Strawberry Sauce

This homemade strawberry sauce couldn’t be easier–or more delicious! This three-ingredient recipe is bursting with fresh strawberry flavor, and is perfect on cheesecake, pound cake, ice cream, and much more!

🍓 Homemade Strawberry Sauce

Bold claim time: you can improve almost any dessert with three ingredients and 20 minutes. For instance:
Ice cream? Check.
Cheesecake? Got ya covered.
Tarts? You better believe it.
All of these things can be improved at least 37.45%* by adding an easy homemade strawberry sauce on top.
*Figures have not and will not be scientifically checked

This fresh strawberry sauce is the magic weapon you need in your life. It’s delicious, perfectly sweet, has a vibrant berry flavor, requires just three ingredients, and is so versatile! Drizzle it over pancakes or waffles, ladle it on ice cream, use it in lieu of frosting for pound cake, or just eat it by the spoonful on its own. 😉

It’s wonderful with fresh berries, but can also be made with frozen berries during off-peak months, so you can have a little bit of strawberry sunshine all year long. If you love this strawberry sauce recipe, you will also love my other berry desserts!

🧾 What You’ll Need

Any recipe that just has three ingredients is a recipe I can get on board with! Here’s what you’ll need for this homemade strawberry sauce:

Ingredients

• Fresh Strawberries: you’ll need one pound of strawberries to make1 1/2 cups of sauce. However, if you need more than that, you can easily double or even triple this recipe in a larger pot. I feel that the flavor is better when using fresh berries, but frozen are also an option–check the FAQ section below for information on how to use frozen berries in this recipe!
• Sugar: I use 1/3 cup granulated sugar for this recipe, but you can add more or less depending on how sweet your berries are, and your personal preference.
• Lemon Juice: just a little lemon juice brightens the sauce and deepens the sweet berry flavor. Use freshly squeezed lemon juice if you have it, but bottled juice will work as well.

Equipment

You don’t need much to put together that delicious strawberry sauce–just a few basic kitchen appliances. (Links are affiliate links and I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.)

• Saucepan: I use a 4-quart saucepan which is the perfect size for this amount of sauce. If you’re doubling or tripling the recipe, I recommend using a larger size.
• Juicer: you can squeeze the lemon juice by hand, but I recommend using a juicer. This makes it easier to get more juice out of the lemon!
• Spatula: you’ll want to use a spatula to regularly stir the strawberry sauce as it cooks so it doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pan.
• Jars: you can store any leftover sauce in mason jars in the fridge!

📋 Instructions

This homemade strawberry sauce comes together in a total of 20 minutes. Here’s a quick overview of how to make it, and for full printable instructions, visit the recipe card below.

Get your lemon juice:

• Use a juicer to squeeze fresh lemon juice. You’ll need one tablespoon which will be 1/2-1 lemon, depending on the size.

Prepare the strawberries:

• Wash the strawberries well, remove the stems, and slice them into thin slices.
• Combine the strawberries, sugar, and fresh lemon juice in a 4-quart saucepan, then heat on the stove over medium heat, stirring regularly. Let the mixture bubble for 20 minutes or until thickened to your liking.
• Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature before serving.

Cook the Strawberry Sauce

• Combine the strawberries, sugar, and fresh lemon juice in a 4-quart saucepan, and stir to distribute the sugar.
• Cook the sauce over medium heat, stirring regularly with a spatula. Let the mixture bubble for about 20 minutes, or until thickened to your liking. The longer it cooks, the thicker the texture will be, and the more concentrated the flavor
• Remove from the heat, and let it cool a bit before serving. Strawberry sauce can be enjoyed warm or cold.

💭 Variations

This strawberry sauce is very customizable and forgiving. Here are a couple of things you can do to switch things up!

• Make another berry sauce. This recipe can be easily adapted to accommodate different berries. Try it with raspberries, blueberries, or blackberries. You can also use cherries, pitted and halved, to make a homemade cherry sauce!
• Adjust the sugar. You can adjust the amount of sugar you use depending on the ripeness of the berries. Very ripe berries will need less sugar. Under-ripe berries will need more.
• Add another flavor. Some of my favorite additions are 1 tsp vanilla extract, a shake of ground cinnamon, or adding lemon zest in addition to the lemon juice. Almond extract is another fun flavor you can try if you think it will work with the other components of your dessert.

💡 FAQs 

Make-Ahead and Storage Instructions

Homemade strawberry sauce will last in the fridge for 4-5 days or in the freezer for 3-4 months. When you’re ready to enjoy again, it can be served warm or cold. If it’s been frozen, let it thaw in the fridge overnight, then enjoy chilled, or gently warm it in the microwave.

🍰 What to Serve with Strawberry Sauce

There are plenty of ways you can serve fresh strawberry sauce! Here are some of my favorites:

• Over cheesecake. Strawberry sauce makes a delicious topping for so many different cheesecakes!
• With breakfast. Try it on over pancakes or waffles, on French toast cake, mixed into yogurt, or even in oatmeal.
• Over ice cream. Try it with Lavender Rose Ice Cream or over strawberry lemonade ice cream pie.
• On cake. You can drizzle it over a slice of cake, cupcakes, or pound cake to add a little something extra. I love it on chocolate pound cake, orange bundt cake, strawberry swirl bundt cake, or chocolate cupcakes!

❤️ More Strawberry Desserts

• Strawberry Crisp
• Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cakes
• Strawberry Buttercream
• Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
• Doughnut Strawberry Shortcake

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Strawberry Sauce

Author Elizabeth LaBau

5 from 6 votes

This homemade strawberry sauce couldn’t be easier–or more delicious! This three-ingredient recipe is bursting with fresh strawberry flavor, and is perfect on cheesecake, pound cake, ice cream, and much more!

Cook20 minutes mins

Total20 minutes mins

Yields6 servings

Ingredients

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 lb fresh strawberries, (to yield 2 cups chopped)
• ▢ 2.3 oz granulated sugar, (1/3 cup)
• ▢ 1 TBSP fresh lemon juice

Instructions 

• Wash the strawberries well. Remove the stems, and slice the strawberries.
• Combine the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a 4-quart saucepan, and heat over medium heat.
• Stir regularly while the strawberries cook. Let them bubble and boil for 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened and the berries are very soft. The longer the sauce cooks, the thicker it will get.
• Remove the pan from the heat and let the strawberry sauce cool at room temperature. The sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.
• If you want a smooth strawberry sauce, you can use an immersion blender or transfer the sauce to a regular blender to puree it. Served warm or cold, this sauce is wonderful on cheesecakes, pound cake, and ice cream.

Recipe Notes

This recipe yields about 1.5 cups of sauce (14 oz). Assuming 1/4 cup per serving, it will yield 6 servings.

Measuring Tips

Our recipes are developed using weight measurements, and we highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking whenever possible. However, if you prefer to use cups, volume measurements are provided as well. PLEASE NOTE: the adage “8 oz = 1 cup” is NOT true when speaking about weight, so don’t be concerned if the measurements don’t fit this formula.

Want to learn more about baking measurements and conversion?

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Nutrition

Calories: 67kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 118mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 15g | Vitamin A: 9IU | Vitamin C: 45mg | Calcium: 12mg | Iron: 1mg

Tried this recipe?Snap a pic and hashtag it #SugarHero. We love to see your creations on our Instagram @elabau.

About Elizabeth LaBau

I’m Elizabeth, but you can call me SugarHero! I’m a former pastry chef turned blogger, cookbook author, and baking instructor, and I consider myself sugar’s #1 fan. Learn more from my About page, or connect with me on social media:

What You'll Need

4 Quart SaucepanBuy nowCitrus JuicerBuy now8 oz Mason JarsBuy now