Strawberry Cream Cheese

This strawberry cream cheese comes together in minutes with beautifully fresh, fruity flavor! Spread on bagels, toast and more.

Love a good sweet schmear on your bagel? Try this delightful homemade Strawberry Cream Cheese! The flavor is so much tastier than the kind you can find at the store. It’s bright and fruity, with just the right light amount of sweetness. Use it for slathering bagels or toast, or even as a dip for strawberries (yum!). Or, it’s great as part of a spread of homemade cream cheeses for a bagel brunch. It takes just 5 minutes to whip up: so let’s get started!

Ingredients in strawberry cream cheese

This strawberry cream cheese is bursting with fresh flavor because it’s made with real fruit! You just need three ingredients for this recipe. You’ll use just enough fresh berries to bring flavor to the spread, but not so many that it becomes watery or too loose. (This is a concern when whipping liquid into cream cheese.) Here’s what you’ll need:

• Cream cheese
• Fresh strawberries
• Sugar

How to soften cream cheese

It’s important to soften the cream cheese prior to making any type of flavored cream cheese. Here are two ways to do it:

• Leave the cheese out at room temperature for about 30 minutes to 1 hour, until it’s room temperature.
• Microwave the cheese for a few seconds. Place it on a plate in the microwave, cook 5 seconds, flip over the block of cheese and cook another 5 seconds. (If it’s not room temperature at this point, cook another few seconds, but air on the conservative side.)

Tips for strawberry cream cheese

This strawberry cream cheese comes together quickly once you’ve got the ingredients on hand. Here are a few tips (or head to the recipe below):

• Use a food processor or stand mixer. We like using a food processor because it gets the strawberries more chopped and integrated, but a stand mixer works too! It makes for a slightly chunkier texture.
• Don’t overwhip! Mix the strawberries and sugar into the softened cream cheese by pulsing gently several times. Try not to overwhip the cream cheese, as it can become too soft and liquid.
• The texture firms up in the refrigerator. The texture should be soft right away: it then firms up slightly when refrigerated. You can use immediately or store up to 2 weeks!

That’s it! The strawberry cream cheese comes out with a luxuriously light texture, perfect for spreading on bagels, toast, sandwiches and more.

Ways to serve strawberry cream cheese

There are lots of ways to serve this tasty spread: of course, it’s best on a toasted bagel! But here are a few more ideas:

• Bagels, especially in a bagel brunch with other flavored cream cheese
• Toast with sliced strawberries or bananas, with a drizzle of honey
• Fruit dip for strawberries, bananas, pineapple, or apple slices
• Dip for graham crackers or pretzels (salty sweet!)

More homemade cream cheese recipes

A fun entertaining idea? Make up a few homemade cream cheese flavors and serve as a brunch or bagel board! Here are a few more flavors we love:

• Try garden Veggie Cream Cheese
• Opt for simple Whipped Cream Cheese
• Go for fresh Herb Cream Cheese or Chive Cream Cheese
• Try sweetly spiced Cinnamon Cream Cheese

Looking for more inspiration? Go to 20 Tasty Cream Cheese Recipes.

01

Veggie Cream Cheese

02

Herb Cream Cheese

03

Whipped Cream Cheese

04

Chive Cream Cheese

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