How to Make Passion Fruit Puree

Passion fruit puree adds a tropical sweet-tart taste to many drinks and desserts. You can buy passion fruit pulp and puree in stores, but if you have access to fresh passion fruit, it’s extremely easy to make your own. I’ll take you through everything you need to know about working with fresh passion fruit and making your own passion fruit pulp and puree.

Homemade Passion Fruit Puree

Passion fruit is one of my absolute favorite flavors, and I am passionate about spreading the passion fruit love! (pause for well-deserved groans) When I worked as a pastry chef, I would regularly try to sneak a passion fruit item on the menu. Customers were sometimes skeptical–passion fruit isn’t an ingredient everyone is familiar with–but once I convinced them to taste the dishes, their reaction was usually one of two things:

1. Oh yeah, I’ve had this stuff before! I LOVE it!
2. I’ve never tasted this before, but it’s awesome. I LOVE it!

One taste is all you need to fall in love with its tropical, tangy flavor too. If you’re new to passion fruit, first check out my full guide to passion fruit, which includes where to buy it, how to pick the ripest fruit, storing passion fruit, and tips on eating it raw.

Start with ripe passion fruit

The best passion fruit puree begins with the best passion fruit! My #1 tip to picking the best passion fruit is to look for fruit that is heavy for its size–weight is the best indicator of ripeness. Heavy fruits contain the most juice, while light fruits are more likely to be underripe or dried out inside. You can also look for:

• Feeling: shake the fruit — if you can feel or hear liquid moving around inside, that’s a good indication there’s a lot of juice and pulp inside.
• Color: look for fruit with the deepest colors — passion fruit can be purple, red, or yellow, and the darker the color, the riper the fruit.
• Wrinkles: This may seem counterintuitive, but look for wrinkled fruit as a sign of ripeness. This is the rare time you’ll want to find wrinkles!
• Avoid: fruit that is noticeably lighter in weight, very hard, or very shriveled.

Passion Fruit Puree vs Pulp

Puree and pulp might sound interchangeable, but there is a difference. Passion fruit pulp refers to everything inside the passion fruit — juice, seeds, and all. When the seeds are other solids are strained out, the resulting liquid is passion fruit puree. And passion fruit juice is passion fruit puree mixed with water and (usually) sugar or another sweetener.

📋 Instructions

What You’ll Need

You don’t need much in the way of special equipment to make passion fruit puree. All you need are:

• passion fruit
• a sharp knife
• a spoon
• a wire strainer (optional, if you want to strain out the seeds)

Cut the passion fruit

Use a sharp knife to cut the passion fruit in half. After cutting, hold the halves together so all of the juice doesn’t spill out.

Scoop out the pulp inside

Use a spoon to scoop out the pulp, juice, and seeds inside. Avoid the white inner lining, which is bitter like citrus pith.

Strain the pulp (optional)

If you want to remove the seeds, you have a couple options:

• The simplest way is to just pour the pulp through a wire mesh strainer. Work the pulp with a spoon to force the juice through the strainer, leaving the seeds behind.
• You can also blitz the pulp in a blender in short bursts to break up the seeds into smaller pieces. (Do not pulverize them completely). Then strain the seed pieces out of the juice. This method is faster if you’re working with lots of fruit, and also tends to produce a larger quantity.

How much puree do you get from 1 passion fruit?

If you have a medium purple-skinned fruit, you can expect to get about 2 tablespoons of pulp (including seeds) from a ripe fruit, and about 1.5 tablespoons of puree (without seeds). Passion fruits that are smaller, under-ripe, or dehydrated will yield less. The larger yellow variety of passion fruit will typically yield more.

This means that you will need approximately 10-12 passion fruit to produce 1 cup of puree.

💡FAQs  

Here are a few commonly asked questions, and if you want to learn even more about passion fruit, check out my Passion Fruit 101 article.

💛 What to make with passion fruit puree

Passion fruit puree is delicious by itself, spooned on yogurt, or mixed into juices, sparkling water, and cocktails. It’s also a wonderful baking ingredient, so try using passion fruit puree in one of these dessert recipes!

• Passion Fruit Bars
• Coconut Macaroon Tart With Passion Fruit Cream
• Passion Fruit-Raspberry Pound Cake
• Passion Fruit Curd
• Passion Fruit Tarts
• Peach Passion Pops