Strawberry Sauce

This no-cook Strawberry Sauce recipe is easy to make, with just a few ingredients. It’s a delightful fresh strawberry sauce for cheesecake, angel food cake, waffles, ice cream, and so much more!

Easy Homemade Strawberry Sauce

This super simple Strawberry Sauce is an easy homemade recipe that tastes just like fresh squeezed strawberries!

Every June I look forward to picking strawberries from a local u-pick farm. It’s been an annual tradition with our girls since they were babies. And while Hatti and Tessa might not look forward to the picking as much as I do these days, I can usually still tempt them with the farm’s fresh strawberry donuts and milkshakes!

When we get home from picking, we eat those juicy, sweet berries to our hearts’ content. And then we always make a couple batches of strawberry freezer jam, plus strawberry lemonade and strawberry rhubarb crisp. And many years ago, I created this easy strawberry sauce.

This homemade strawberry sauce is vibrant red and, because it’s not cooked, it tastes especially fresh, bright, and tangy. It comes together with just a few ingredients and a little bit of time, and it’s super versatile.

Use this strawberry sauce for cheesecake and angel food cake – a most delightful fresh strawberry topping! Stir it into your morning yogurt topped with homemade granola, or into lemonade or your favorite cocktail. Spoon it over ice cream, waffles, pancakes, and crepes. The possibilities are deliciously endless!

Why You’ll Love This Strawberry Sauce Recipe

Our family loves fresh strawberries – so when we have ripe, juicy, fragrant strawberries, this recipe always wins. Here’s why we like it!

• Easy, no-cook. This is an incredibly easy recipe. All you need is a blender or food processor to blitz the few ingredients together.
• Fresh & flavorful. This strawberry sauce tastes like fresh strawberries…because that’s exactly what it is! Because this sauce is not cooked, it has a very simple, fresh flavor. If you’ve tasted the difference between the bright, fresh flavor of strawberry freezer jam and the deeper flavor of a cooked and processed jam, then you know exactly what I mean.
• Short ingredients list. Besides fresh strawberries, you only need a lemon plus a little sugar and/or honey.
• Versatile. There are so many ways to use this sauce, from breakfast to dessert! Scroll down for some delicious ways to use strawberry sauce.

Choosing the Best Strawberries

If you’ve ever wondered how to pick the best strawberries, there are few things to look for:

• Local, in-season strawberries – While we can only indulge in these splendid berries for a short time each spring/summer, they are definitely worth seeking out. We pick strawberries at one of the local u-pick patches each year and grab them whenever we can at farmers markets. There is simply nothing like fresh, local, just-picked strawberries!
• Bright red color. Whether you’re grabbing local strawberries or picking some up at the grocery store, look for strawberries that are a vibrant shade of red. If they’re still green or white, this means they were picked too soon – and they won’t ripen after they’re picked, so don’t bother! If the berries are overly dark red in color, they’re probably too ripe – skip those as well.
• Fresh green tops. Bright green tops are a good sign that the berries are very fresh.
• Firm yet giving. The texture should have a softened firmness. Not hard. Not mushy. And definitely skip any containers that have moldy strawberries.
• Sweetly scented. If strawberries pass all the looks tests, then it’s time for a good sniff. If they smell sweet, it’s almost guaranteed that the strawberries are going to taste great!

What You’ll Need

This recipe’s ingredients list is short and sweet. Here’s what you’ll need!

Scroll down to the recipe card for exact ingredients measurements and full instructions.

• Strawberries – Use the freshest berries you can find – vibrant red, juicy, and fragrant.
• Lemon – Fresh lemon juice and zest give this sauce a bump in bright flavor.
• Honey – I like the floral sweetness that honey gives.
• Sugar – I use a super fine sugar so it incorporates smoothly into this no-cook sauce. If you don’t have super fine sugar, feel free to add a bit more honey or substitute with simple syrup, or just use regular granulated sugar (although you might detect a little graininess).

How to Make Strawberry Sauce

All you need is a blender or food processor to create a smooth fresh strawberry sauce. Here’s how to make it:

• Blend. In a blender or food processor, combine strawberries, sugar, honey, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Blend until smooth, about 20 to 30 seconds.

How Do I Thicken It?

If you’d like your strawberry sauce a bit thicker, just add more strawberries. Because I created this as a no-cook sauce so it would taste as fresh as possible, I don’t like to add gelatin or cornstarch for thickening (which require cooking the sauce to incorporate).

If you like a little bit of chunkiness to your sauce, I would suggest to make the sauce as normal, then throw in some more strawberries and pulse a few times to blend just slightly. Leave some chunks!

Ways to Use Strawberry Sauce

This strawberry sauce recipe is incredibly versatile. There are so many ways to enjoy it!

• cheesecake
• angel food cake
• pound cake
• ice cream
• buttermilk pancakes or chocolate pancakes
• french toast
• yeast waffles, Belgian waffles, buttermilk waffles, or classic waffles!
• crepes
• yogurt and homemade almond coconut granola
• biscuits
• oatmeal
• chocolate mousse
• drinks – stir into lemonade or club soda
• cocktails – add to a margarita, gin & tonic, or mojito

Storing & Freezing

Refrigerator: Fresh strawberry sauce will keep well in the refrigerator, in an airtight container (I like to use a glass jar), for up to 5 days.

Freezer: You can also freeze this sauce. Just place it in an airtight, freezer-safe container and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost in the fridge overnight before using.

More Strawberry Recipes to Try

Our family loves strawberries, so we have many recipes to share with you!

• Strawberry Salad
• Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
• Strawberry Cupcakes
• Strawberry Shortcake Scones
• Patsy’s Strawberry Pie
• Strawberry Muffins with Lime Glaze
• Strawberry Lemonade
• Strawberry Gin & Tonic
• Strawberry Margarita

This post was originally published in 2013 and updated in 2023.