Making your own candied orange peel and candied lemon peel is super easy and the difference between homemade and store-bought is absolutely mind-blowing! Leave the store-bought stuff on the shelf because NOTHING compares to homemade, it’s incredible!!
How To Make Candied Orange Peel and Candied Lemon Peel
If you’ve never made your own candied orange peel get ready to be absolutely dazzled!
January celebrates the ushering in of citrus season! I always get excited to see the fresh crops pour into the produce section of my local grocery stores and roadside fruit stands. I LOVE practically anything with citrus-flavored and love experimenting with news ways of using the full range of citrus fruits.
Today we’re going to make delicious use of a portion of the citrus fruit you may normally discard by making candied citrus peels. Think of these delightful sweet treats like citrus flavor on steroids!
While candied orange and candied lemon are the the most commonly used, candied grapefruit and lime also have a delicious place in the mix and I’m going to demonstrate the process using those as well.
There are a few reasons you should make your own: 1) The store-bought stuff is generally not organic. 2) It’s made with chemicals. 3) It’s not fresh. 4) Most of it tastes bad. Like really bad. I regularly have readers request recommendations for good brands of candied citrus and the best recommendation that I can offer is make your own! Because once you do and taste the difference, you’ll never buy it again.
The good news is, it is SO easy to make your own! And it keeps for a long time, especially if you freeze it. The flavor is 100% better than store-bought and will bring your baked goods to life.
So that leads us to the question of how do you use candied citrus?
- As garnish for pies, cakes and cupcakes
- Chopped up and added to cookies, cakes, muffins, cupcakes, scones, etc.
- Sprinkled over ice cream or yogurt
- As garnish for citrus-flavored drinks
- Finely chopped and added to streusel topping for muffins and cakes
- Dipped in chocolate for an elegant sweet treat (dip candied orange peels in chocolate to make orangettes, a classic French confection)
- and whatever else your imagination can think of!
Let’s get started!
Select the best citrus fruits possible and give them a thorough scrubbing and washing. We’re not sticklers about buying all of our produce organic, but we do stick to organic for certain items that are highly sprayed and/or waxed. And in the case of citrus fruits, if I’m using the peels for zesting or candying, I use and recommend organic.
Slice both ends of the orange. Cut the peel on each each into 4 or more vertical segments, depending on the size of the fruit. Peel off each segment of rind.
Note: You can remove a some of the white pith, though not necessary. The white pith has a bitter flavor, so keep that in mind, but also keep in mind that the thinner your peels the harder/more leathery they will be. The purpose for blanching the peels (boiling in water and discarding the water) is to eliminate some of the bitterness. If leaving the pith on you can repeat the blanching procedure 2 or 3 times to reduce the bitterness.
The process is the same for any citrus fruit.
Slice the peels into 1/4 inch wide strips.
Keep the peeled citrus for eating, cooking or juicing.
Boil the peels in water in a pot for 15 minutes. Drain the peels in a colander, rinse and then drain again. Discard the water from the pot.
**Note: To further reduce the bitter flavor repeat this step.
Add the sugar and fresh water to the pot and bring it to a boil. Boil it for a couple of minutes until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the citrus peels, reduce the heat and simmer for about 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the peels become translucent and the liquid becomes lightly syrupy.
Use a slotted spoon to remove a few of the peels at a time and let the excess syrup drip off for a few seconds. Place the hot, wet peels in the bowl of sugar and toss to coat.
Spread the candied citrus peels out on a wire rack to cool and dry completely, 1-2 days.
Stored in an airtight container in a cool, dry place, the candied citrus peel will keep for at least a month. They’ll keep even longer in the fridge and for a few months frozen. (I usually keep them in a ziplock bag in the freezer and then conveniently grab whatever I need.)
Note: If you find your candied citrus peel gets hard after a while don’t worry – they will soften up beautifully as they bake in whatever recipe you add them to!
Note: To keep the candied peels even softer you can limit the drying time, skip the final sugar coating step and put the peels in a ziplock bag and either refrigerate or freeze them.
Finally, DON’T DISCARD THE CITRUS SYRUP! This is a wonderful citrus-flavored simple syrup to add to your drinks for a wonderful kick of citrus flavor!
Enjoy!
Here are a few of our recipes that use this deeeelicious homemade candied orange peel and candied lemon peel!
- German Stollen
- German Lebkuchen
- Traditional English Mincemeat
- Traditional English Eccles Cakes
- Scottish Dundee Cake
- Aachener Printen
- Italian Panettone
- Welsh Bara Brith
Be sure to also try our homemade Candied Ginger!
PIN ME!
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
- 3 Valencia or Naval oranges and 4 lemons (can also use the equivalent of grapefruits, Meyer lemons and limes, or any citrus of your choice, thoroughly washed and scrubbed (as citrus is highly sprayed, I recommend using organic)
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup water
- Fine granulated sugar for coating
Instructions
- Slice both ends of the citrus fruits. Cut the peel on each each into 4 or more vertical segments, depending on the size of the fruit. Peel off each segment of rind. (You can remove a little of the white pith, though not necessary. The pith is bitter but the blanching process below will help reduce the bitterness. Note that if you remove the white pith, the thinner the peels are the harder and more leathery they will be when they’re candied.) Slice the peels into 1/4 inch wide strips. (Keep the peeled citrus for eating, cooking, juicing, etc)
- Boil the peels in a pot of water for 15 minutes. Drain the peels in a colander, rinse and then drain again. Discard the water from the pot.Repeat this process one or two more times to reduce the bitter flavor.
- Add the 1 cup of fresh water and the sugar to the pot and bring it to a boil. Boil it for a couple of minutes until the sugar is dissolved. Add the citrus peels, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the peels become translucent and the syrup becomes lightly syrupy (on a candy thermometer this will be be approximately soft ball stage).
- Use a slotted spoon to remove a few of the peels at a time and let the excess syrup drip off for a few seconds. Place the hot, wet peels in a bowl of sugar or a ziplock bag with sugar in it and toss/shake to coat.
- Spread the candied citrus peels out on a wire rack to cool and dry completely, 1-2 days.
- Stored in an airtight container in a cool, dry place, the candied citrus peel will keep for at least a month. They'll keep even longer in the fridge and for a few months frozen.Note: If you find your candied citrus peel gets hard after a while don't worry - they will soften up beautifully as they bake in whatever recipe you add them to!Note: To keep the candied peels even softer you can limit the drying time, skip the final sugar coating step and put the peels in a ziplock bag and either refrigerate or freeze them.Yields approximately 8 ounces of candied citrus peel depending on peel thickness.
Notes
*If you'd like to make more candied citrus peel, simply increase the amount of water and sugar by the same 1:2 ratio. *** ***NUTRITION INFO BELOW IS FOR THE ENTIRE BATCH (NOT PER SERVING)
Nutrition
Sonja Sunde says
I always buy organic fruit, but here in Norway the citruses are often moldy, due to wrong storage in the shops. This week, I found amazing oranges, lemons, limes and a grapefruit! To think that I was going to discard all that goodness! The recipe was very good. The only thing was it did not produce quite the amount of syrup that was on you pictures. The taste was amazing, both the candied zests and the syrup. Thanks for the useful tip of how to store the remaining fruit and the candied fruit. The recipe was time consuming, but an experienced cook doesn’t have to attend to it all the time. It is easy to do it together with tidying kitchen. It took me about twenty minutes to prepare. I cooked the first batch while I peeled the second, then candied all together. One and a half hours in total. The smell, the joy of having a pile of beautiful natural goodies, is absolutely worth the time and effort. :-)
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Thank you so much for the feedback, Sonja, and I’m happy you enjoyed the candied peel!
Kimba A says
Just an FYI… it’s a common myth that commercial organic plant foods are not sprayed with pesticides. In fact, they are. The difference is that the pesticides are organic and are often more toxic than inorganic pesticides. Also, non organic plants are often engineered to be pest resistant and need less pesticides than organic. So make sure you thoroughly wash any store bought fruit whether or not it’s organic.
And BTW, literally everything is made of chemicals includind water and sugar and the fruit itself so it makes no sense to say that store bought peel has chemicals added.
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Hi Kimba, I agree with what you said about pesticides and organic pesticides. Heck, even arsenic, lead, and mercury are “all-natural” but they’ll kill you. Still, there are some specific items in particular that I recommend purchasing organic when possible (like citrus when using the peel) and I just keep my fingers crossed that they really are indeed safer. In the end that’s really all you can do, unless you’re growing your own food (which I try to do as much as possible) and have direct oversight. As for the added chemicals in food, that’s obviously a very general term and I’m referring to ones that are proven harmful but that are all too often added to foods.
Magic Gordo says
The peeling process can be made easier using a standard vegetable peeler. The peel can be removed in one long strip. This also leaves much of the bitter pith behind..A couple of examples as FYI Grapefruit peel may not be the best thing to eat if one is taking certain blood thinners usually prescribed after a heart attack.”Real” Orange Marmalade is made from Seville Oranges that were originally shipped by boat from Spain to Scotland and England in barrels of seawater to preserve them for the long sea voyages.
One fruit that has not been mentioned that is especially good for this easy process is the Meyer Lemon.
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Thanks for that input. Yes, a vegetable peeler would be quick and easy. The problem there is that it slices the peel off TOO thinly and you run the risk of ending up with very hard candied peel – almost like candied orange peel chips!
Hari says
Won’t blanching process remove many of the nutrients that make the peel desirable, such as the oils, vitamins and flavonoids?
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Hi Hari, with as sugary as these candied peels are I’m not sure the vitamins and flavonoids count for much! :) You can certainly bypass the blanching process if you like, but just know that they will be bitter practically to the point of being inedible.
Julie Weingarten says
Hi, I’m wondering how soon after cutting the peel from the fruit it needs to be blanched? Can I save up peels to do a lot at once? Thanks!
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Hi Julie, it doesn’t need to be immediate at all, you can definitely work on collecting more and keep them in the fridge for a few days.
Gloria De Sa says
I collected mine over a few days (Three or four at least). Kept them in the fridge in sealed plastic bags.
Melissa says
I save up peel by keeping a bag in the freezer and adding organic peels to it as I use the fruit. Seemed to work just as well after thawing them and using them as Julie’s recipe suggests.
Lucy R says
How much in cups is 3 oz of candied peel? Thank you!
Jehna says
I just made mine, so they are not at all dried, and 3 oz was 1/2 cup. Dried they might be more like 3/4 cups.
Gina Mathews says
Excellent recipe and simply awesome for making lebkuchen. My immigrant mother-in-law thanks you immensely! She grew up in Bavaria and immigrated to the US after she met her husband after the Korean war. She says the taste of your lebkuchen is truly authentic. The only reason I’m giving this 4 stars instead of 5 is due to the time listed. No WAY are you done in just over an hour making the candied citrus peels! More like 3 hours with all the boiling and such. If you adjust the time, I’d rate it 5 stars without hesitation.
Tom says
Outstanding recipe. Great for all of the suggested uses and even better as a snack/treat. :-)
Only improvement is to dry the peels for a day before coating with sugar. That way you don’t get as much sugar on the peels when they are wet.
Peter G Werner says
Is blanching the peel in advance really needed? I’m going to make some with the marmalade oranges that have now come into season, and I’m going to use it once dried with the juice of the same oranges in a mince recipe. I want the marmaladey flavor and it seems like paboiling them, especially for 15 minutes several times, would leach all of the flavour out and defeat the purpose of including citrus peel.
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Hi Peter, your marmalade will be extremely bitter if you don’t blanch them.
R B Frey says
I made this with the citrus I had on hand…a good navel orange, two good mandarinas and two lemons that were a bit past their prime. The orange had a lot of pith, the mandarinas had hardly any, and the lemons had a small amount.
The peels were balanced twice, cooked in a single batch and, using a candy thermometer, cooked to 234 F (soft ball). The drained peels were put in a bag with sugar and shaken to coat.
The results? Awesome! Some of the lemon slices with little pith were a bit leathery, but the surprise winner…..the mandarinas were HEAVENLY….try them.
Heather says
I made these to drop in Negronis. (A coworker had gifted me a “Negroni lovers” gift pack for Christmas). They came out FABULOUS! And it made enough to share. Gave some to him, some to my boss, some to friends… and everyone wanted the recipe. THANK YOU!
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Fantastic, Heather, thanks so much!
Deanna Snarky says
Fantastic!
I’ll be making your mincemeat recipe and using these candied fruit peels in it.
Toni says
First time I’ve tried this. Amazing. I processed grapefruit, lemon, orange, lime, and Meyer lemons. The limes took an additional process. The first batch came out chewy, so I did a four time boil on them the second time. Amazing!! So tender. Thank you for the recipe. Now to make a GOOD Stollen!!! Also made the marzipan… we shall see. More to come!
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Awesome, Toni, thanks so much! Please let us know how the marzipan and stollen go!
Joanne says
I bought candied orange peel recently and it was OK, but I also needed candied lemon peel to make Elisenlebkuchen so I used this recipe to make the lemon. IT WAS SO GOOD! As it was drying, I kept sneaking bits to eat. They were great in my cookies, and hands-down better than the candied peel I bought ready-made. And these were easy, they just took awhile. Also, I saved the lemon syrup and used it to baste baked chicken. It turned out tender and delicious. Thanks for the recipe; big success.
Kimberly @ The Daring Gourmet says
Thanks so much, Joanne, I’m thrilled you enjoyed it!
Lu says
This sort of worked for me. Some pieces were bitter, I tried to remove the pith but didn’t want to thin them too much and run the risk of them becoming leathery. I blanched and re blanched with fresh water twice over. At the 45 min mark they weren’t all quite translucent so I let them sit several minutes more, which helped but after straining and drying some pieces had a mushy texture to them. Should I candy the lemon and oranges in separate batches next time? I’m wondering if they require different cooking durations.