Okay, do you ever find yourself in Costco [I can only dream] or Sam’s Club around this time of year and see those GIANT flats of strawberries for, like, $3? And you think to yourself, “Self, that is an awesome deal on strawberries, but after the novelty wears off with my kids and my husband and myself and I make strawberry shortcake and strawberry jam and some strawberry smoothies, what will I do with the remaining 14 pounds of berries?” Well, I have your answer. This strawberry sauce has about a million uses, is freezer-friendly, and is so much better than that jar of Smuckers strawberry sauce that you’ve had sitting in your fridge since that time you made banana splits 1 1/2 years ago.
Wash strawberries and remove stems. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can roughly chop the berries,
but I say you’re already feeling ambitious enough by making your own strawberry sauce. So don’t sweat it either way.
Combine berries, sugar,
and extract
in medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for five minutes, stirring/breaking strawberries up with a wooden spoon constantly.
After five minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly (if you have a glass blender jar) and a lot (if you have a plastic blender jar). Or use an immersion blender, which is a delightful tool to have in your arsenal. When cool enough, transfer mixture to blender and pulse until desired consistency is reached. (I adore my Blendtec.)
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of large chunks of mystery fruit, so I like it smooth, but you can do it however you want.
Wanna know what to do with it?
–Make banana splits with this and Sara’s hot fudge sauce
–Drizzle over plain cheesecake
–Spoon over these Light and Crispy Waffles (which are the best waffles you will EVER eat!)
–My proudest use of strawberry sauce: mix a couple of tablespoons (depending on the size of the glass and your own personal taste) with this fresh-squeezed lemonade for strawberry lemonade. So so so so good…
—Chocolate waffles, anyone? If that’s not your thing, you could put them on your favorite French toast, waffles, or pancakes. Speaking of French Toast- try this one!
–Drizzle over angel food cake and add a dollop of sweetened whipped cream.
Strawberry Sauce
- Yield: 1 pint
Description
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
- 1 pint strawberries
Instructions
Wash strawberries and remove stems. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can roughly chop the berries, but I say you’re already feeling ambitious enough by making your own strawberry sauce. So don’t sweat it.
Combine berries, sugar, and extract in medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for five minutes, stirring/breaking strawberries up with a wooden spoon constantly.
After five minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly (if you have a glass blender jar) and a lot (if you have a plastic blender jar). When cool enough, transfer mixture to blender and pulse until desired consistency is reached. You can also use an immersion blender, which makes things super easy!
Notes
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.
Questions & Reviews
I used it to make a great salad dressing for a romaine and berry salad. It was delicious. I have also used it for a topping on waffles, another favorite. Thanks for the recipe.
Okay, I substituted the juice of half a lemon for the vanilla, used Whey Low to cut the sugar impact by 3/4, and made a delicious light sweet salad dressing to drizzle over baby greens with pine nuts or walnuts. Yowsers! This is now my favorite dressing! I’m going to go make the second batch now….the first one didn’t last three days. (This would be spectacular on a batch of steaming Popovers too.) Great recipe!
LOVED this recipe! I made it, immediately dished it up with a bowl of vanilla ice cream and my husband and father were begging for more! To freeze, I put the strawberry syrup in ice cube trays and froze them, then put them in to baggies so I don’t need to thaw large batches when I want to use it for small things. Works wonderfully!
I am not a very experienced cook but I really love to try new things! I’m not quite sure how to measure out a pint of strawberries from a large flat of them. How many strawberries is it?
I just used the last of my strawberries I froze last year for fruit leather. I cooked ’em, added some lemon juice & sugar, blended, then dehydrated them and thereafter got the “best Mom” vote from my 7 year old. You’ve inspired me to take the plunge and buy another flat!
I want to make this to put over cheese cake for mother’s Day. It’s for Relief Society. How many servings do you think I’d get if I drizzled this over each piece if cheese cake?
Thanks!
Fantastic!! I don’t even like cooked strawberries! I made one batch and loved it so much I made a double batch out of the strawberries that were rotting in the fridge. Strawberry sauce for the freezer to pull out for waffles, french toast, ice cream… Thank you!
I just made this for the first time! (My first OBB recipe tried, too!) I can’t wait to try this out on some ice cream 😀 Incidentally, I had forgotten how beautiful strawberries really are.
Update: My husband and I loved it!! He wants me to fill the freezer with it. 😀
I’m wondering if I can use this sauce to make fresh strawberry cupcakes? If it is possible, ::crossing my fingers:: how much do you think I’ll need to mix in the batter? Or can I use this to make strawberry whipped cream frosting?
I’m betting you could do both, I just have no idea how with the cake, haha! 🙂 I’d say just add it into some batter, but then you run into issues with adding too much moisture. As far as the frosting goes, just mix it in to taste and it would be awesome.
Very simple to make and tastes really great. I’m thinking about putting this on pancakes. 🙂
Love your book and the recipes. Where is the printer friendly button?
Debbie–for our more recent posts, there is a print button, but we’re still working on reformatting these older posts. For the time being, the easiest option is to copy the text and paste it into a word processing doc and then delete what you don’t want (pictures, extra commentary, etc.)
I’m thinkin’………I want to do this Kerran’s way, with Splenda and Crystal Light. No fear – no guilt. Wait – does Crystal Light make limeade? Love limes, not so much lemons. This is Florida. Isn’t there a margarita tree around here somewhere?
This looks and sounds amazing! I’m going to try using it in my smoothies.
Kells @ Backpocketcreations.blogspot.com
Your mentioned, in an e-mail, the other day that you didn’t like strawberry pie because the glaze always tasted artificial. Well, you haven’t tried my wife’s strawberry pie recipe. Do you accept donated recipes? I’d be glad to send you the best strawberry pie recipe you have ever have ever tasted. And, since this is an old family recipe, there is nothing artificial about it, just yummy, plump strawberries just waiting for gobs of whipped cream!
I would LOVE your strawberry pie recipe, Rusty!! If you don’t mind… :o)
[email protected]
Hopefully I’m not too late to reach you, Rusty, but I would also love, love, love to have your family recipe for strawberry pie! Any chance you could post it here for everyone to enjoy — with Kate and Sara’s permission, of course! Otherwise, my email address is [email protected]. Thanks!!
mmmmmmm, we love it on cereal. It’s especially good with cheerios, rice crispies, etc.
Fantastic on French Toast!!!! wow! I could still be eating it!! Thanks for fantastic ideas! And so simple!
I made the Molten Lava cakes, again, and drizzled this over the plate. WOW! It looked so fancy and was yummy. Thanks again!
I was thinking of making this and pouring it into popsicle molds that the kids could eat (and let’s be honest, hubby and I will probably eat too)…how would that be? Too sweet? Not sweet enough? The 2 lbs of strawberries I bought at Costco yesterday for $6 are organic and are much sweeter than non-organic strawberries I’ve eaten in the past. Thanks!
They’d be good! They’d probably taste a lot like those Dreyers/Dole whole fruit bars. Go for it!
omgosh, they are so yummy!! Even better than the Dole fruit bars, which I totally love btw!
So, this strawberry syrup saved my Mom’s birthday cheesecake yesterday! For her birthday my mom requested something, anything with fresh strawberries, so we bought a half a flat from a roadside stand on Saturday. Well, when we woke up on Sunday, the strawberries had completely gone bad (im talking fuzzy and white and juice pooling on the counter and spilling onto the floor.) We always refrigerate our strawberries, but the one time we forget, bad things happen.
Anyways, how did your Strawberry Syrup save the day you ask? Since it was Sunday we couldn’t just run out and buy more. My sister happened to have some strawberries that she had bought a frozen a while back, but those wouldn’t have been too good on cheesecake, so we pulled up this recipe and threw together some amazing deliciousness!
I’m sure this would have turned about a 100 times better had we used fresh strawberries, but EVERYONE loved it and it was delicious on the cheesecake! Thank you so much!
I am loving all of your strawberry recipes. I just picked 24 lbs at a farm yesterday, so needless to say, strawberry recipes are on my mind right now!
Thanks for sharing this! I was looking for a quick, easy way to preserve some strawberries I had in the fridge before I left on vacation. Now I have strawberry sauce to look forward to when I get home! 🙂
Since I'm new to this blog I've just found this recipe which will be a simple solution to a recent challenge. I've been trying to think of something that my family will use instead of syrup on our otherwise healthy pancakes in the morning. I plan on trying this recipe but substituting agave nectar for the syrup in order to make it diabetic friendly. I'm very excited to have found this today!
I couldn't make the scrambled egg pockets in the shape of hearts, so instead I made them rectangular, and painted a heart on with food coloring. Turned out really well!
Another dynamite way to have strawberries is in a sauce with chopped kiwi. Yummy & the kiwi are full of antioxidants. I think the strawberries are good sources of Vit C & potassium. Can anyone verify that or correct it?
Just wanted to say that this is absolutely my favourite cooking blog, and all the recipes are great, but this recipe is my favourite without a doubt. The sauce is delicious and so versatile. I put it on waffles, ice cream, in lemonade, atop bananas (and just eat them like that) and, when no one's looking, I might just eat it by the spoonful.
My favourite thing to do with it so far though, is to flavour yogurt. Instead of buying aspartame-filled fruit yogurt, I just buy plain yogurt and throw in a dollop of this sauce, and bingo, strawberry yogurt that I could eat by the gallon! I also used it to make all fruit popsicles. Yum.
Thank you! And FYI, it was divine with blueberries but I did blend them up a bit before bringing them to a simmer since they retain their juice more than strawberries.
Laura, I bet it would be really yummy with blueberries, and either extract.
And if you need some other ideas, try this ice cream:
https://ourbestbites.com/2008/06/blueberry-cheesecake-ice-cream.html
or the blueberry pudding pops in this post:
https://ourbestbites.com/2009/07/kids-week-frozen-pudding-pops.html
Ever tried this with blueberries? Which extract would be better? I came home with a flat of each from Costco only to have my husband inform me that he "doesn't really like blueberries that much." Um, hmmm . . . so I need to get rid of them fast. 🙂
I get strawberries, blueberrie, tomatoes and bell peppers, each week from Costco. Dreamy.
I then concoct recipes to use them with.
I want to try your sauce. Just printed it.
Oh, believe or not, that pitcher is from Walmart! Both Kate and I have it and love it! It only cost a few bucks too 🙂