid pineapple right. Finally in the 1990s they produced Maui Gold. It is three times sweeter than other pineapples.

We twist the crown (the green part) off by habit, but it can just be cut off. The crown makes a nice adornment on a fruit platter, though. Now, if you lived in ideal conditions, and by that I mean tropical conditions, you can plant the crown in the ground after it has been soaked in water for a few days. The soil has to be warm enough and rich enough in iron for a pineapple plant to grow. Please don't try planting pineapple in mainland USA. It's not going to happen for you. Really.

Guess how long it takes the first fruit to produce? About 20 months. And then the plant will only give 3 or 4 over the course of it's life. So, after I pull of the crown, I split the pineapple in half, lengthwise, and then down the middle of the each core, so that I have 4 canoe looking pieces.

Then I stand up each little canoe and cut out the core pieces at an angle. Some people (few) eat the core. We fed it to my dog when we had a dog. He adored pineapple core.

Next I work away at the skin of each of my canoes. I make "C" shaped cuts. I have had much practice, so I am pretty good and not having many eyes left on the pineapple, which are the what we call the small brown circular spots. I just skim my knife over them at this point, or I want until I am cubing the pineapple. Next I cut each naked (no skin, no core) pineapple canoe into thirds, and finally into chunks.
I toss the chunks into a gallon sized zip lock bag. I don't like using containers because they take up so much room and we go through pineapple pretty fast.
Cutting pineapple for me is much easier on a really large, no slip with grip, cutting board. My pineapple doesn't go slipping and sliding and the juice isn't oozing everywhere. The other secret is that I use a knife with a blade that is pretty comparable to the size of the pineapple. I am not kidding!

We put our pineapple in salads, cooked with meats, and in tacos, to name just a few ways. We eat it plain, too. Pineapple contains natural digestive enzymes that are great for helping digest food.

You know, one of the reasons I knew Hubby was my soul mate twelve years ago was that he put pineapple on everything, like me! It is both of our favorite fruit, and my kids love pineapple, too. There is a lot more I can tell you about pineapples, so if you have questions, ask and I will answer in the comments!!! Much aloha!