The Easy Way To Avoid Runny Cherry Glaze

While no chocolate milkshake is complete without a cherry on top and a creamy cherry pie filling is almost as American as its apple counterpart, this bright red fruit isn't just meant to bring extra flavor to our favorite desserts. Although ham topped with a traditional glaze is a delicious main course for Christmas dinner, a cherry glaze will give your favorite meat dishes a sweet upgrade.

Maybe you're fond of Taste of Home's classic take on this cherry sauce, which involves combining the fruit with cornstarch, sugar, lemon, and almond abstract, or perhaps you prefer to get into the holiday spirit by whipping up All Recipes' nutmeg and cinnamon cherry glaze recipe. But no matter how you like to prep this fruit-based syrup, you may have trouble getting your cherry glaze's consistency right. Because although you want to be able to drizzle your cherry glaze over your turkey, you don't want to end up with something that is essentially cherry-flavored water. Luckily, one top chef shared a tip with MasterClass that will save you from a more runny than yummy cherry glaze.

As noted by Kevin is Cooking, both frozen and fresh cherries can make for a perfect cherry sauce base. However, if you, like many people, choose to use frozen cherries out of convenience, your frozen fruit is more than likely the reason your cherry glaze keeps turning out runny.

This is something "Hell's Kitchen" star and restaurant owner Gordon Ramsay pointed out to MasterClass when he was describing how to make a cherry glaze for duck. According to Ramsay, if you take your frozen cherries from the freezer and then directly throw them into your glaze's saucepan, the still-frozen fruit will cause your syrup to turn out thin. The reason? Frozen cherries have a high water content.

To avoid a less-than-five-star cherry glaze, Ramsay stated chefs should properly thaw and strain their frozen cherries first. After you've taken that step, your glaze will be as delicious and thick as one made with fresh cherries.