38 Strawberry Month 2023 Recipes To Brighten Up Your Meals

While it may seem as if nearly every type of food, no matter how obscure, merits its own national day, only a few make it to the level of having a national month. Strawberries, however, are well-deserving of such an honor. Their month is May, a time when fresh local strawberries are starting to come into season even in states not named California or Florida.

In order to celebrate the strawberry, we've assembled a collection of recipes that showcase it in a number of different settings. We have strawberry breakfast recipes (smoothies, pancakes, and muffins), strawberry beverages both boozy and alcohol-free, strawberry salads that showcase the fruit's savory side (except for one recipe that's a salad in name only), and of course a plethora of strawberry-flavored desserts. Nearly every recipe on the list features fresh fruit, except for just a few where the strawberries are frozen, instead. Still, there's no reason why you can't start with fresh berries here, as well. If needed, you can just pop them into the freezer for half an hour or so until they harden.

One of the all-time classic strawberry recipes is strawberry shortcake. This dish as we know it was pretty popular back in the 1850s, so this means that it predates its namesake cartoon character by over 120 years. Here we're going old-school by making the biscuits from scratch as they would in the 19th century, then flipping the script by adding a 20th-century twist: Cool Whip. You can, of course, make an even more traditional style of shortcake by opting to whip your own cream instead, although we wouldn't suggest going so far as to try to do it by hand.

Recipe: Traditional Strawberry Shortcake

Rhubarb and strawberries are baking besties because the tart vegetable perfectly complements the sweeter berry. Cook them together in a pie and you have yet another iconic summertime dessert. While this recipe makes use of store-bought pie crust as a shortcut, it does employ the time-consuming lattice-top technique. For a slightly less pretty but equally tasty pie, however, you could always go for a non-woven top crust or even a streusel one.

Recipe: Sweet And Tangy Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Homemade ice cream is a project that many home cooks aren't willing to tackle, primarily because it often involves investing in another piece of pricey single-use equipment that's likely to wind up gathering dust while consuming valuable pantry space. With this recipe, however, there's no need for an ice cream maker. As long as you have a blender, a loaf pan, and the necessary ingredients – these being nothing more than strawberries, sugar, vanilla, whipping cream, and sweetened condensed milk -– then you're good to go. With less than 10 minutes' worth of prep work plus a few hours in the freezer, you'll have yourself a fresh and fruity frozen dessert.

Recipe: No-Churn Strawberry Ice Cream

Chocolate-covered strawberries are something you'll tend to see in stores around Mother's Day since they're a popular gift for this May holiday, but the store-bought kind can be pretty pricey. If Mom always taught you the value of saving money by doing for yourself what doesn't need to be outsourced, then she'll definitely appreciate the homemade kind. This treat is actually quite easy to make since all you need is fresh, ripe berries plus some chocolate for melting. Going the DIY route means that you can customize the berries by using Mom's favorite chocolate (white, milk, or dark all pair perfectly with strawberries) and decorating the berries with coatings ranging from chopped nuts to coconut to crushed cookies.

Recipe: Easy Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

What's your favorite summertime drink? While some opt for iced tea and others prefer soda or beer, the majority of people who responded to one of our very own Mashed polls chose lemonade as their warm-weather go-to. If there's anything better than a tart, refreshing lemonade, however, it's that same beverage infused with the flavor of fresh strawberries. This recipe actually makes a strawberry lemonade concentrate, which means that whether you want a glass or a pitcher, you can simply mix 3 parts water to 1 part syrup. Add a few ice cubes and maybe some lemon and strawberry slices, then let the sipping begin.

Recipe: Homemade Strawberry Lemonade

Most pies really aren't all that easy, but this strawberry pie is an exception to the rule. For one thing, it starts with premade pie crust, always a good shortcut. In fact, you could substitute a graham cracker or chocolate crumb crust or even a toasted coconut one, if you'd like. The pie filling itself consists of nothing more than sliced strawberries cooked in a sugar syrup with a squeeze of lemon (plus cornstarch for thickening), but the best part is, there's no need for a top crust.

Recipe: Easy Strawberry Pie

Strawberry muffins may not be as well-known as blueberry ones, but there's no reason the latter berries should have a monopoly on the muffin market. Even if you can't purchase strawberry muffins at every bakery, supermarket, and convenience store, you can make them at home without too much effort. Chances are, you'll be so pleased with the results that you'll return to this recipe again and again.

Recipe: Classic Strawberry Muffins

Don't let the title fool you – and rest assured, it won't fool anyone else, either, if you try to sneak this dish into a potluck as a salad course. There's nothing remotely salad-like about it, not even in the Jell-O salad sense. Instead, this dish is a dessert bar, pure and simple. It starts off with a crushed-pretzel crust (the only remotely savory element, and even this includes sugar), followed by a cheesecakey type layer, and is topped off by strawberry gelatin mixed with strawberries. While the recipe calls for frozen berries, there's no reason fresh ones won't work. They may not mash quite as easily as thawed ones, but you can always chop them up in small pieces instead to make for some extra texture.

Recipe: Easy Strawberry Pretzel Salad

The easiest way to blend a strawberry milkshake may be to start with strawberry ice cream, but using fresh berries can bring a fresher, fruitier, taste. The milkshake in this recipe is made with vanilla ice cream, strawberries, and milk. To add a little visual appeal as well as a hint of fudgy flavor, you'll be pouring the shake into a glass that's been drizzled (inside, of course) with a few squirts of chocolate syrup. If you want to dress up your drink even more, squirt on some whipped cream, add more chocolate syrup, then plop a whole berry on top.

Recipe: Chocolate Drizzle Strawberry Milkshake

Strawberry cake made from a mix is bright pink in color, but it doesn't really taste much like berries. This cake, on the other hand, is a scratch-made vanilla bundt cake flavored with chopped strawberries. While the cake itself isn't pink on the outside (although it does have an attractive speckled effect once you cut into it), the glaze is made with pureed berries so it lends a nice pinkish hue. You can also add additional berries (sliced or whole) to the top of the cake as a garnish to make the flavor even more apparent.

Recipe: Strawberry Cake

Sometimes the simplest desserts are the best and these berries, at their core, are just what the name implies: fresh strawberries hollowed out and filled with Nutella (or any other brand of chocolate-hazelnut spread). Here, however, we're gilding the lily a bit by dipping the berries in melted chocolate as well, then rolling them in crushed hazelnuts. These extra steps are great if you're entertaining guests, but if you just want a quick snack, you can stick with the simpler, unadorned version of this treat.

Recipe: Nutella Stuffed Strawberries

Traditional margaritas can be somewhat astringent due to the tequila as well as the slight bitterness from the triple sec, but adding strawberries to the mix helps to smooth out and sweeten the flavor to a considerable extent. While you can still salt the rim of your glass if you wish, you could also lean into the sweeter side by going with a sugar rim, instead. If you don't want to take the time to freeze your berries prior to making the margarita, that won't be too much of a problem. You may just need to add a little extra ice if you'd like a thicker drink.

Recipe: Frozen Strawberry Margarita

While jams and jellies may be thickened with pectin, compotes tend to consist of little more than fruit simmered in sugar and water. Here, however, we're also adding a touch of lemon juice to help bring out the fresh strawberry flavor. As this compote is cooked in an Instant Pot, you'll need to factor in the necessary preheating and de-pressuring times. Plus it's not exactly set-and-forget since you'll need to spend some time stirring the mixture as it cooks. Still, the end result will make a great sweet topping for waffles, pancakes, or ice cream.

Recipe: Instant Pot Strawberry Compote

Miniature desserts are not only cute but are also greatly appreciated by people who don't want to eat a heaping helping of sweet stuff. These portion-controlled cheesecakes aren't too difficult to put together as they're baked in paper-lined miniature muffin cups. The cheesecake itself is the plain, unflavored kind, but each itty bitty cake is topped off with a single strawberry slice to add just the right amount of fresh fruit flavor. If you'd like to dress the cheesecakes up even further, though, you could always brush a little melted strawberry jelly over the tops.

Recipe: Mini Strawberry Cheesecake Bites

Start your day off in a very berry way by cooking up a batch of strawberry pancakes. As is the case with muffins, strawberries are not used as a pancake mix-in nearly as often as blueberries. But for this reason, they make for a refreshing change. There are no particular tricks needed to make the pancakes in this recipe as you'll just be mixing up a standard type of batter, then stirring in some chopped fresh berries. While regular pancake syrup would taste just fine as a topper, it might be fun to double down on the fruit flavor by using strawberry compote, instead (scroll up for recipe).

Recipe: Fluffy Strawberry Pancakes

If you want a dessert that's on the more nutritious side, you may want to pass on chocolate-dipped strawberries and try dipping your fruit in yogurt, instead. Yes, yogurt doesn't exactly solidify on its own the way melted chocolate will once it cools, but if you pop the berries into the freezer for a bit, it will freeze into a nice crunchy coating. This recipe calls for vanilla yogurt, but you could experiment with other flavors, as well. If you don't mind just a touch of added sugar, you could also drizzle your yogurt-coated berries with a small amount of melted chocolate.

Recipe: Yogurt-Dipped Strawberries

This strawberry salad actually is a true salad. It starts with a base of greens, as so many salads do, and in addition to strawberries, includes sunflower seeds to bring a bit of crunch and feta crumbles lending a little cheesiness. The dressing is a honey-sweetened balsamic vinaigrette, as this pairs perfectly with strawberries. While most salads are dressed at the last minute, this one can be tossed with the vinaigrette well in advance of serving since the wilted-green effect actually works quite well here.

Recipe: Strawberry Salad

Tiramisu is typically a dessert that tastes of coffee and chocolate, although many recipes add some type of alcohol despite its not being original to the dish. Giada De Laurentiis' version of tiramisu is a fairly typical (albeit slightly boozy) one, but our fresh take on her recipe adds one extra element. Yep, you guessed it: We're tossing in some sliced strawberries. These add visual and textural interest to the dish as well as a hint of tartness that complements the tang from the mascarpone cheese. If you don't want to add rum, you can replace this ingredient with extra coffee or simply omit it since that only lowers the amount of liquid by 2 teaspoons, which won't make that much of a difference.

Recipe: Giada's Tiramisu

This dessert pizza looks so cute, it's the kind of thing you might want to make for a party or even a birthday. The best part about it, though, is how incredibly easy it is to make. All you need to do for the crust is to bake refrigerated sugar cookie dough in a pan without spacing the cookies too far apart; that way they'll all spread into one big block. Spread softened cream cheese on the cookie block – this recipe calls for the plain kind, but you might want to add some sugar or even opt for strawberry-flavored cream cheese if you'd prefer a sweeter dessert. To finish off your strawberry pizza, you'll top it with sliced strawberries, of course.

Recipe: Easy Strawberry Dessert Pizza

Strawberry shortcake may be a summertime classic, but it's one that many people are unable to enjoy due to the fact that the biscuits are often made with ingredients such as butter, milk, and/or sour cream, and the dessert is topped with whipped cream. In this vegan version, however, the dairy in the biscuits is replaced with plant-based milk and butter, while the topping is made from whipped coconut milk flavored with orange juice. The one inviolable element, however, is the strawberries, but luckily this fruit is 100% plant-based. (Because how could fruit be anything else?)

Recipe: Charity Morgan's Vegan Strawberry-Orange Shortcake

Traditional Spanish-style sangria is typically made with red wine (Spanish, of course) enhanced with orange and lemon juice, maybe some orange liqueur, and chopped fruits that often include oranges, lemons, and apples. This lighter, more summery version, however, is based on white wine (not necessarily Spanish) mixed with plain seltzer and flavored with strawberry-basil syrup. The sangria is then garnished with sliced strawberries to give the drink its distinctive fruit cup element.  

Recipe: Summery Strawberry Sangria

Icebox cakes may be trendy, but, as the name implies, the whole concept is a pretty old-fashioned one since it dates back to the days when refrigerators were still called iceboxes. While many such cakes are chocolate ones, this one is a lighter, fruitier dessert made with nothing more than graham crackers, whipped topping, and sliced fresh strawberries. Layer these ingredients like a lasagna, then let the icebox – oops, we mean the fridge – do the rest of the work as the crunchy crackers magically transform into something much more cake-like. (The strawberries, however, remain very much the same.)

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Strawberry Icebox Cake

Bananas can serve as the bedrock of so many smoothies because they help to provide the thick, smooth texture that gives the drink its name. Just bananas and yogurt can make for a pretty boring blend, though, which is why most smoothies include other fruits, as well. This one incorporates dates for a fiber boost plus a little sweetness, but the real star is the strawberries that add a little tang and also lend the drink its blush-pink color.

Recipe: Strawberry Banana Smoothie

No-bake cheesecakes are far and away the easiest kind to make, so it's always nice to see a new recipe for one of these. This one incorporates chopped strawberries into the cake batter (if it's still called batter when it doesn't need cooking) and, interestingly enough, also adds some lime zest, as well. There are a few items in the ingredient list that you won't see in American supermarkets, though. For the double cream, you can simply substitute whipping cream 1:1. While the recipe calls for digestive biscuits, you can use graham crackers in their place for a typical cheesecake-style crust or swap them out for shortbread or even chocolate cookies, instead.

Recipe: Make-Ahead No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

While there is such a thing as a plain, lime-flavored frozen daiquiri, the one made with strawberries seems to be far and away the most popular variety. The best part of this basic recipe is that you can easily adjust it to suit your own personal preferences. You can reduce the amount of syrup and/or boost the lime juice if you prefer a drink that's more tart than sweet, and you can even replace the rum with cold water for a delicious nonalcoholic version.

Recipe: Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri

This extra-nutritious salad starts off with a base of iron-rich spinach, then piles on heart-healthy walnuts and fiber-packed strawberries. It even gets some calcium and protein from goat cheese, as well. The dressing, too, is quite healthy as it combines yet more strawberries with cider vinegar, olive oil, and honey. If you prefer that your salad dressing not be quite so sweet, though, you could always cut down on the amount of honey or even omit it altogether.

Recipe: Strawberry Walnut Salad

If you own an Instant Pot you may be using it for soups and stews and dried beans, but you could also put it to work making a batch of homemade jam. You'll first use the pressure cooker to soften up the berries, then the pot's saute setting will help to thicken up the jam. Since you're not actually canning the jam, though, it's best to refrigerate it right away and use it within a month. If this isn't possible, you can always freeze it to extend its shelf-life indefinitely.

Recipe: Instant Pot Homemade Strawberry Jam

Shoney's family restaurant has its hits and its misses, as is the case with most restaurants, but its strawberry pie is solidly in the former category. As Shoney's isn't quite as ubiquitous as similar chains such as IHOP or Denny's, though, you may never have experienced this glorious pie for yourself. Luckily, it's actually pretty easy to make at home. Take a pre-made pie crust (deep-dish will work best), then fill it with fresh berries. Cover the fruit with a Jell-O-based glaze, then chill it for a few hours until everything gels. There's no need for baking at all, which makes this a perfect dessert for those 90+ degree days when you really hate to heat up the kitchen.

Recipe: Copycat Shoney's Strawberry Pie

The standard type of sweet tea known and loved all over the South is usually made from black tea with plenty of sugar and may be served up with a wedge of lemon and a sprig of mint. This tea, on the other hand, is something entirely different. Well, almost entirely – it's equally sugary, but is made with green tea and gets some fruity tang from fresh strawberries instead of citrus. You can feel free, however, to tweak the sugar level to your taste and even squeeze in some lemon since this flavor plays nicely with berries.

Recipe: Strawberry Sweet Tea

This icebox cake, despite its name, is not at all old-fashioned, nor does it involve a simple mixture of strawberry and chocolate flavors. Instead, this very contemporary recipe spikes the macerated berries with chopped basil and lime. If you enjoy interesting new flavor combos, you may find that this dessert's right up your alley. If you have something a bit more traditional in mind, though, you can simply leave out the basil and lime and your chocolate-strawberry dessert will still be delicious (if a lot less trendy).

Recipe: Chocolate Strawberry Icebox Cake

When Giada De Laurentiis makes bruschetta, she may do so in a fairly typical way, topping sliced baguettes with tomatoes and mozzarella. Our version of her recipe retains the baguette slices and a bit of fresh basil, but the twist involves just about everything else. Instead of being a savory appetizer like Giada's bruschetta, our mascarpone and strawberry-topped toasts could actually make for a light and not-too-sweet dessert.

Recipe: Giada's Bruschetta With A Twist

Most copycat recipes are meant to recreate the original recipe as much as possible, but this recipe is actually another one that comes "with a twist." It does take the Pink Drink as its inspiration but omits the acai element, while the strawberry flavor comes from a teabag (Starbucks' version contains green coffee flavoring, but no tea). Yes, the flavor and texture might not be an exact dupe of the coffee chain's famous drink, but this recipe does omit the preservatives and makes use of fresh strawberries as a garnish in place of the dried ones used by Starbucks. 

Recipe: Copycat Starbucks Pink Drink

If you're not familiar with punch bowl cakes, these desserts (which are made out of leftover cake, but are not actually cakes themselves) are pretty much an American version of trifle. If you actually happen to own a punch bowl, you can certainly use one to construct this concoction of broken-up cake chunks, instant pudding, whipped cream, and strawberries. If not, the next-best choice would be any type of large see-through bowl. If you don't have one of these, either, you can always make mini punch bowl cakes in your choice of glassware. Rocks glasses would work great, but wine glasses would also be cute.

Recipe: Easy Strawberry Punch Bowl Cake

With most types of candy, it would be a real stretch (or outright fabrication) to describe them as nutritious. This fruit and nut-studded candy bark, however, has a base of plain yogurt sweetened with honey. You could, of course, use fruit-flavored yogurt instead, and you could also use any other kind of nuts you like in place of the pistachios. Tweaks can be made to the fruit mix, as well, although we'd suggest retaining the strawberries because we are celebrating their month, after all.

Recipe: Easy Frozen Yogurt Bark

Eton College is one of the priciest boarding schools in Europe, so it kind of makes sense that their idea of a "mess" would actually be something that most of us would consider a rather attractive dessert. Perhaps the name given to the dessert created at this august institution was meant to refer to its simplicity. For all we know, anything so easy to throw together – Eton Mess is made of little more than broken-up meringues, whipped cream, and sweetened strawberries – is considered a mess. One origin story claims a strawberry dessert was ruined during a cricket match, and people ended up eating it from bowls. Regardless of how it got its name, we are all about easy-to-make, delicious desserts.

Recipe: Homemade Eton Mess

It might seem as if bananas would be the star ingredient in anything called a banana split cake, but in this recipe, they actually share equal billing with sliced strawberries. This cake-that-really-isn't-a-cake has a graham cracker crust on the bottom, followed by a layer of Cool Whip combined with sweetened cream cheese. The bananas and strawberries come next, with more Cool Whip (cream cheese-free) and a few stripes of chocolate syrup topping things off. Although the dessert shown here is decorated with maraschino cherries, you could opt to replace those with sliced strawberries as a better indicator of what lies beneath the cream.

Recipe: No-Bake Banana Split Cake Perfect For Ice Cream Lovers

While some smoothies aren't quite as healthy as they're cracked up to be, this one most certainly is. It's made with plain yogurt (only a small amount) and uses coconut water in place of milk. For a thickener, it has a banana, along with a few ice cubes, and it contains no sugar, honey, or any other type of sweetener. This extra-nutritious breakfast beverage isn't lacking in flavor, though, as there's some naturally-occurring sweetness from strawberries and peaches.

Recipe: Fresh Fruit Smoothie

Yes, this is the third strawberry shortcake recipe on the list, but who's counting? We also like to ensure there's a recipe for every occasion, though, and neither of the other ones was super-quick and easy so they might not be something you'd bake in a hurry. To make this simple shortcake, though, all you need to do is to cook up some biscuits from a can (dip them in sugar first for some extra sweetness and sparkle), then top them with whipped cream and sliced berries. If you want something even simpler, you can always use whipped topping from a tub or whipped cream that comes from a can.

Recipe: 5-Ingredient Strawberry Shortcake