Strawberry Buttercream Frosting Recipe - Sally's Baking Addiction

Let me teach you how to make naturally flavored (and naturally colored) strawberry buttercream frosting. The secret is to replace some confectioners’ sugar with freeze-dried strawberry powder. This strawberry buttercream is ultra creamy and smooth, with loads of real strawberry flavor.

Originally published in 2017. New photos & success tips added in 2023.

Let’s talk about how to make naturally flavored, naturally pink strawberry buttercream frosting.

Have you ever tried making frosting with fresh strawberries? I have, and the results were disastrous. I chopped up the strawberries, even blotted the moisture a little bit, pureed them, and then added it to a vanilla frosting. The buttercream instantly curdled as a result of the excess moisture—yuck! Same thing happened with strawberry jam, which also made the frosting too sweet.

Instead of relying on artificial strawberry flavor, I tried a trick I learned while writing my cookbook Sally’s Candy Addiction. Use freeze-dried strawberry powder!

I have a recipe for strawberry buttercream candies in that cookbook—they’re actually the pretty pink striped candies you see on the cover. The filling is creamy and smooth with lots of concentrated strawberry flavor, which comes from—you guessed it—ground freeze-dried strawberries. I decided to make actual strawberry frosting the same exact way. If you’d like a visual guide for how to make it, watch the video tutorial in the recipe card below.

It’s really easy.

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Strawberry Buttercream Frosting (6 Ingredients)

1. Freeze-Dried Strawberries: You’ll grind these into a powder. Want to make a raspberry buttercream? Use freeze-dried raspberries instead.
2. Unsalted Butter: Start with room temperature butter. Room temperature butter is actually cooler than you think. If the butter is too warm, the frosting will be greasy.
3. Confectioners’ Sugar: Confectioners’ sugar is the bulk of this frosting, sweetening it and binding the ingredients together.
4. Heavy Cream or Milk: Liquid thins out and adds creaminess to the frosting. You can use heavy cream, milk, or even half-and-half.
5. Vanilla Extract: Vanilla extract adds incredible flavor.
6. Salt: A pinch of salt offsets all the sweetness.

That’s it! No artificial flavoring or food coloring in this pretty pink strawberry frosting.

Grind the freeze-dried strawberries into powder using a food processor or blender:

Success Tip for Super Smooth Strawberry Buttercream:

If you prefer a smoother strawberry buttercream, with none of the teeny-tiny seeds, you can sift out the seeds and larger pieces of the ground freeze-dried strawberries with a fine mesh sieve, and use just the super-fine strawberry dust. If I have an extra minute, I usually do this.

The rest of the recipe is similar to making regular vanilla buttercream or chocolate buttercream. You’ll need a handheld or stand mixer to cream the butter, and beat all of the ingredients together.

Where Can I Buy Freeze-Dried Strawberries?

I always find freeze-dried strawberries in my regular grocery store in the dried fruit aisle. Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, some dollar stores, Target, and Amazon carry them.

Do not use “dried strawberries,” which are chewy like raisins or dried apricots. They have a gummy texture and don’t grind into a powder. You need freeze-dried strawberries, which have all of the moisture removed. They’re the same strawberries we use in strawberry and cream cookies.

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What Tastes Best With Strawberry Buttercream?

The flavor-combo possibilities are endless! This recipe makes enough for a dozen cupcakes, a 3-layer 6-inch cake, or a 9×13-inch quarter sheet cake. I would 1.5x the recipe for a 2-layer cake.

I also halve the recipe and use it to fill these chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes.

Strawberry Frosting Variations

If you love strawberry buttercream frosting, you’ll also love these delicious variations!

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