Wondering what to do with bartlett pears? This guide covers how to pick them, cook them, store them, and swap them, plus 9 recipes to put them to work.

What are bartlett pears?

Bartlett pears are the soft, bell-shaped, classic supermarket pear, known as Williams pears outside North America. They start grass-green and ripen to a clear yellow, sometimes with a red blush, turning juicy, buttery, and deeply aromatic.

This is the taste most people mean by "pear."

It is also the pear most people picture when they shop, and the variety canned and pureed commercially, because the flesh cooks down smoothly and the perfume survives heat.

Unlike crisp pears such as Bosc or Anjou, a Bartlett goes genuinely soft when ripe. That softness is the point for eating out of hand, but it changes how you cook with it.

Cooking With Bartlett Pears

Bartletts are the workhorse pear for the kitchen. Their high juice and easy breakdown make them ideal for smooth purees and butters, where Spiced Pear Butter cooks them low and slow until they collapse into a spreadable jam.

For baking, use them just shy of fully ripe. A ripe Bartlett in a French Pear Pie can turn to mush, so pick fruit that still has a little resistance at the neck. The same logic holds for Pear & Almond Pancakes, where you want tender slices, not slurry.

Bartletts also poach and steam beautifully. Steamed Honey Pears relies on the variety's open texture to drink up syrup. Because the flesh oxidizes fast, toss cut pieces with a little lemon juice to keep them from browning.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Bartlett's floral sweetness pairs with warm baking spices, vanilla, almond, and caramel, and it stands up to bold cheese and cured meat. Cinnamon and ginger are natural partners, blue cheese and walnuts turn a sliced pear into a quick salad or cheese-board plate.

The most common mistake is waiting too long. Bartletts ripen from the inside out, so by the time the outside is soft, the core can be brown and grainy. Check ripeness by pressing gently at the stem neck, not the belly.

The second mistake is cooking fruit that is already dead ripe. Save the softest pears for eating fresh or blending, and reserve firmer ones for the oven.

What to Use Instead

If you need a Bartlett and have none, Comice is the closest swap, equally soft and juicy. Anjou works too, a touch firmer and milder, and holds its shape better in baking.

Bosc pears are firmer and spicier and are actually the better choice for poaching and roasting whole, where you want slices to stay intact. For a smooth sauce or butter, any ripe pear works since you are cooking it down anyway.

In a pinch, a ripe but firm apple covers for pear in many baked dishes, though it loses the floral, honeyed aroma.

Choosing and Storing Bartlett Pears

Buy Bartletts firm and green, then ripen them at home. Like most pears, they are picked mature but unripe and finish best off the tree. Leave them at room temperature until the neck yields to gentle pressure and the skin turns from green to yellow.

To speed ripening, tuck them in a paper bag with an apple or banana, both of which give off ethylene. A firm green pear takes 4 to 7 days at room temperature to ripen this way.

Once ripe, move them to the fridge, where they hold 3 to 5 days at 40°F (4°C) before going mealy. Unripe pears store much longer cold, several weeks, so chill the ones you are not ready for and pull them out a few days before you want them.

Quick facts

In Chinese

巴特利特梨

British (UK) term

Bartlett pears

en français

poires Bartlett

en español

peras Bartlett

Recipes using bartlett pears

There are 9 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 9 recipes