Easy Homemade Strawberry Sherbet is a sweet-tart, light, refreshing frozen dessert made with fresh luscious strawberries. The perfect ending to the perfect meal, this simple sherbet ice cream recipe only takes minutes to prepare, and then your ice cream maker takes over.
Rinse and pat dry the strawberries with paper towels. Then remove any leaves or stems and quarter the strawberries.
Combine the berries, granulated sugar, and Karo syrup in a large bowl. Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes to macerate the berries and amp up their flavor.
Pour this mixture into the bowl of your food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process the strawberries until the mixture is smooth. This should only take a minute or so.
Add the berry puree, buttermilk, and lemon juice to a large bowl and stir until everything is combined. Cover and place this mixture in the refrigerator for four hours or until it has cooled to 40 degrees F.
Add the mixture to the bowl of your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's directions to churn the sherbet. This should take around 20 minutes.
Transfer the strawberry sherbet to an airtight storage container and allow it to harden in the freezer for about two hours. Then, take it out of the freezer about 10 minutes before you plan to serve it to make it easy to scoop.
Notes
You can substitute frozen strawberries in this recipe, and they do not need to be thawed first. If you do use frozen, you can skip the step of cooling down the mixture prior to freezing it.If you don't have a food processor, you can use a blender to puree the berries. Strawberries have tiny seeds. I don't strain them out, but if you prefer to remove the seeds, you will need to pour the pureed fruit mixture through a fine wire strainer or piece of cheesecloth before combining it with the other ingredients.I used a Cuisinart Electric Ice Cream Maker with a two-quart bowl to make this recipe, but any type of ice cream maker will work.Instead of rinsing my strawberries under running water, I have found the easiest way to clean them is to use a salad spinner. I put the berries in the spinner basket, fill it with water, swish the basket around and then let them sit for a minute or two. Then, lift out the basket and let them drain. You will be surprised at the dirt and debris you will find in the water.