Homemade Strawberry Sauce So Good You’ll Want to Eat the Whole Jar
I love strawberries. I love everything involving strawberries. I like them in cakes, I like them on top of the cake, I like them in ice cream and over ice cream. I eat them in my yogurt every single day. I usually go through about a pound of them every week, that’s how much I love strawberries.
Unfortunately, strawberries are a fickle fruit. It seems like one minute they look fine, and you go back to them five minutes later and suddenly half of them have leaked their juices and gone moldy. And they are pricey depending on the time of year, so when I feel like they’re near the end of their lifespan, I start looking for things to use them up quickly.
Two weeks ago, strawberries were on sale and The Beard picked up two pounds of them for a really sweet price, no pun intended (alright, it was totally intended). I had experimented with my yogurt lunches last week and didn’t use them up as quickly as usual, so I had nearly an entire pound left over by the time this weekend rolled up, and they were ripe. They definitely wouldn’t have made it through the week, and it was questionable whether they’d make it through the weekend. I knew I needed to act fast.
So, Tart, what did you do with them?
I decided to go with a really simple homemade strawberry sauce. It’s actually ridiculously easy, but that’s too long to fit on the Pinterest image, so we’ll stick with what we’ve got. I started with my pound of strawberries, cutting off their tops and chopping the berries. Don’t worry about crushing them or blending them smooth, they’ll turn out perfect just they way they are. You want those big, delicious, juicy chunks in your finished product.
Put the strawberries in a small saucepan, and add the sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice. Cook over low-medium heat, stirring constantly. The berries will release their juice and things will start to boil.
Once the boil gets going, turn the heat down to low. Let the berries simmer for 20 minutes, uncovered, stirring occasionally to keep the sauce from burning to the bottom and side of the pot.
After 20 minutes, remove the sauce from the heat and allow it to completely cool before you use it. The sauce will thicken up considerably as it cools. You can use it as a topping from pretty much anything that strawberries would partner nicely with. Last weekend, I surprised The Beard with a dessert of chocolate waffles topped with whipped cream and some of this sauce, and he loved it, and he’s not a fan of sweet desserts. I used the leftover sauce to top a bowl of yogurt, and it was drop dead AMAZING. I’m considering making more of it just for my yogurt. What are you using it for?
Strawberry Sauce
Fresh, sweet strawberries make an excellent topping for pancakes, waffles, ice cream, and yogurt.
Ingredients
- 1 lb strawberries
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
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Cut the tops off of the strawberries and slice them into chunks. You don't need to crush them, and the chunks don't need to be tiny, the sauce will make them squishy and smaller when it's finished.
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In a small pan, combine the strawberries, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice. Cook over low-medium heat until they boil, stirring constantly.
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Once the berries have reached boiling, turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the sauce from the heat and cool before serving. The sauce will thicken considerably while it cools off!
Recipe Notes
Don't be alarmed if the strawberries seem to lose their color at some point during cooking. Mine went an alarming shade of almost gray for a minute or two, but came back to their original brighter red.
The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things. She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.
