Peach season is upon us, which means stores are carrying delicious peaches. When you’re searching through the bins, use these Tips For Picking The Perfect Peach to make sure you get the right ones.
For more, check out all of our peach posts.
Last year, my mom and I went to South Carolina and stopped at a farm stand to pick up some peaches. We only grabbed a couple before driving off.
You guys. They were the best peaches I’ve ever had in my life. We were kicking ourselves for not buying more.
A couple weeks later, someone sent us peaches from that area as a gift and they were just as good as the original ones. I actually found the latter brand in our local grocery stores this year and have been buying them every time I go shopping.
When peaches are good, they’re great. But the trick is picking the right peaches when you’re at the store. To make sure you do that, we put together the following tips for picking the perfect peach.
Now, keep in mind, these are tips for picking them from the supermarket or your local farmers market, not when you’re going peach picking at a local farm.
After you buy those peaches, you’re gonna need something to do with them. Check out our list of Tasty Fresh Peach Recipes for some ideas.
6 Tips For Picking The Perfect Peach
Look at the color
Ripe peaches are golden red with some yellow in them. They’re described as everything from reddish blush to golden red. The red comes from exposure from direct sunlight, so you want to look past that and look at the under color of the peach. There’s a color change that happens during the ripening process.
A light yellow skin means that the peach isn’t ripe yet. A golden hue means that it is.
Avoid any peaches that still have some green. Those aren’t fully ripe and won’t be that delicious, sweet peach you’re looking for.
Check the firmness
You want peaches that aren’t soft and have a lot of integrity. So be sure to give the peaches a squeeze and make sure they’re firm. That’s what you’re looking for. Leave the much softer peaches at the store. Those are overripe.
Firm peaches still need a little more time to ripen. So that means you can buy the peach at the store and not feel pressured to use it that day or even the next day. You’ll have a little more time before it ripens completely. If you choose a peach that is already soft, you’ll have to use the peach right away.
And, if you’re buying a lot of peaches to eat throughout the week, make sure they’re not the same firmness. That would mean they would all ripen on the same day and need to be eaten on the same day. A better way is to buy peaches with staggered ripeness so you can eat them through the week.
Look at the stem
Some peaches will still have a piece of the stem attached to it. Look where the stem meets the cleft. A ripe peach will be golden there.
If you’re looking at the stem and it’s still green, that means the peach isn’t ripe enough yet and it won’t have that good, sweet peach taste.
Avoid peaches with bruises
When peaches bruise, they start decaying at that spot. And they decay quickly. Which is as gross as that sound. If you bruise the peach at home, you’ll realize when you did it and you’ll be able to eat it right away. But when a peach bruises in the store, you have no idea when that happened. So the entire peach could be rotten inside.
Avoid wrinkles
Just like people’s wrinkles, wrinkles on a peach indicate old age. And in the case of fresh peaches, wrinkly skin means the peaches are too ripe.
There should be one defined crease, known as the cleft, that runs from the stem end to the bottom point of the fruit. Other than that, the skin should be really tight.
Size matters
Anyone who says size doesn’t matter hasn’t gone peach shopping. Medium and large peaches are a good indication of high sugar levels, which means you’ll have a better chance of picking a sweet peach.
The exception to this clingstone peaches or donut peaches. Those varieties of peaches are known to be small and still very sweet. The above tip applies to peach varieties that actually do get large.
Fresh Peaches: Frequently Asked Questions
If you purchase a peach that you’re not going to eat right away, the best way to store it is stem side down at room temperature. You want to store it away from other peaches so to assure it doesn’t get bumped or bruised.
When we get fresh peaches delivered, they come in a box with a bunch of padding so each peach sits in its own space until its ripe.
You don’t want to store peaches in the refrigerator. Putting an unripen peach in the fridge is how you end up with a mealy peach, which is not delicious. Once they’re ripe, you can put them in the fridge to stop them from overripening, if you’re not going to use them immediately.
The best place to store peaches in on the kitchen counter. They’re best if they’re stored in a single layer so the pressure from other fruit doesn’t bruise them.
If your peaches aren’t ripening fast enough and you bought them for a specific recipe to be made on a specific day, you can ripen them by placing them in a closed paper bag. This works for any fruit that produces ethylene, like peaches, avocados, tomatoes, and bananas.
The gas builds up in the paper bag. As it does, it helps convert the starch in the fruit into sugar, helping the fruit to ripen and become delicious. This doesn’t won’t in a plastic bag. In that case, the bag also traps moisture, which can cause the fruit to rot.
You can read more about the process here.
Were any of these tips for picking perfect peaches was new to you? Let us know in the comments.