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!
Table of contents
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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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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