Homemade Strawberry Sauce Water Bath Canning Recipe
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Click HERE to read my policies & disclaimers if you're interested. I will only link products I use and personally recommend. Thank you for your support, friends!
A great way to preserve strawberries is as a sauce. This is the one strawberry canning recipe I preserve the most of since I can use it in so many different ways and it tastes so darned good. Strawberry season will be sneaking up on us here soon in Ohio so I need to break out all my good strawberry preserving recipes because we can only eat so many. A sauce is so darned versatile in my kitchen because it can go from being a delicious strawberry topping on french toast to churned into homemade ice cream to slathered on top of a homemade cheesecake to dumped over a pound cake and even more.
This recipe is super easy and comes together quick with minimal effort and only four simple ingredients you very likely have on hand! Can you say that about the store bought strawberry sauce? Betcha can’t cause most of them have high fructose corn syrup, regular ole corn syrup, and red 40. I don’t understand the need for dyes because we expect cooked strawberries to be vibrant red or what? Yeah, they don’t stay vibrantly red, but they’re cooked and that’s the point?
This easiest strawberry sauce recipe contains two high acid ingredients: pineapple juice and lemon juice, which acidify this and make it safe for water bath canning. Strawberries naturally have a pH of 3.5-3.6, so alone they’re fine. The addition of lemon juice helps aid in the color preservation to keep them from turning a sad brown and the pineapple juice is just cause I made it that way and it tasted absolutely fire. That’s all. Add in a little sugar for sweetness, or none at all, and cook those beautiful strawberries down to a gorgeous sauce.
Some will argue that sugar is a preservative, but in my researching travels, I have come to understand that the only time sugar would be a preservative for fruit is if you add it in EQUAL PARTS to fruit. So whatever weight of fruit you use, you need an equal amount of sugar to preserve it. If you would like to add the equivalent weight of strawberries in sugar to this recipe, be my guest, but I’d reckon you’re a hummingbird and don’t actually want to taste the strawberries then! You can substitute honey or maple syrup, but I have found that adding a good quality raw, unrefined sugar is my choice for sauces since the sugar does help it thicken a bit faster than honey or maple syrup will. You do you!
Let’s can some strawberry sauce!
Equipment You May Want:
- Stock Pot
- Pint or Half Pint Jars
- Lids and Screw Bands
- Jar Funnel
- Jar Lifter
- Steam Canner
Ingredients:
- 5 pounds strawberries
- 3/4 cup pineapple juice
- up to 1 1/2 cups raw, unrefined sugar
- 1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
Step 1: Prep Strawberries
You can choose to use fresh fruit or frozen. My vote is some beautiful fresh strawberries because frozen strawberries aren’t it. So don’t expect the best results I’m getting with this recipe if you are using frozen. I’m sure it’ll work, but the flavor just ain’t there with frozen strawberries. Sorry, fresh berries are always bettah.
Wash fresh strawberries in cold water and remove hulls. Add to a large pot. Add in 3/4 cup pineapple juice.
If using frozen strawberries, thaw and drain them completely.
Feed those hulls to your chickens or make strawberry top syrup with them. Don’t just toss them!
Step 2: Cook Sauce
Over medium heat, heat strawberries and juice until they soften, stirring frequently to prevent burning. This takes about 5 minutes.
Once soft, smash the hot strawberries carefully with the back of a spoon or a potato masher. You can also puree with an immersion blender but I prefer to leave the chunks because I like them. Since I use a pint of this sauce to make my homemade strawberry ice cream, I appreciate some good chunks in this sauce because what’s strawberry ice cream without some frozen strawberry chunks?!
Add in up to 1 1/2 cups of sugar, adjusting amount to your personal preference and stir to dissolve. If you prefer less sugar, do that. You can even omit it entirely; you’ll probably just have to cook the homemade strawberry sauce a lot longer. You can also choose to substitute honey or maple syrup, just plan on having to boil it for a bit longer to thicken.
Continue cooking over medium-high heat, stirring almost constantly. Once the sauce comes to a full rolling boil, boil hard like you would jam for 15 minutes. You’re looking for a thick sauce but not strawberry jam. When you drag a spoon down the center of the pot it takes the sauce a second or two to fill the spot back in. This time varies depending on the amount of sugar you added and what kind of sugar or sweetener you used.
Some folks like to add clear jel to this and that’s totally fine. You’d need to add it with the sugar probable and make sure it’s cook type. I don’t really like to use it for this though because I want a sauce, not a strawberry gloop. If I wanted gloop I’d just buy the poison from the grocery store.
Step 3: Fill Jars
Once the sauce is to the thickness of your liking, ladle into clean pint jars (that were washed in hot soapy water and rinsed well) to 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and add more sauce if needed to maintain headspace.
Wipe rims of the jars and center on a lid and secure it with a band.
Place jars in a boiling water bath canner or steam canner and process jars for 10 minutes, adjusting time for elevation if necessary.
Once canning process time is complete, shut off heat and remove jars to cool upright, undisturbed for 18-24 hours on a heat proof surface lined with a clean towel.
Step 4: Storage
After cooling, remove bands, check jar seal, wash jars, label, and store sealed jars in a cool, dark place away from direct sunlight and extreme temperatures. Room temperature is fine. Admire your finished product on the shelves and try not to eat it all in a week! Any unsealed jars can be refrigerated to use soon or reprocessed.
Shelf life is ’til you eat it; aim to rotate your canned goods out in about 2 years if you can, but they’re fine past that. Within 2 years gives you the best quality product with the best nutritional value.
Notes:
If you don’t have or want to use pineapple juice, you can substitute orange juice or even strawberry juice or nothing at all. I just like the flavor and natural sweetness the pineapple juice imparts. It’s really good!
Use this recipe for any type of berry interchangeably or a mixture, like raspberry sauce. In July I normally just have a giant bucket of all different kinds of berries laying around that my kids have gotten their fill out of and I just toss that all together. It’s super good!
Find the full recipe with a printable format below!
Homemade Strawberry Sauce Water Bath Canning Recipe
Ingredients
- 5 pounds strawberries hulled
- 3/4 cup pineapple juice
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
Instructions
- Add strawberries and pineapple juice to a stock pot. Heat over medium low heat, stirring occasionally.
- Once berries are soft, smash with a potato masher or spoon. You can also puree with an immersion blender if that suits you.
- Add in sugar, stirring to dissolve.
- Bring mixture to a boil and boil hard (like jam) for 15 minutes.
- Add lemon juice and boil for 1 minute.
- Ladle strawberry sauce into clean pint or smaller jars, leaving 1/4" headspace.
- Wipe rims and add lids and bands.
- Water bath or steam can for 10 minutes, adjusting time for elevation if needed. You can also use the open kettle canning method for this (rebel method).
- Allow jars to set undisturbed to cool after processing for 18-24 hours before removing bands, checking seals, washing jars, and storing.
