Homemade Strawberry Sauce (topping)

Why this recipe works:

• Easy to make. And that is an understatement. This is a great recipe that comes together in 10-15 minutes and keeps well in the refrigerator for a week.
• Flavor. It has a great balance between sweetness, freshness, and strawberry flavor. Use fresh summer strawberries for best results.
• Keeps well: store it for a few weeks in the fridge or freeze it for a month or more.
• Uses. My favorite way is as a topping for cheesecake and waffles, but it can double as a sauce for ice cream, even french toast or croissant pudding if that's your type of breakfast. Use it for desserts like the strawberry trifle or as a bottom layer in the strawberry cheesecake mousse.

Simple ingredients

They are few and easily available.

• Strawberries - they're the star of this recipe, of course, and the more seasonal they are, the better the flavor. This is a fresh strawberry sauce and, though we always aim to get sweet strawberries, is especially good for using those berries that are not in their prime but it also works very well with frozen strawberries. The flavor will not be as deep in my opinion.
• Sugar - I love to use brown because it works really well with strawberries, something that is already documented in the Brown Sugar Strawberry Crisp recipe. But you can use white with amazing results.
• Lemon juice - balances out the sweetness and adds freshness.
• Cornstarch - is needed to thicken the sauce and create that syrup that we want to eat with a spoon because it's so delicious!

Easy steps

This easy sauce is a snap to prepare! You simply put a few ingredients in a saucepan and cook it until it thickens and becomes syrupy, add more fresh strawberries to, and then let it cool down.

Strawberries

• Wash, hull, and slice or dice strawberries. You can also leave them whole or cut in half and mash them lightly with a potato masher (directly in the saucepan) when they're soft. The texture will be different, and more irregular and some large chunks might remain.
• Put them in a medium saucepan and add sugar. Mix with a wooden spoon.

Liquids

• Add the lemon juice and half the amount of water, and cook on the stove over medium heat. After a few minutes, it will start to simmer as the strawberry juices (the natural liquid present in the strawberries) start to be released.

Thickener

• Dissolve the cornstarch in a small bowl with the rest of the water. When the strawberry mixture foams, add the cornstarch slurry and stir constantly as you cook it for another minute so that it loses some of its starchy flavor.

Final step

• The sauce will be thick. Add the rest of the chopped strawberries and mix lightly. Taste and check if you want to add more lemon juice or a few more tablespoons more water, depending on how much syrup you want.
• Finished sauce: is shiny, and sweet, bursting with flavor, and oh so delicious!

Kitchen notes

• Organization: always read the recipe first and make sure you have all the ingredients, at the right temperatures, and also the rest of the equipment and space to make it. This will make the process so much easier!
• Strawberries: this is the recipe to use those overripe berries. You can cut them small or just in half, depending on what you'll be using it for. If using frozen, cook them all together, because you won't have fresh pieces to add at the end.
• Make ahead: this strawberry topping can be kept in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for a month, always in a container with a tight-fitting lid. If you need to use a large amount of strawberries, consider making a double batch and freezing it in portions. It thaws well at room temperature or in the refrigerator when you need to use it.
• Citrus: I love lemon for this recipe, but lime and orange go very well with strawberries. So choose your favorite. And also, you can use a few tablespoons of frozen lemonade or strawberry lemonade, directly from the container, and then add the water stated in the recipe.
• Sweetness: you can add up to ¼ cup more of sugar if you have a sweeter tooth.
• Syrup: if you like to go heavy on the syrup, double the amount of ingredients except for the strawberries.
• Thicker topping: if using it as a strawberry topping and you want it to be firmer, consider adding 3-4 tablespoons of a good strawberry jam. It will add more consistency. I've done it several times, especially when using it for cheesecakes.
• Serving it: as a topping for cheesecake and waffles, or our buttermilk pancakes, as a sauce with ice cream and french toast. And with cake, especially if making strawberry shortcake. I love a slice of angel food cake with this sauce on the side. Or, a favorite dessert around here, is a thick slice of lemon pound cake, strawberry sauce on top (at room temperature), and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
• Smooth sauce: if you're the type of person that doesn't like a chunky or thick sauce with pieces of fruit (beats me, but hey, who am I to judge, I love reheated pasta) you can process it or use an immersion blender or the regular blender and turn it into a puree more than a sauce.
• Variation: use raspberries or blackberries instead of strawberries. I like to use the raspberry sauce as a topping for these cheesecake squares when I can't find strawberries.
• Flavorings: besides the citrus, you can add other ingredients to flavor the sauce, like a few drops of vanilla extract, pure almond extract, a pinch of ground cinnamon or some other spice or extract you like paired with strawberries.