Warmly spiced and lightly sweet, this easy pear butter is perfect on biscuits, dinner rolls, or pancakes!

You’re going to love this delicious pear butter, whether you make it in your Instant Pot, slow cooker, or on the stove top!

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I have long considered myself a keeper of the seasons. That’s why every fall, I launch into full apple mode and pear mode, then eventually drift into pumpkin mode.

Fruit butters are something I’ve been making for several years now as a way to use up the season’s bounty.

I initially started with slow cooker apple butter, then moved on to Instant Pot apple butter. I’ve also made pumpkin butter in the Instant Pot!

So this year, as I’ve been working my way through about 12 pounds of fresh pears, I decided to try something other than my favorite pear bread, pear cobbler, or old-fashioned pear cake.

I decided to make fruit butter with some of the pears!

That’s why I’m sharing my easy and delicious pear butter recipe with you–it’s positively wonderful.

Easy Homemade Pear Butter

You’re going to love this homemade pear butter! It’s one of those versatile spreads that can be used for so many things.

Spread it on your freshly baked biscuits or dinner rolls. Add a dollop to pancakes and waffles. I also like to stir it into a warm bowl of oatmeal or a cold cup of yogurt.

It can be a simple substitute for apple butter in baked goods, such as in apple butter bread, apple butter snickerdoodles, or apple butter cake.

No matter how you choose to enjoy it, I feel confident that you will indeed enjoy it! Sweet ripe pears cook with brown sugar and warm spices, plus a little bit of lemon juice, which really brightens the flavors (so don’t skip it!).

How to Make Pear Butter

It’s really easy to make this delicious spread. I’m including instructions for various cooking methods, too–so whether you make it in your Instant Pot, slow cooker, or on the stove top, you’re good to go!

Ingredients You’ll Need:

• Fresh pears
• Brown sugar
• Water
• Lemon juice
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Allspice
• Ginger
• Cloves
• Cardamom

How to Make It:

(Full printable recipe is available below)

Peel, core, and dice the pears. First, you’ll peel, core, and chop up the pears. If your pears are nice and ripe, this should be a breeze to do.

You’ll want to be sure your pears are ripe. I used Bartlett pears, which you can see are different colors depending on their ripeness.

The golden-yellow pears are perfect–soft enough that they have a little give to them when pressed. The brighter green pears are still somewhat hard and not yet as sweet. Go for the yellow ones!

Combine all ingredients. Next, you’ll combine all of the ingredients together in your cooking pot–whether that’s the insert pot of your Instant Pot, your slow cooker, or in a medium saucepan on the stove.

Give everything a good stir to coat.

Cook. Last, you’ll cook the mixture until the liquid starts to reduce and the mixture begins to thicken (specific instructions for each cooking method are given below). You can see what the pears look like after cooking in the Instant Pot below.

Puree. Use an immersion blender to puree the mixture if desired. You can also use a potato masher if you prefer it to be a little chunky.

Transfer to jars and let cool. I typically keep jars of pear butter in my refrigerator or freezer (make sure you have freezer-safe jars if you go that route), but you can also follow instructions for water bath canning if you’d like!

Notes and Adaptations:

• If you have ground cardamom on hand, it makes a really nice addition. However, I know it’s a less-common spice, so feel free to omit it if you don’t have it (it won’t make or break your pear butter!).
• You can also play around with the amount of sugar, depending on how ripe your pears are. If you have overripe pears, you could probably cut back a tad on the brown sugar.