Make homemade raspberry sauce (aka raspberry coulis) for your desserts or breakfast using fresh raspberries with this simple 4-ingredient recipe. When raspberries aren’t in season, you can use frozen raspberries. If you’re looking to fill a layer cake, use my thick raspberry cake filling instead.
One reader, Slynne, commented: “Excellent! I used frozen raspberries and followed the instructions exactly. It paired wonderfully with Sally’s classic cheesecake recipe. ★★★★★“
This raspberry dessert sauce is wonderful to have on hand, because you can use it to finish so many recipes, like cheesecake, brownies, pound cake, lemon cupcakes, or chocolate mousse pie. A homemade raspberry sauce can even turn a simple bowl of vanilla ice cream into a guest-worthy dessert. And don’t forget breakfast like pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, or yogurt!
You could even try mixing it with some sparkling water, or include it in a cocktail—the possibilities for this homemade berry sauce are endless!
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Raspberry Sauce
- Fresh-tasting, a bit tangy, & not overly sweet
- Just 4 easy ingredients plus water
- You can use fresh or frozen raspberries… so convenient
- Less than 10 minutes on the stove
- Strain it or keep it thick & chunky
- Like salted caramel & lemon curd, it’s extremely versatile and can be used on many dishes
- So good on easy cheesecake pie or even ice cream cake!
Grab These Ingredients:
- Water & Cornstarch: Cornstarch lightly thickens the sauce. You don’t need much, but you must combine it with a little water before using, otherwise you’ll have lumps of powdery cornstarch in your finished sauce. Cornstarch is typically mixed with water to make a “slurry” before using in sauces; see strawberry sauce and blueberry sauce as an example.
- Fresh or Frozen Raspberries: You’ll love that you can whip this sauce up in the summertime when berries are fresh in season, or in the middle of winter as the snow falls outside. I actually love this sauce with frozen raspberries because they’re typically frozen at their peak freshness and sweetness. Same story with my ultra thick raspberry cake filling. And I only use frozen berries in these raspberry sweet rolls.
- Sugar: Too much sugar can mask the natural berry flavors, so stick with only 1/4 cup (50g) in this recipe. If your raspberries are extremely tart, increase to 1/3 cup (67g). This isn’t jam, so we don’t need an onslaught of sugar.
- Lemon Juice: The sauce needs *something* to balance the berry and sugar, and lemon juice provides that hint of freshness. Do not leave it out or the sauce will taste pretty flat. You can also add a splash of vanilla extract once the sauce comes off heat. (Vanilla is optional, but tasty!)
Raspberries are so convenient—no chopping or peeling required.
Just 4 Steps to Make This Raspberry Sauce
This raspberry sauce cooks on the stove in just under 10 minutes. It’s similar to the swirl recipe we use in these white chocolate raspberry cheesecake bars.
- Combine ingredients together on the stove.
- Boil mixture while stirring occasionally.
- Optional: Press the mixture through a fine mesh strainer, to remove the seeds.
- Let cool.
Strained vs. Keeping the Seeds
When strained, this sauce is on the thin side, as sauces go, and great for drizzling. This strained version is also known as a raspberry coulis. If you’d prefer a thicker sauce and don’t mind the seeds, you can skip Step 3 altogether!
Here is a photo comparing the 2 consistencies:
Mixture is very hot right off the stove:
Strain the warm mixture with a fine mesh strainer:
Or keep it chunky:
This recipe yields about 1 cup of raspberry sauce if straining, or about 1 and 1/2 cups if not straining.
Uses for Raspberry Sauce
There are so many ways to enjoy this raspberry dessert sauce, and here are many suggestions:
- Enjoy drizzled on scones, crepes, muffins, buttermilk waffles, whole wheat blueberry pancakes, brioche French toast, or a Dutch baby pancake
- Stir into yogurt, cottage cheese, or oatmeal
- Use as a filling for lemon cupcakes or lemon blueberry cupcakes (see my How to Fill Cupcakes post for details on how to do this—so easy!)
- Use as a topping for cream cheese pound cake, ice cream, angel food cake, or pavlova
- Serve with chocolate treats like brownies, chocolate cake, and flourless chocolate cake
- Drizzle on choux pastry or cream puffs
- Top cheesecake, lemon cheesecake, no bake cheesecake, and cheesecake pie (pictured below)
- Spread on homemade biscuits, croissants, and toasted English muffins
- Stir a few spoonfuls into whipped cream or whipped frosting and use as garnish on desserts
Can I Use This to Fill a Cake?
No, because it is too thin. Instead, try my raspberry cake filling.
Print
Raspberry Dessert Sauce
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup strained or 1.5 cups chunky
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Cooking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This raspberry dessert sauce topping is fresh, quick, & easy and gives desserts and breakfast dishes that little something extra! You can use fresh or frozen raspberries.
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon water
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 3 cups (about 12 ounces/375g) fresh or frozen raspberries
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (do not leave out)
- optional: 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Whisk the cornstarch and water together until all the cornstarch has dissolved. (I just use a fork to mix—very easy.) Combine cornstarch mixture, raspberries, granulated sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Using a silicone spatula, stir the mixture, lightly mashing the raspberries as they begin to heat.
- Bring to a boil and let it boil for 3 full minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from heat and—if desired for a richer flavor—stir in vanilla extract.
- Press the warm sauce through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds, if desired. I use the back of a spoon to press the liquid through the strainer, held over a bowl. It takes a couple minutes to really squeeze it all out.
- Feel free to serve warm over warm desserts, but it should be cooled to really thicken up. Cool the sauce completely at room temperature or in the refrigerator. The sauce will thicken slightly as it cools, but the strained version is still liquid and perfect for drizzling.
- Cover and store for up to 1 week in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: After the raspberry sauce cools completely, freeze in a freezer-friendly container for up to 3–6 months. Thaw on the counter or in the refrigerator. Warm up in the microwave or on the stove, if desired.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Small Saucepan | Silicone Spatula | Fine Mesh Strainer
- Berries Are Tart: If your raspberries aren’t very sweet, you may want to increase the sugar to 1/3 cup (67g).
- Thicker Sauce: If you’d like a thicker sauce and don’t mind the raspberry seed texture, you can skip Step 3 completely, or even try pureeing the mixture in a blender instead of straining.
- Other Berries: You can substitute blackberries with no changes to the recipe. Or try these strawberry sauce and blueberry sauce recipes.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Is there a reason why you don’t use this recipe for your white chocolate raspberry cheesecake?
Hi CW! The two are very similar, you just need less for the cheesecake bars.
If this sauce thickens up only over an extended period of time (like overnight), that should be added. Also if quantities should be adjusted when doubling, that’d be great to know. I followed this recipe closely and under up with a runny mess that never gelled at all, despite adding more cornstarch, so I put the seeds I’d strained out back in and tried to puree with an immersion blender and then Magic Bullet- no luck getting seeds pulverized so had to strain it again. Not worth all the effort.
This was a great recipe for our freshly picked raspberries that didn’t hold together. The flavor was great with the lemon juice. We put some on French toast and my husband will use the rest on ice cream.
All those seeds! Sauce is delicious. After straining out the seeds I felt bad about all the raspberry residue left on the seeds. In a spirit of waste not, want not, I put the seeds in a bowl, poured apple juice over them, let them soak a few minutes, and poured the juice through the strainer. Voila, apple cranberry juice.
Best ever Raspberry Sauce!!! The vanilla and perhaps a little more lemon, made it super favorable.
Can I add peaches to this recipe? If so, would I need to change any of the ingredient amounts, or cooking time?
Thanks!
Hi Linny! We haven’t tested peaches in this dessert sauce, but can’t see why substituting some of the raspberries for peaches wouldn’t work. Let us know if you give it a try.
I doubt you’ll see this, but I made this with pretty much every frozen fruit you can find at the store and it has worked every time. For the peaches one, I also added cinnamon and nutmeg to give it a peach cobbler taste
Wondering whether this recipe would work as well with black raspberries?
Blackberries would be great!
Can I can and store this for long periods of time like jams? If so how can I alter this to achieve shelf stability?
Hi Jeff, I haven’t tried it myself but I can’t see why not. Let me know if you try anything.
My raspberry patch is starting to go crazy!! At first it was a fun berry snack here and and there, but this year I thought what am I going I going to do with all of these berries. Sally is a regular source of reliable recipes for me, so I was delighted to see that she had a sauce recipe. For me, about 3 cups of berries produced about 1 cup of sauce, and is SUPER EASY to make!! I am storing one batch in the fridge, I am freezing a batch and I canned a batch. I am hoping that the canned product does well. The sauce is DELICIOUS!!!! I have licked out the bowl for every batch. For my tastebuds, a generous 1/4 cup of sugar is best. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. Thank you Sally!
I can substitute any sort of fruit in this recipe and it just works!
Today I did black raspberries and instead of white sugar did light brown sugar and oh my lord is it good! Especially on cheesecake.
You simply cannot mess up this recipe!!
I’m looking for a raspberry sauce I can swirl into a yogurt pie that will then be frozen. Do you have any insight as to how this might work in that? Thank you.
We imagine that should work well!
Excellent! I used frozen raspberries and followed the instructions exactly. It paired wonderfully with Sally’s classic cheesecake recipe.
Hi! Your recipes are usually awesome, so I can’t wait to try this. I was wondering though, would this work well as a drizzle for chocolate cake? I want to make it a sort of “lava” on achocolate Bundt to make it look like a volcano. Think it would work well for that purpose? If so, should I pour it warm or once it’s chilled I’m the fridge a bit? Thanks!
Hi, We haven’t tested this exact use for the raspberry sauce, but we would recommend straining it and then letting it cool so that it’s not so thin as to just slide off the cake. Let us know if you give it a try!
Can I triple this recipe.
Hi Denise, yes you can. Enjoy!
I can’t believe my store didn’t have cornstarch. What is the best substitute here? Ack! Flour just doesn’t seem like it would go right here.
Hi Abby, Tapioca or arrowroot powder can be used as substitutes for cornstarch, but we have not tested either of these in this recipe. Let us know if you try anything.
Fantastic recipe!!! I used Tapioca Starch instead of corn starch and Monk Fruit Sweetener instead of sugar and it came out perfectly. 🙂
I just made this sauce with boysenberries from my yard – delicious! Thank you Sally for sharing your recipes, you are my go-to whenever I need anything!
This tastes amazing, but I made it a bit too thick.. any advice on how to thin it out for use?
Hi Jana, glad to help. You can heat this over low heat on the stove and add a couple Tablespoons of water to help thin out.
This came out delicious! I had to halve the recipe based on what I had on hand, but that was a perfect amount for my husband and I after I strained it through a big mesh strainer. Thanks for the tasty, easy recipe!
This was super easy and tasty! Thank you.
Hello! Do you need to thaw the frozen raspberries before cooking them?
No need to thaw them first, Kathy.
I made this to use an ice cream topping. It came out much too thick for that purpose, and became semi-solid after storing in ther refrigerator. Might be okay if you used immediately instead of refrigerating, but I think a simple reduction with no cornstarch would produce a better ice cream topping.
I couldn’t get the seeds out properly. The fine mesh colander was not working, so I took a laundry bag and squeezed it. Brutally murdered three cups of raspberries for a half cup of sauce. But it did taste great! The perfect mix of tartness and sweetness.
Hi Sally and team! I have a question about your 3 Ingredient Strawberry Banana Popsicles. (But I’m unable to post a comment on that post, so I’ll try and ask here!)
I’m just looking for a substitute for the frozen banana, due to allergies!
What fruit would be a good substitute? (There is also an allergy to mangos, grapes, kiwi fruit, oranges, melon)
Could I use frozen raspberries? And if so, how much? Could I also use some fresh lemon juice or zest somewhere? Thanks!
Hi Cassie, how about this blueberry swirl yogurt popsicle recipe instead? It doesn’t call for bananas and you could swap the blueberries for any of your favorite fruits like raspberries or strawberries (same amount). You can add lemon juice or zest as well, like we do with these creamy lemon popsicles. Enjoy!
Thank you for the recipe! If I use it to drizzle on cookies, would they need to be refrigerated? Or can the drizzle stay in an airtight container at room temp?
Hi Lizzie! The sauce should be kept refrigerated.
Hello! I was wondering if this recipe could be used as a filling for a layer cake, if not is there a way to modify it so that it will be the right consistency? I would like to make a chocolate raspberry cake. Thanks!
Hi Julia, We don’t recommend using this raspberry sauce as a cake filling. It’s a little too thin and could spill out the sides. It would, however, be a great filling for cupcakes. Or you could try adding some to whipped cream for a cake filling.
Can you use this to fill cupcakes? If not, what could I use? Thanks!!
Hi Deb, you can absolutely use this raspberry sauce as a filling for cupcakes. We love it in lemon cupcakes!
This looks incredible, but it’s definitely missing this quote: “Excuse me, sir. There seems to be some sort of red crap on my cheesecake.”
How could I forget!
Could you can this and keep it do you you think? I have just started the canning fun and thought this might be great.
Hi Andrea, we haven’t tried canning this recipe but let us know if you do!
My mouth is watering just thinking about this sauce!
I have made a raspberry sauce for my white chocolate cheesecake, It’s just frozen raspberries, sugar, a little Chambord, puree and strain. So fresh tasting! Or a little boozy if you desire for adulting 😉
So tasty and easy! We like it with the seeds and they do soften a bit.
Hi, wondering what other berries I can use in this recipe as I cannot each raspberries. What do you suggest!0?
Many thanks!
Blackberries would be great! Or you can try my slightly similar strawberry sauce. The blueberry swirl/topping from this blueberry cheesecake makes a great topping/sauce too.
I made this recipe yesterday to use as a topping for a Baked Lemon Pudding recipe from The NY Times. I used a 12 oz. Bag of frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries) that I found at Target and I did not strain it. OMG! It was delicious and now I’m anxious to try it on ice cream.Thank you for this easy and tasty recipe!