Duck With Cherries and Red Wine Vinegar Recipe (2024)

I love this dish. I used, in winter, frozen cherries, halved while still semi-frozen. They tasted delicious. Added lemon zest to sauce for some tang. Served this with wild and white rice, and asparagus. Pinot noir too.

Definitely double the sauce and make a day ahead—it took an hour to reduce, not five minutes. Once it reduced, however, the flavor was fabulous.

This was one of the nicest recipes I've made in my kitchen. My husband always orders duck in restaurants and said this was better than most he has had. I followed this recipe exactly except I needed to increase the times for reducing the sauce. It was amazing. The flavors we're so amazing. Thank you!

No cherries in the market? Just tried blueberries. Terrific.

5 minutes to reduce the sauce is so misleading and leads your readers into a sauce that has too much liquid! Agreed w other reviewers that this takes over 30 min to reduce fully.

Fantastic! Have made this twice now, once with wild mallards, once with wood duck breasts. Shortened up the cooking time for the breasts due to their small size, sautéed them until the internal temperature was 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Let the breasts rest for five minutes before slicing. Replaced the chicken broth with one teaspoon of chicken flavored "Better Than Bouillon" whisked into the red wine, which eliminated the issue of long reduction times for the sauce.

I’ve made this 4 or 5 times, to rave reviews. For the sauce, I would recommend using frozen sweet cherries, sliced, if out of season. My biggest departure is with the length of time cooking the sauce- just cut the broth in half, skip the sugar, and add 2-3 TBDp cherry jam (Bonne Maman works well). The vinegar and jam balance, and no need to cook it down so long. The ginger is key, though! This has been deemed restaurant worthy with multiple groups of people, if you keep the duck crisp and rosy.

Keeper! Only change was to sous vide the duck breast. Magnifique!

Used the sauce for a roasted duck vs the recipes duck breast. Used Cosco's frozen dark cherries. Used half red wine vinegar and half balsamic for the full vinegar quantity requested. Had to substitute Szechuan pepper salt to replace Cayenne. OMG. Everyone kicked their plates.

I have made this several times; in season I use fresh Bings and in winter I use jarred Morellos. It is great both ways. I don't change the sauce for the Morellos because I find it sweet enough and the Morellos seem to help the sweet/sour balance. That tart counterpoint is essential to keep the flavors lively and to balance the richness of the duck. Make the sauce exactly per the recipe and when it is finished taste it & adjust it to your preference. And add any accumulated duck juices.

One recommendation--cut broth in half, omit sugar, add 2-3 Tbs cherry jam

Concur with everyone who said this is fab, and restaurant worthy!! Delicious!

Normally I read through the comments before making a recipe but sadly this time I did not and the sauce was too thin. I made one duck breast for the two of us. I followed the recipe exactly except I used amarena cherries with a bit of their sweet syrup since I didn’t have fresh or frozen. I left out the added sugar. The taste was incredible. Plenty of sauce left over, which I will reduce properly and serve with rack of lamb per one of the comments. And I will make the duck breast again!

A divine recipe! The spice rub was incredibly aromatic hand-ground in the mortar. As others have noted, the reduction sauce can be a little tricky; I kept all of the ratios as directed, but took off the heat before it was properly thick, although it did thicken a little upon cooling. I will admit I went rogue with the fruit component. I swapped the cherries for fresh raspberries and the sauce turned out tangy, sweet, and complex. Served with simple roasted asparagus and lemony farro.

This is one of the best meals I’ve ever had just made it for Valentine’s Day. The sauce definitely takes a long time to reduce so start early. I served this with wild rice with parsley and toasted almonds slivers, and heart of Romain cooked in a skillet from a Gordon Ramsay recipe Where he was pairing that duck breast and cherry sauce. Use this NYT recipe. It is divine.

I was disappointed in the sauce. I made a double batch (4 cups) and kept waiting for it to cover the back of a spoon. I finally quit when I had 1cup left after almost an hour. Maybe I should have added some corn starch. When adding the cherries, I thought they should have been cooked much longer than getting them "juicy."

Having made this once before (and loved it), I decided to quadruple the recipe to serve at Thanksgiving. My intention was to wind up with 4 cups of sauce. Well, I got a lesson in sauce reduction...it was sooo sweet and I only wound up with 1 1/2 cups of sauce. It was the correct consistency, so I don't think I over-reduced. I think what happened was that the liquid evaporated but the quadrupled sugar didn't as much. Do any of you science experts or more experienced cooks know what happened?

Reading through the notes was helpful. Doubling the sauce recipe is key. For the reduction of the sauce, use half of the chicken broth and I used jam in place of the sugar. After 30 minutes of simmering, add arrow root to thicken the sauce. Used thawed drained frozen cherries in place of fresh for step two of the sauce.Also, sous vide the duck at 130 degrees and then sear the duck.New family favorite for the holidays

I’ve made this 4 or 5 times, to rave reviews. For the sauce, I would recommend using frozen sweet cherries, sliced, if out of season. My biggest departure is with the length of time cooking the sauce- just cut the broth in half, skip the sugar, and add 2-3 TBDp cherry jam (Bonne Maman works well). The vinegar and jam balance, and no need to cook it down so long. The ginger is key, though! This has been deemed restaurant worthy with multiple groups of people, if you keep the duck crisp and rosy.

I plan to make this, but it’s past cherry season so I got plums. Any thoughts on how that will work?

My mouth was watering for duck for Mother’s Day and as I had a duck breast in the freezer all I needed to do was find an interesting recipe to change up from my usual prickly pear- chipotle glaze.This looked interesting and I figured surely cherry season has begun. Well yes and no - saw a few bags of sad looking ones at the store for $13 a pound. Then I remembered I had some dried cherries in the pantry. A little rehydrating in boiling water and cognac and they were a perfect substitute. Delish!

Start with a cold pan for the duck breasts. More fat will render and you'll get super crispy skin with little chewy fat.

Started this with whole Rohan duck D’Artangan sent me instead of venison loin I ordered. Breaking down the duck was way more of a production than I anticipated, figuring it wouldn’t be much worse than dealing with a chicken. Roasted the carcass, rendered some duck fat, prepped the breasts and duck legs to overnight in the refrigerator and made the first part of sauce and it has been almost three hours. Sauce is delicious and dinner won’t take long tomorrow. Breast/leg next time.

Made for Valentine’s dinner. It’s very good. Used frozen tart cherries which worked. It did take a while to reduce the sauce but it did coat spoon. Was out of red wine vinegar so used balsamic (“That Balsamic” for NY’ers). Reduced the turbinado since vinegar already sweet/sort of syrupy. It worked well tho would like to redo with red wine vinegar to taste the difference. Also didn’t add sugar to cherries at end for same reason. Halved the the butter. Everyone loved it.

This was delicious and relatively easy, I agreed with doubling the sauce-it was scrumptious!