Blackberries are tart and sweet and absolutely delicious when ripened on the vine. Use them up in these seasonal recipes. If your blackberries are bitter, sugar (among other things) will temper it.
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Beverages
Fruit adds natural sweetness to beverages and can end up overly sweet. Blackberries rarely have that problem because they add tartness (and sometimes bitterness) to drinks.
Meat & blackberries
Savory dishes often benefit from a sweet element. Take a couple of classic examples like turkey + cranberry sauce or pork + apples. Blackberries are one of the most common fruits to accompany gamey meats like venison and duck.
If making a sauce to go with meat, consider straining out the seeds after it cooks down (even if the recipe doesn't tell you to do so). As the liquid in the sauce reduces, the ratio of seeds-to-sauce increases and can end up distracting.
Sides & salads
Almost any cheese pairs well with both the sweet and bitter elements in blackberries, from a hard aged manchego to a soft brie or goat cheese.
Salads with blackberries are also delicious, but beware of the bitterness. As mentioned in "Why are blackberries bitter & how to fix it," when blackberries are picked before fully ripening on the vine, they can be quite bitter.
Adding bitterness to a salad with bitter greens can be overwhelming, but perfectly ok on salads with non-bitter greens.
Desserts
If you often feel that sweet desserts are one-dimensional, try using blackberries for added complexity. Their tartness adds an unexpected element to the usual sweet treat.
Jams
Straight-up blackberry jam is delicious, but you can also customize it to your liking. If blackberries are too tart, try adding in another type of fruit. If you don't like crunching on the seeds, you can strain them out for a seedless jam.
Blackberry guide: everything you need to know
The blackberry guide covers buying, storing, and why farmers markets & UPicks are go-to source for the best tasting berries. If you run into bitter blackberries, find out the causes & remedies in the supplemental guide.
Check out all of the produce guides, or the collections by month.
If you're wondering what else is currently in season, check out my calendars to see what produce is in season each month (and coming up soon).
Karen Blanton-Northcutt says
How do you get the tartness out of blackberries for making a cobbler?
Vee says
Tartness is a subset of sourness (if that helps any of your research efforts). This can be 'fixed' simply by adding extra sugar to your cobbler. Hope that helps - let me know how it turns out.