Sweet and Simple Macerated Strawberry Recipe
This guest post was written by our friend Jen of the Long Haul Trekkers, which includes her two-legged partner Dave and their four-legged companion, Sora. Follow their journey here.
Strawberry season is just about my favorite time of year, food-wise. I especially love the late season strawberries that are so ripe they just melt in your mouth.
In my very biased opinion, Oregon produces the best strawberries on Earth, and each year, I make a trek out to Sauvie Island where I pick several palates of the bright red berry and spend the next several days making strawberry-oriented baked goods like shortcakes or crumbles, freezing any that don’t make their way into my mouth before they begin to turn bad (which is rare).
Knowing that we would miss strawberry season in Oregon due to our bicycle journey, I wondered if I would miss the season entirely, not knowing whether we would be traveling through a strawberry-producing region at the right time.
Luckily, we found ourselves in Germany during strawberry season. At nearly every grocery store and nestled in empty dirt lots along our route, we found stands selling strawberries, providing me a daily indulgence of my beloved fruit. I quickly learned how to pronounce erdbeer, the German word for strawberry, and devoured the berries almost immediately after purchasing them.
Since ovens are tough to come by in nature, I got in my strawberry concoction fix by macerating them overnight in my Insulated Klean Kanteen Food Container.
This recipe is super easy and can be used as a topping for morning oats or muesli, or as a dessert on its own or mixed with Greek yogurt. With just a few ingredients and time, the strawberries release their juices and turn into a sweet mix of syrup and preserves.
I used local honey in this particular recipe, but they can easily be made vegan by swapping honey for another liquid sweetener like agave or maple syrup. Furthermore, this recipe is versatile with a variety of fruit as strawberry season wanes. Raspberries and blackberries would work great, as would a host of other fruits like nectarines and peaches.
Macerated Strawberries Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups of strawberries
2 Tbsp honey or other liquid sweetener, adjusting to your own taste preference
Squeeze of one lemon
Instructions:
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Cut the strawberries into quarters and put into your container.
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Add the the honey or other liquid sweetener.
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Squeeze the lemon over the top of the strawberries.
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Stir or gently shake the contents to spread the sweetener and lemon juice to cover all the strawberries.
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Let sit for at least two hours, or better overnight or throughout the day as you ride or hike. The longer this sits, the more liquid will be extracted and the softer the berries will get.