Raspberry Dessert Sauce Recipe

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.

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!

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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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

1. Combine ingredients together on the stove.
2. Boil mixture while stirring occasionally.
3. Optional: Press the mixture through a fine mesh strainer, to remove the seeds.
4. Let cool.

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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.

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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, 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.

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