23 Berry Recipes To Make The Most Of Summer

Of all the sweet, delicious fruits out there, there's just something about berries so many people seem to love. Whether your preferred berry is a red, ripe strawberry; a sweet, sunkissed blueberry; or a dark, juicy blackberry — or whether you don't play favorites — you surely appreciate the bright color, sweetness, and acidity that berries bring to a wide range of dishes.

Mostly spotted in desserts, berries show up in some of the most classic recipes out there, such as strawberry cheesecake, blueberry scones, and blackberry cobbler — but they've also been known to make surprise appearances in savory dishes such as chicken salad.

If you've got a hankering for berries, we totally get it, and to that end, we've rounded up our very favorite berry recipes — all in one place. Feel free to browse, bookmark, and have a "berry" lovely time in the kitchen: Here are 23 berry recipes for your cooking and baking pleasure.

Strawberries and rhubarb go together like peanut butter and jelly, with sweet, juicy strawberries balancing out the tartness of the rhubarb. Often combined in a pie, on this occasion they join forces in a tart, which tends to be more shallow and based on crumbly shortbread as opposed to a flaky pastry crust.

This delectable tart features a rich custard that bakes around the fruit. The whole thing is finished with a dusting of powdered sugar and an optional sprinkling of chopped pistachios for a pop of green.

Recipe: Strawberry Rhubarb Custard Tart

If you've ever dined out in the American south, you've likely encountered a bowl or two of warm peach cobbler: This dessert is king across the region, according to Culture Trip, utilizing the sweet, fragrant stone fruit. Simpler than making a pie (because you don't have to roll out any dough) the dessert is "cobbled" together by tossing sliced fruit with sugar, flavorings, and some flour to thicken the juices as the cobbler bakes. Generous dollops of batter are added to the top, which bake up into a beautiful golden crust.

This recipe brings blackberries into the mix, which make a wonderfully tart companion to sweet summer peaches.

Recipe: Blackberry Peach Cobbler

You'd be hard-pressed to find a dessert lover that doesn't enjoy strawberry cheesecake, a classic combination of a New York-style cheesecake base that's topped with fresh strawberries or a sweet glaze. Although the dessert is delectable, most versions are pretty labor-intensive: Not so with these no-bake bars from recipe developer and dietitian Jaime Shelbert, which feature all the familiar flavors of strawberry cheesecake but require just 15 minutes of prep.

This no-bake strawberry cheesecake sees the berries blended right into the cheesecake base, then poured into a waiting graham cracker crust. The dessert is frozen for four hours (or refrigerated overnight) until the filling is dense and creamy. Cut into bars and topped with whipped cream and additional strawberries, this is a simple and irresistible cheesecake.

Recipe: Strawberry Cheesecake Bars

A classic pastry that makes an excellent companion to milky tea or a hot cup of coffee, buttery, flaky scones are always a welcome sight at breakfast, brunch, or afternoon tea.

This recipe features a crumbly, buttery base that's mixed with blueberries and plenty of fresh lemon zest, flattened into a large round, and then cut into triangles. The scones are brushed with heavy cream, which helps them take on a burnished crust in the oven, and baked until golden brown on the outside and tender and steamy on the inside. Finally, the treats are drizzled with a simple lemon-vanilla glaze, and are ready to take their place alongside your hot beverage of choice.

Recipe: Lemon Blueberry Scones

If you've never heard of spoon cake, let this be your cue to try one — this one — today. Easy, one-bowl cakes that don't require any special cooking equipment (not even an electric mixer!) spoon cakes are sort of like a cross between a lighter cake and a denser cobbler, and are typically studded with fresh fruit. In this case, that fruit is sliced strawberries, which are quickly mashed with sugar, spooned over the waiting brown sugar-and-vanilla cake batter, and absorbed by the fragrant cake as it bakes.

Served warm right out of the oven, this spoon cake is best enjoyed with a scoop of vanilla ice cream that will melt into the portion of cake.

Recipe: Strawberry Spoon Cake

When you bake up a tray of cookies, you might regularly reach for a bag of chocolate chips or some dried fruit to mix into the dough ... but why not mix in some fresh fruit instead?

Studded with white chocolate chips and sweet raspberries, these tempting cookies emerge from the oven soft and chewy. While they're still warm the cookies are sprinkled with crushed freeze-dried raspberries to bring some added tartness and a fun hot-pink look to the treats. Served alongside a glass of milk or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, these cookies are an ideal way to enjoy your daily serving of fruit.

Recipe: White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

Who among us doesn't enjoy a big bowl of creamy, comforting oatmeal in the morning? And by the same token, who among us wants to be standing, bleary-eyed, over a hot stove before our morning coffee has even kicked in? That's where overnight oats can be a lifesaver: Prepared the night before by soaking rolled oats in a flavor-imbued liquid, by morning the oats have plumped up and are ready to eat.

In this recipe, the oats soak in a mixture of milk and Greek yogurt that's sweetened with strawberry jam and honey, with some fresh sliced strawberries folded in for good measure. In the morning, all you have to do is grab your perfectly creamy oats and dig in — no cooking necessary. (Though you may want to top the oats with a few more sliced strawberries, if you're up for wielding a knife.)

Recipe: Strawberry Overnight Oats

You may have eaten raspberry cake, and you may have eaten coconut cake, but have you ever thought to combine the two in one dessert? That's exactly what recipe developer Jenine Bryant does here, calling upon these two fruit all-stars to recreate a cake the Norwich-based recipe developer remembers from childhood. "In England, raspberry coconut cake is a classic [children's] kind of cake, so it really takes me back to childhood and brings back fond memories!" Bryant shares.

Made with desiccated coconut — which  Alpha Foodie explains is ground finer than shredded coconut – and fresh or frozen raspberries, the buttery loaf-style cake is brushed with raspberry jam, sprinkled with additional coconut, and decorated with additional raspberries before being served alongside "a nice cup of English tea," via Bryant, natch. You also can't go wrong adding a little chocolate, in the form of chips mixed in or a drizzle on top.

Recipe: Raspberry Coconut Cake

Bruschetta probably makes you think of Italian-style garlicky chopped tomatoes atop toasted rounds of bread, but did you know that you can prepare bruschetta using sweet, seasonal fruit?

This summery version features sliced strawberries, which crown crispy slices of baguette that have been spread with creamy, tangy goat cheese. The toasts are topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of fresh basil and make a great appetizer or party snack. The perfect balance of sweet and savory, this recipe could also be served as a dessert, depending on your preferences.

Recipe: Strawberry Bruschetta

If you love pie but making it at home has been anything but easy in the past, then you'll want to try your hand at our easy raspberry pie, which utilizes premade shortcrust pastry. (If you live in the U.S. or have trouble sourcing the ingredient you can use frozen or refrigerated pie crust instead.)

Featuring a simple but flavorful filling of fresh or frozen raspberries, cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and lemon juice, the fruit is piled into a bottom crust, latticed with more dough over the top, and then brushed with beaten egg so it browns beautifully in the oven. In less than an hour, you'll have a delicious fruit pie that is ready to be sliced and enjoyed with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or crème fraiche.

Recipe: Easy Raspberry Pie

If you're craving a treat that falls somewhere between a pie and a quickbread, then this simple strawberry cobbler would be an excellent choice. With a prep time of just 15 minutes, the easy dessert consists of a simple vanilla-scented batter that's poured into a baking dish and topped with sliced strawberries that have been tossed with cornstarch, sugar, and lemon juice. Once popped into a 350-degree oven, the batter puffs up around the berries, encasing them in a soft, fluffy cake.

Serve the cobbler warm with a scoop of vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.

Recipe: Strawberry Cobbler

If you've noticed that we've included a lot of cobbler recipes on this list, there's a reason: Sweet, juicy berries just happen to combine beautifully with cobbler dough — and the dessert is simple to make, too.

In this instance, juicy blackberries are the fruit of choice: After being tossed with sugar, the berries are simply scattered over the top of an easy batter that has been poured into a hot, buttered baking dish. After about 40 minutes in the oven, the fruit and batter unite into one steaming, irresistible dessert that cries out for vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Recipe: Southern Blackberry Cobbler

If you loved Jell-O as a kid, then as an adult you might want to try stirring together panna cotta, a creamy dairy-based Italian dessert that's thickened and set with gelatin.

Typically made from a base of heavy cream, this panna cotta recipe features fresh strawberry juice, lending a bright berry flavor and a lovely pale pink color to the finished dessert. After activating the gelatin with warm milk, cream, vanilla, sugar, and strawberry is stirred in. It's then poured into individual ramekins and left to chill. After eight hours in the fridge the elegant dessert turns soft, creamy, and just a little jiggly.

Recipe: Strawberry Panna Cotta

Yes, another blueberry scone recipe — because you really can't have just one. This version of blueberry scones omits the lemon zest of our other recipe shared, giving you all the sweet flavors the fruit has to offer with none of the balancing bite. 

While they're an item some of us like to pick up at a bakery, scones are none too complicated to make at home, as this recipe ably demonstrates. The dough comes together using flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, and heavy cream, into which a liberal quantity of frozen, grated butter is stirred — this recipe's key to flaky scones. The recipe's star, fresh blueberries, are gently stirred in before the dough is rolled out and cut into triangles. After 15 minutes in a 400-degree oven, the scones emerge tender, steaming, and ready to be split and spread with butter, jam, or clotted cream.

Recipe: Blueberry Scone

As delicious as smooth, creamy ice cream can be on a hot summer day, cold, tart sorbet can be even more refreshing in the sweltering heat. And what better ingredient with which to make the icy treat than ruby-red strawberries?

In this simple sorbet — which doesn't even require an ice cream maker — just three ingredients, frozen strawberries, superfine sugar, and lemon juice, are blended until smooth. Once poured into a loaf pan, the sorbet is frozen for about two hours, after which it's ready to be enjoyed as-is or piled into an ice cream cone.

Recipe: Strawberry Sorbet

Similar in appearance and flavor to a blackberry, if you've never munched on a dewberry before you're missing out. A favorite of recipe developer Kristen Carli, the berries serve as the sweet inspiration for this warm, fluffy cobbler.

To make the dewberry cobbler, gently cooked sugared dewberries — Carli notes that you can substitute fresh or frozen blackberries if you're unable to source the regional berries featured here — are spooned over a simple cobbler batter and baked until the cake and syrupy fruit mesh. Served warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, this special cobbler is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

Recipe: Easy Dewberry Cobbler

While most of us likely think of lettuces, greens, and vegetables when we think of salad ingredients, juicy fruit can make a wonderful addition to these nutritious creations.

In this fresh bowl of baby spinach and slivered red onions, strawberries add a pop of color and sweetness. A bunch of other tasty toppings — including sliced pan-seared chicken, chopped pecans, and crumbled goat cheese — help keep the dish on the savory side. The salad is tossed with a bright Champagne vinegar dressing and can be enjoyed as a main dish, appetizer, or side.

Recipe: Strawberry Chicken Salad

Lemon and blueberry are a classic combination, with tart citrus fruit perfectly complementing the sweetness of ripe blueberries. In this pie, the duo shines in a simple filling that also contains cornstarch (for thickening), sugar, salt, and butter. Once transferred to a bottom crust — store-bought, if you want to keep things simple — the pie gets finished with a lattice crust. After about 45 minutes in the oven and a cool-down period, the simple, fresh pie is ready to be enjoyed au naturel or with a fluff of whipped cream and sprinkling of lemon zest.

Recipe: Lemon Blueberry Pie

With an easy cream-cheese-and-whipped-topping filling that's flavored with both fresh strawberries and strawberry jam, this dead-simple, no-bake cheesecake comes together in just 10 minutes — though you'll have to wait an additional two hours for the dessert to chill in the freezer before sinking a fork into it.

Set atop a classic graham cracker crust, the creamy, bright pink cheesecake filling is a perfect way to enjoy ripe, red strawberries.

Recipe: No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

A traditional French dessert that's similar to a puffy Dutch baby pancake, clafoutis can be enjoyed for breakfast alongside a cup of strong coffee or as a dessert accompanied by whipped cream. The recipe is as simple as simple gets, calling for an eggy flour batter that gets poured into a cast iron skillet along with plenty of fresh blueberries. Once baked in a 350-degree oven, the pancake-like dessert puffs and goes golden brown, and the fruit's sweetness concentrates deliciously.

Recipe: Best Blueberry Clafoutis

This creamy, dreamy pie is one you'll want to have in your back pocket for any last-minute gatherings, as it requires only about eight minutes of active prep time and just one hour spent chilling in the fridge.

In the strawberry pie recipe, a simple filling of cream cheese and whipped topping are stirred together and then poured into a premade graham cracker crust. Then, sweetened, thickened fresh strawberries that have been cooked and cooled are poured over the top of the waiting pie. After an hour in the fridge, the two-layer, strawberry cheesecake-like dessert is ready to enjoy alongside a cup of coffee or tea.

Recipe: French Strawberry Pie

Kind of like a fancy Jell-O mold, blancmange is a European gelatin-based dessert that often features the flavors of almond and vanilla. This raspberry version is a beautiful way to showcase the sweet, tart fruit, turning out pale pink and impressive in its height and shape.

To make our raspberry blancmange, raspberries are puréed until smooth and then strained in order to remove the seeds. The liquid raspberries are then blended into the blancmange base, consisting of heavy cream, milk, flour, sugar, almond meal, and vanilla extract. Once poured into a large gelatin mold, the dessert has to chill in the fridge overnight, after which it emerges tender and jiggly, perfect for serving with additional fresh raspberries.

Recipe: Classic Raspberry Blancmange

Short of eating it raw, crisps might just be the best way to showcase sweet, seasonal produce, allowing the fruit to take center stage as it bubbles up, warm, underneath a crisp layer of streusel-like topping that typically includes oats and brown sugar.

This summery strawberry rhubarb version sees the two seasonal ingredients tossed with sugar and arrowroot starch and left a few minutes to macerate and thicken up. Meanwhile, the crumb topping is stirred together: brown sugar, flour, old-fashioned oats, chopped pecans, and cold butter. Once transferred to a buttered baking dish, the fruit filling is scattered with the sweet crumble, then baked in a 350-degree oven until warm, fragrant, and crying out for a cold scoop of ice cream.

Recipe: Easy Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp