What Is Lemon and How Can I Use It?

Lemon rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 1,570 recipes to cook with it.

What is lemon?

The average lemon contains approximately 3 tablespoons of juice. Allowing lemons to come to room temperature before squeezing (or heating briefly in a microwave) makes the juice easier to extract. Lemons left unrefrigerated for long periods of time are susceptible to mold.

Lemon juice, rind, and zest are used in a wide variety of culinary applications:

Lemon juice is used to make lemonade, in soft drinks, and as a marinade for both fish, where its acid neutralizes amines in fish by converting them into nonvolatile ammonium salts, and meat, where the acid partially hydrolyzes tough collagen fibers tenderizing the meat.

Lemon can be used for a number of other applications, see the following articles:

Types of lemon

Specific kinds of lemon and the recipes that use them.

Lemon juice

Lemon juice, a fruit juice, is the juice of lemons (citrus). Fresh lemon juice is obtained by squeezing lemons. Lemon juice, either in natural strength or concentrated, is sold as a bottled product most of the time, usually with the addition of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and a preservative.

Lemon juice can be used to make lemonade, and is, along with lime juice, an important part of many cocktails.

Lemon juice has many uses. Drinking 3 ounces of lemon juice a day can dehydrate you of fluids.

Lemon zest

Lemon zest is the oil rich outer skin of a lemon. The volatile oils in the zest make it extremely flavorful and many recipes call for the addition of lemon zest along with lemon juice or lemon extract.

The process of removing lemon zest is known as “zesting,” and there are a number of kitchen tools designed to remove lemon zest. Such tools are called "zesters".

Versions of stainless steel wood rasps (normally used in carpentry) have been finding their way into kitchen and restaurants across the world. The rasp creates a very fine textured zest extracting a large amount of flavor.

Finely grated lemon zest using a rasp

Other citrus fruits can be zested for an infusion of intense flavor in a wide range of dishes.

In baked goods, lemon zest can be used to add a lemony flavor to the finished food product. The natural oils in the zest will slowly leach out through the cooking process, infusing the food with flavor.

Individual pieces of the lemon zest will also crack open when chewed and produce a burst of lemon flavor.

Lemon zest can also be used as a food seasoning, or it can be added to various mixed drinks and beverages.