How to Use Pluots, the Seussian Summer Fruit Hybrid You're Completely Under-Utilizing

Even during peak stone fruit season—which is *checks calendar* right now!—finding a plum, apricot, peach, or nectarine that’s juicy and perfectly ripe is a near impossible task. While these fruits are a signature of the hot, slow days of mid-to-late summer, their inconsistency gives them an almost elusive quality.

There is one stone fruit, however, that is particularly hard to find: the pluot. Part plum and part apricot (with a Seussian portmanteau for a name), this hybrid fruit was developed to showcase the best of both worlds. It has the skin, flesh, and flavor of a plum and the sweetness of an apricot, but is in a class of its own.

“To this day, [pluots are] the most incredible fruit I’ve ever had,” Tom Grazdiel, a geneticist and professor at UC Davis Department of Plant Science, tells me, noting that their novel taste and highly selective breeding make the pluot particularly interesting. “These are fruits that were developed by breaking the rules,” he says. But what exactly is a pluot, and how can you track one down? 

What Is a Pluot?

A pluot is a hybrid between a plum and an apricot. What differentiates a pluot from other plum and apricot hybrids like apriums and plumcots, though, is that it contains more plum traits than apricot ones. Often, they are described as being about 75% plum and 25% apricot, but the genetic makeup of a pluot isn’t exactly that simple, Grazdiel says, and some pluot varieties’ genes may consist of even more plum parentage. To him, a pluot showcases “the best of a plum and an apricot”—meaning that it has the complex flavor of a plum, but its tannic skin is balanced by the sweet, honey notes of an apricot, and its flesh is juicy, but still firm. 

Floyd Zaiger, a California fruit breeder, created the pluot in the 1980s when he crossed a plum with Luther Burbank’s not-so-successful plumcots. Zaiger, one of California’s most well-known breeders, painstakingly chose the plumcots that he thought showcased the best characteristics of both apricots and plums in terms of flavor, sweetness, texture, and consistency. Then, he backcrossed his plum varieties with those hybrids, repeating the crossing across multiple generations to develop a variety of pluots. 

Zaiger’s “lab” was a farm just outside of Modesto, and he often brought journalists, other fruit breeders, and members of California’s agricultural community to see his work. Gradziel had toured Zaiger Genetics, and says that Zaiger likely began his first tests of pluots in the 1950s or ‘60s, though it wasn’t until the ‘90s that Gradziel tasted one of them. 

“I remember in the 1990s, visiting Floyd, and he was sampling out some pluots—what would become pluots,” he says. “That final product had that nice sugar balance that an apricot has and that nice acid and volatiles that plums contribute.” 

Zaiger cross-pollinated fruit by hand—a horticulture method that mimics how bees pollinate flowers. Using this method, Zaiger developed hundreds of patented fruit varieties, including sweeter peaches, sturdier white nectarines that can better withstand shipping and handling, and apricots that ripen later into the season, extending their availability. He and his family would go on to develop 420 patented fruit and nut varieties, and Zaiger’s plum varieties make up a majority of plum production in California today.  

Here’s how to identify a pluot: 

Appearance: Like plums, pluots have a smooth exterior, but vary in color, size, and shape. The Candy Stripe pluot, for example, has a pink-red stripe with a yellow undertone. Many are globe shaped, but some, like the Crimson Royale, can be more ovular, while the Flavor Heart is, indeed, heart-shaped. Depending on the variety, pluots can be deep red, purple-black, and even green-ish. The flesh can also be deep purple, pink, red, or yellow depending on the variety.

Taste: The pluot’s flavor profile is sweet and juicy—similar to a plum’s, but less tart, thanks to their hybridization with apricots, which keep the pluot’s skin from being as bitter as a traditional plum’s. That said, the amount of acidity in the fruit will depend highly on which variety you’re tasting: The Dapple Dandy pluot is luscious and acidic, while the Flavor Queen pluot has less acidity. They also tend to be very aromatic; if you come across one that isn’t, it likely is not fully ripe. A pluot is typically firm but succulent, with flesh that has the mouthfeel of an apricot: tender and velvety.

Season: In the US, pluots are in season from May to September, but this will depend on your location. Varieties in warmer states, like California, will ripen earlier in the season, but in New Jersey, they may not ripen until late August. Typically, any fruit available at the beginning of its season will have higher acidity than those that ripen later, as warmer temperatures allow fruits to produce more ethylene gas. (Ethylene gas is a plant hormone that triggers a fruit’s ripening by increasing its sugar content, flesh to soften, and acid levels to reduce.)  

What About Plumcots and Apriums?

There are a number of other plum-apricot hybrids in the US, and they are generally categorized based on how similar they are to a plum or apricot. While pluots typically share more features with a plum, such as smooth skin and a juicy flesh, plumcots’ traits generally appear split more evenly between the two fruits, so some can even be fuzzy, and the flavor is often balanced between that of a plum and apricot. Apriums, however, lean more apricot than plum, so they are often fuzzy with more red and orange coloring, depending on the variety. 

Where Can I Find Pluots?

Pluots perform best in areas with mild winters and warm summers. However, they do require two conditions to set their fruit: a range of chill hours (a.k.a. hours below 45°F) during dormancy and at least one other pluot tree nearby in order to achieve pollination. They are mostly grown in California, but can be found in other states where plums and apricots are grown like Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. However, because pluots are difficult to grow and have inconsistent yields, there are few commercial growers.

Some grocery stores, like Whole Foods, Sprouts, and King’s, may stock pluots when they’re in season. However, they often won’t have their variety listed, and when I checked my local Whole Foods, they were suspiciously indistinguishable from the plums they were stocked next to—and most did not have a product code. Where I’m located in New Jersey, local pluots don’t come into season until late summer, so the ones I’m seeing now in grocery stores are most likely shipped from California. The varieties found in grocery stores are usually picked early, rather than left to ripen on the tree, which makes them easier to transport. This, however, means their flavor may be dulled and they may be especially tart. 

“All fruits are fairly finicky, but pluots are particularly finicky,” says Gradziel. “If you pick it two days early, it’s going to be too firm. If you pick it two days late, it’s going to be [too] soft, depending on the variety.” Instead, it’s better to look for pluots at local farmers markets and orchards, he says. “The probability that you are going to discover the most wonderful fruit you ever had is much more likely in a CSA than a shipment from California.” 

Local farmers will most likely be able to tell you about the specific variety they’ve planted as well, which can help clue you in to how it tastes, so be sure to ask them when at the farmers market. 

What Are the Best Uses For Pluots?

In Chip Brantley’s book The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot, he describes how Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’ iconic Berkeley restaurant that championed California cuisine, occasionally served a Flavor King pluot in the early aughts:  “This piece of fruit had been just picked from the tree at the height of ripeness, and yet it was uncut, uncooked, undoctored in any way that would seem to justify its role as the finale of a $65 pre-fixe menu,” which, adjusted for inflation, would be $175 today.

Simply put: Pluots are best enjoyed fresh, especially if you haven’t had them before. However, they can be used similarly to plums and other stone fruits in a tarte or galette. (Chez Panisse also offered Dapple Dandy pluots in a late-summer galette last year, and a similar recipe for a plum galette appears in their classic 1999 cookbook that calls for a mix of pluots and plums.) 

Condiments & Sauces

Homemade Plum Jam

rating:

cook time: 9 hrs 35 mins

serves: 96

view recipe

If you happen upon a box or bag of pluots that seems underripe, Gradziel recommends using those for a jam, as they’ll benefit from a bit of added sweetness.