Stop Tossing Out Your Peach Skins And Do This With Them Instead

With peach season comes a juicy, tempting abundance of fruity beverages, desserts, and even main dishes. From bellinis and peach ice cream to sweet baked chicken draped in jammy peach preserves, this versatile fruit deserves to be indulged in and celebrated as much as possible during the summer months. For some, that may mean choosing the best possible brand of canned peaches, but for many others this involves visiting the local farmer's market or peach orchard to fill crinkly paper bags full of this luscious and fuzzy fruit.

Of course, removing that fuzz is a big part of processing peaches, as it's not the most pleasant texture on the tongue, nor does it bake up particularly well. However, the skin itself and the thin layer of peach flesh that's removed along with it still contain an abundance of sweet and delicious peachy flavor. During a time when budget-friendly hacks are an absolute must, the only logical thing to do is to turn those skins into fruity peach syrup. 

Even if you've never made fruit syrups before, this is a very easy and forgiving one to start with. Boiling the skins in sugar and water over high heat for a few minutes extracts all that lush flavor and any remaining juice while simultaneously reducing the mixture into a rich syrup. You may then can the syrup to store it as a sweet treat during the winter, or use it right away over ice cream, pie, or even in summery cocktails.

While it's perfectly okay to stow your fresh and flavorful peach syrup in the fridge and use it up over several days (it stays fresh for a week), this option is really only practical if you've made a small amount of syrup. Canning makes the syrup shelf stable for months at a time, preserving that sweet, sunshine-infused flavor as a pick me up throughout the cold and cloudy months. During this process, it's crucial to use the right amount of water for safe home canning. If you're water bath canning, you'll need to submerge the filled and lidded Mason jars in boiling water, while pressure canning only requires a few inches of water in the bottom of the pressure cooker.

Once you've gotten the hang of making delicious homemade peach syrup, you'll likely discover there are plenty of ways to enhance and vary the flavor. Scraped vanilla pods — or even dried vanilla splits — are a given, as they impart that classic floral softness that's practically required in sweet recipes. You can also toss in a few cinnamon sticks, fresh ginger, or even a spoonful of chai masala spice mix.

For syrup that tastes overly sweet or a little dull, adding a few tablespoons of fresh lemon juice will brighten the flavor and curb any cloying undertones. If you don't have very many peach skins, feel free to jazz things up with additional fruits. Berries of all kinds, especially blueberries and raspberries, add gorgeous flavor to peaches and break down beautifully inside syrups.