How to Cut Up and Prepare a Pineapple

Today I'm going to share a convenient and easy technique you can use to slice up and prepare a pineapple.

This is a particularly timely subject for us here at Casual Kitchen because we're planning to spend a meaningful portion of the coming year in Hawaii. And during my stay there, I fully intend to eat so much pineapple that I actually get sick of this healthy, antioxidant-rich, and surprisingly inexpensive fruit.

Unfortunately the instructions (if any) that come with a typical store-bought pineapple tend to be cryptic and with little detail. But it's actually fairly easy to deal with this fruit, and after today's post--and a little practice--you too will be able to reduce a pineapple to a pile of delicious, bite-sized chunks in short order and with little mess.

Let's get started!

First, start by cutting of the top of the pineapple.

Then hack off the bottom with a clean and straight cut, so our topless and bottomless pineapple will be stable can stand up firmly on its own.

Now it's time to remove the outer husk. Make your first cut down the side of the pineapple, cutting away the outer skin. You have to cut in far enough to remove the "eyes" of the pineapple, but not so far in that you waste too much of the fruit.

Continue to work your way around the sides of the pineapple, letting the pieces of the outer husk pile up on the side of the cutting board.

After you're down to the bare, huskless pineapple, clear up your workspace a bit and get rid of all the detritus. We're about to get to the really fun part.

Pick a place about 1/2 an inch away from the core and make one cut straight down the entire pineapple:
Then follow it up with three more perpendicular slices around that core:



















We're almost done! Now you'll have four pineapple slabs of varying sizes laying about your cutting board. Lay each one flat-side-down and make cuts lengthwise....


And then cut them crosswise to make cubes of whatever size you prefer.

Repeat this with the other three slabs of pineapple and you're finished! Pile them up on a platter, take a photograph, and then dig in and enjoy.


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