Stewed Pears with Cinnamon & Vanilla

Bowl with stewed pears, cinnamon sticks and bowl with brown sugar.

5 from 2 votes

Stewed Pears with Cinnamon & Vanilla

These easy stewed pears infused with cinnamon & vanilla are soft, juicy, fragrant & just so delicious. Perfect for breakfast, as a healthier dessert or anytime you feel like. You really don't need an excuse to enjoy them!

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine British, International

Keyword stewed pears

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 15

Total Time 25

Servings servings

Calories 131kcal

Author Jo Allison

Equipment

Ingredients

4 ripe pears peeled and cored, cut into quarters or chunks
250 ml water see notes
25 g brown sugar see notes
2 small cinnamon sticks or ½-1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
½ vanilla bean split open and seeds scraped out and added as well
½ lemon (juice of) to sprinkle over peeled and cut pear slices

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Start by splitting the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scraping out the seeds. I used half of the bean in this recipe but feel free to use the whole one.
Add water, sugar, cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean with seeds into a medium saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer ensuring that sugar has fully dissolved.
In the meantime, peel, quarter and core the pears sprinkling them with some lemon juice to prevent them from browning too much.
Once sugar has dissolved, add prepared pears into the pan making sure they are mostly covered with cooking liquid (you might need to add a touch more water depending on the amount of pears and the size of your saucepan).
Stew pears for anything between 5-15 minutes depending on their ripeness. The riper they are the shorter stewing time. I stewed mine for just under 10 minutes.
Check the pears for doneness by piercing them gently with a knife. If the knife goes in easily and without much resistance, the pears are done.
Serve and enjoy!

Notes

Nutritional information is approximate and per serving based on 4 servings. It should be treated as a rough guideline only.
Water can be substituted with juice or even wine.
Any type of sugar will be fine. You can also use agave syrup, maple syrup or honey (if not vegan).
Store in the fridge for 3-5 days.
Freeze in portion for up to 3 months. Defrosted stewed pears might be slightly mushy depending on how soft they were before freezing.

TIPS:

Use pears that are neither too ripe nor underripe. You're after something in between.
Bring your poaching liquid to gentle simmer to ensure that sugar has completely dissolved before you add the pears.
When coring pears ensure you get rid of the strings that go through it from its stem as they tend to discolour during stewing and won't look too nice.
Feel free to cut the pears any way you like. Chunks might be better if you want to serve these to your kids.
You might need to adjust the amount of cooking liquid depending on the size of the saucepan and amount of pears. You want them to be almost covered.
I like to cover my pan with the lid for the first few minutes of cooking to help the liquid to get back to gentle simmer.
Don't waste cooking liquid, it's delicious. Drizzle it as is or reduce it to thicker, more syrupy consistency. You can also diluted with some water as you would cordial for a refreshing drink.

Nutrition