How to Peel and Segment a Grapefruit

Have you ever seen a recipe that called for segments of a grapefruit or an orange, but you skipped that ingredient/step because it sounded too difficult to do?  Well, today's little tutorial should help you the next time you run into that problem.  Segmenting an orange or grapefruit is quite easy, actually.  We eat a good amount of grapefruit in the winter at our house, so I find myself doing this all the time.  I finally got around to making a little tutorial for you.  Let's begin.

First you need to have a sharp knife.  You can use either a chef's knife or a serrated knife.  I used a serrated on this particular day.  Cut each end of the grapefruit off and set aside.  This will allow you to see the "meat" of the fruit underneath it's rind.  It also provides a base for the fruit to sit on while you cut the rind off.  Take your knife and start at the top cutting the skin off as you go.  Be careful not to cut too much of the fruit off because it will end up in the garbage. 

Once you have taken all of the rind off, your grapefruit will look like the picture above.  Now it is time to cut the segments out.  If you used a chef's knife, I would recommend using a paring knife or a smaller serrated knife to help you cut each segment out.  Cut down on one side of the segment and flip your knife over. The segment should push right out.  Sound confusing?  I will link up to a great little video that will show you all about it at the end.

At this point, I have cut a few segments out.  

Here is a picture of a segment almost ready to fall into the bowl.  I couldn't hold my knife in position to show you where it was exactly, because I only have two hands.

Here is another view of the grapefruit.

The empty grapefruit.  Do not just throw that in the trash.  Squeeze all of the juice out of it before you throw it away.

Once you try it out a few times, it becomes a piece of cake and you can do it much faster.  Click on this for a short video tutorial.