Strawberry Puree (Fresh or Cooked)

5 Servings
Prep Time 7 minutes
Cook Time 3 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes

A simple Strawberry Puree recipe made two ways with fresh uncooked berries or cooked ripe strawberries. Perfect for summer cocktail recipes!

Summertime means fresh strawberries for all your favorite Fruit Desserts. All those juicy ripe berries are great for making homemade fruit sauces, purees, and toppings. This easy and simple Strawberry Puree is a perfect Dessert topping and Drink mixer. Be sure to grab an extra pack or two of berries to make some Strawberry Topping and Strawberry Jam too!

Sabrina’s Strawberry Puree Recipe

Making your own fruit toppings and sauces is the perfect way to upgrade your favorite drinks, desserts, and other sweet treats. Homemade Strawberry Puree is easy to make by combining ripe, juicy fresh strawberries with a handful of simple ingredients. Whether you prefer fresh or cooked fruit puree, the ingredients are the same, and you can create this amazing fruit sauce in just a matter of minutes.

After making this Strawberry Puree, there are so many ways to use it. I like to keep some on hand to use for flavoring drinks and desserts. It easily turns vanilla sweets like pudding or cake into a strawberry treat. You could also use it as a filling for donuts, swap it for maple syrup over breakfast recipes, or drizzle it over ice cream. It’s sweet, tangy, and perfect for adding delicious fresh strawberry flavor.

Strawberry Puree ingredients in prep bowls

Ingredients

  • Strawberries: Before starting the recipe, prep a pound of strawberries. Check out the Tips & Tricks section for how to hull strawberries.
  • Sugar: Use ⅓ cup white sugar to add sweet, syrupy flavor to the strawberry sauce. For a warmer flavor, you can use brown sugar or you could also add sweeteners like maple syrup or coconut sugar.
  • Water: A tablespoon of water helps to thin out the pureed fruit so it is easy to pour, drizzle or spoon into your recipes. You can add a little more if necessary to get the right consistency. For a boozy Strawberry Puree perfect for drinks, you could also add tequila or vodka.
  • Lemon Juice: Finish with a bit of fresh lemon juice. The tangy citrus flavor contrasts with the sugar and enhances the natural strawberry flavor.

Kitchen Equipment & Tools

  • Food Processor: You’ll need a good sized food processor or blender that will hold all the berries at once. You could also use an immersion blender if you are making the cooked puree.
  • Huller: You can use a small paring knife or reusable straw to hull the strawberries instead of a strawberry huller.

How to Make

Time needed: 10 minutes.

  1. Prep the Strawberries

    To prep for this fresh berry sauce, all you have to do is wash and hull the fresh berries and remove the leaves. Strawberry Puree ingredients in food processor bowls

  2. Fresh Strawberry Puree

    Add hulled strawberries to a food processor with ⅓ cup sugar, 1 tablespoon water, and two teaspoons lemon juice. Blend until the strawberry mixture is smooth. Enjoy fresh strawberry sauce as desired.Strawberry Puree blended in food processor bowl

  3. Cooked Strawberry Puree

    Add the berries, granulated sugar, and water to your food processor. Once the strawberry mixture is smooth, add it to a small saucepan and bring it to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off the heat and stir lemon juice into the cooked berries. Let the cooked puree cool completely before serving or storing it in an airtight container.Strawberry Puree pouring cooked puree in sauce pan after blending

Can this be made ahead of time?

This fresh fruit puree will stay good for days in the fridge or months in the freezer, so it can absolutely be made ahead of time. One good way to prep a batch of puree ahead of time is to freeze it first in an ice cube tray. Once the cubes are frozen, transfer them to a freezer safe bag and keep for up to 3 months.

Nutritional Facts

Nutrition Facts
Strawberry Puree
Amount Per Serving
Calories 81 Calories from Fat 9
% Daily Value*
Fat 1g2%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Monounsaturated Fat 1g
Sodium 1mg0%
Potassium 141mg4%
Carbohydrates 20g7%
Fiber 2g8%
Sugar 18g20%
Protein 1g2%
Vitamin A 11IU0%
Vitamin C 54mg65%
Calcium 15mg2%
Iron 1mg6%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Strawberry Puree Recipe Tips & Tricks

Hack to Hull Strawberries

You can use a reusable plastic straw to easily hull your berries. Start at the tip of the berry and push up towards the leaves. The hull and the leaves will pop right off. Keep hulling the berries and once they are done, use the straw cleaner (or blow hard in the straw) to get any berry stuck in the straw.

Hull with a Knife

Pull back the leaves as you are washing the berries. Use the tip of a small paring knife and cut into the white flesh under the leaves, close to where the stem would be. You want to cut at an angle in a small cone. If it doesn’t pop out by itself, gently twist it and the hull should come loose.

Make Strawberry Syrup

You can easily turn this thicker puree into Strawberry Syrup. This works best with cooked puree. Blend it until it stops getting thinner. Strain it through a fine mesh strainer to make a strawberry syrup.

Ways to Use Strawberry Puree

Topping

This sweeter puree tastes amazing drizzled over breakfast foods like French Toast, Pancakes, or Belgian Waffles. You can also serve homemade Strawberry Puree as a topping for ice cream instead of bottled strawberry syrup.

Flavoring

Add some bright berry flavor to your favorite treats from cake to cheesecake to cookies and more. You can add it to Vanilla Cake batter for a fresh strawberry cake, or just spoon it into finished Vanilla Pudding or yogurt to add flavor right before eating.

Drink Mixer

Turn any plain cocktail or mocktail into a beautiful drink with fresh strawberry puree. It’s perfect for strawberry margaritas, daiquiris, and mimosas. Mix it with lemonade for the best ever strawberry lemonade or use some for fresh strawberry milk. Liven up lemon-lime soda or seltzers with a spoonful or two of berry puree.

How to Store

Store: If you made the cooked version of this recipe, wait for the strawberry sauce to cool completely before storing. Transfer the batch of puree to an airtight container, preferably a glass jar like a mason jar, for storage. It will stay good for up to 5 days in the fridge.

Freeze: If you want to keep the leftover puree fresh for longer, seal it tightly in a sealed freezer safe container and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. Let the Strawberry Puree thaw before serving.

Frequent Questions

Can I use frozen strawberries in strawberry puree?

If you don’t have fresh strawberries, you can make this recipe with frozen strawberries. Put the frozen berries in a bowl at room temperature and let them thaw. This may take a few hours. I’d recommend this option if you’re making Strawberry Puree outside of Strawberry season and don’t have access to delicious fresh berries.

Do you have to cook strawberry puree?

No. It’s up to you if you want to cook this delicious recipe or serve the fruit fresh. The only time it’s essential to cook the strawberries is if you’re using the puree for baby food. This is essential because babies will struggle to digest the fiber in fresh fruit puree.

Recipe Card

Strawberry Puree

A simple Strawberry Puree recipe made two ways with fresh uncooked berries or cooked ripe strawberries. Perfect for summer cocktail recipes!
Yield 5 Servings
Prep Time 7 minutes
Cook Time 3 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 1 pound strawberries , hulled
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Fresh Strawberry Purée:

  • Add strawberries, sugar, water and lemon juice to a food processor and blend until smooth.

Cooked Strawberry Purée:

  • Add strawberries, sugar and water to a food processor and blend until smooth.
  • Add to a small saucepan and bring to a simmer on medium heat.
  • Stir and let cook for an additional 3 minutes.
  • Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
  • Cool completely before storing.

Nutrition

Calories: 81kcal | Carbohydrates: 20g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 141mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 18g | Vitamin A: 11IU | Vitamin C: 54mg | Calcium: 15mg | Iron: 1mg

Variations

Balsamic Strawberry Puree: You can add balsamic vinegar to this recipe to give it a more complex flavor. ¼ cup balsamic vinegar will pair perfectly with the berries and sugar. You can leave out the water as the balsamic vinegar acts as a liquid ingredient as well as a flavoring for the recipe.

Sweeteners: If you don’t want to use regular white sugar, coconut sugar, honey, or agave syrup, make good substitutes in this recipe.

Mixed Fruit: If you want to add more fruit flavors to your puree, you can blend strawberries with blueberries, raspberries, and pitted cherries. Other fruits like peaches, plums, mangoes, and kiwi would all taste good, just peel and pit the fruit before adding it.

More Flavor Additions: Another way to alter the flavor is by mixing in different extracts. You could add a little vanilla extract, orange extract, lime juice, almond extract, or coconut extract. Keep in mind that all of these ingredient options have quite a strong flavor, so I wouldn’t recommend adding more than ½ teaspoons at a time. You can always add more according to your taste, but be sure to add it slowly.

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Strawberry Puree in jar and spooning some puree, recipe name across bottom

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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