Treat yourself to these crispy, buttery Strawberry Turnovers. Sweet strawberry filling wrapped in a puff pastry shell and topped with an easy glaze!
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Why Make This Recipe
- Bakery-quality treats at home: These flaky puff pastry turnovers are easily as good as anything you’ll find in a coffee shop or bakery. And there is nothing better than warm pastries right out of the oven!
- Recipe for all seasons: We use frozen strawberries to make the filling, so you can make this dish year-round.
- Change it up: Prefer blueberries or peaches? You can easily substitute other fruits to make all sorts of fruit turnover variations.
🥗 Ingredients
- Frozen Strawberries: We love using these year-round, as fresh strawberries are their most delicious for only a few weeks out of the year. You can substitute fresh strawberries in this recipe if you’d prefer, just note that you may need to add a little bit of water to the filling if looks like it is cooking too quickly and starting to scorch. You could also try filling these pastries with strawberry jam instead.
- Powdered Sugar: We use powdered sugar for both the filling and the glaze, to reduce the number of ingredients you need for this recipe. But you could replace the powdered sugar in the filling with regular granulated sugar or with a sugar substitute if you’d prefer.
- Puff Pastry Dough: Purchasing the puff pastry dough that is already in sheets really makes this recipe easy. But you can use a block of puff pastry dough as well, and just roll it out into a sheet. Look for all-butter puff pastry dough—it makes all the difference in texture and flavor.
- Milk: Any kind works! Feel free to use a non-dairy version.
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Defrost 8 ounces frozen strawberries for 5 minutes in the microwave, then chop. Add to saucepan with 3 tablespoons powdered sugar and bring to a low boil over medium heat, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar.
Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract in a small bowl. Then, stir into strawberries and simmer for 3 minutes, until mixture thickens. Stir vigorously to prevent scorching.
Scrape strawberry mixture into a bowl, and let cool completely. (Put into the refrigerator once the bowl is no longer hot.)
Roll out 1 sheet of puff pastry dough on a lightly floured surface to an 10.5-inch square, then cut each side evenly into 3 pieces, so you have a total of 9 squares.
Crack egg into a small bowl and whisk with a pinch of salt and a splash of water to make the egg wash.
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Use a pastry brush to paint two connecting edges of a square with egg wash.
Add about a tablespoon and ½ of the strawberry mixture to each square and fold over one side to make a triangle. Using a 1.5-inch cookie scoop makes this an easy job.
Crimp the sides with a fork to seal.
Repeat with remaining puff pastry squares.
Lay turnovers on the baking sheet, leaving an inch or two of space between them.
Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Put egg wash in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Remove baking sheet from the freezer, and paint each turnover with egg wash. Cut 3 slits in the top of each pastry, cutting all the way through the top layer of pastry.
Bake for 18-22 minutes, until pastries are golden brown.
While turnovers are baking, make a glaze by stirring together powdered sugar with milk.
Remove turnovers from oven. Use a spoon to push back any filling that has come out the sides of the turnovers.
When turnovers have cooled slightly, drizzle with the glaze.
🧐 Recipe FAQs for Strawberry Turnovers
Yes, this recipe is great for make-ahead. Follow the steps through chilling the turnovers in the freezer. When they have fully hardened (after about an hour), take them off the baking sheet and put into a freezer-safe ziplock bag. You can freeze these for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to bake, place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, paint with egg wash and proceed with the recipe. You may need to add a couple of minutes to the baking time.
These turnovers are best eaten within a few hours of being made. Even better if they are still warm! We highly recommend making them in advance (see above) and baking as you need them rather than baking more than you can eat in one sitting. If you do have leftovers though, store in the refrigerator, and warm up in an oven or air fryer for the crispiest pastry. (Ideally, store without the glaze, and add that after you reheat.)
By letting the dough become cold again, you’ll get a better rise out of the puff pastry since the butter layers within the dough will take longer to melt. This also helps the turnovers keep their shape better.
👩🍳 Expert Tips
Filling and sealing these strawberry pastries takes practice! We find the easiest way to do this is to pick up the square after you have added the strawberry filling cupping the folded edge in your palm. Then work your way around the two remaining sides pinching them together and trying to keep the filling in. The more filling you can get in there, the better!
The powdered sugar milk glaze is delicious and easy, but you can also just sprinkle these strawberry puff pastry turnovers with powdered sugar to serve.
Taste your strawberry filling before letting it cool. You may want to add more sugar if you like a sweeter filling. Conversely, if you are using fresh strawberries that are particularly sweet, you may not want to add as much sugar as the recipe calls for. In that case, hold back a tablespoon or two of sugar until you can taste the jam.
Make sure you wait until your filling has fully chilled before proceeding with the recipe. If you put hot filling on top of the puff pastry sheets, it will melt the butter in the pastry dough and make the turnovers impossible to form.
If you’d like to get a head start on the recipe but not make the full turnovers, you can easily make the strawberry filling in advance. Keep refrigerated until ready to use. Filling can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 days.
Now that you’ve got the technique down for these easy strawberry turnovers, want to try your hand at a savory version? These Bacon and Cheese Turnovers won’t disappoint!
Love strawberry desserts? You'll need to try this French Strawberry Tart and this easy Fresh Strawberry Cobbler next. This simple Strawberry Coulis is excellent drizzled on ice cream too!
Other Puff Pastry Desserts
We may be juuuussst slightly obsessed with puff pastry. If you love it as much as we do, please check out some of our other favorite recipes.
If you try this Strawberry Turnover recipe, we would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to us. And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter. We’d love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
📖 Recipe
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Strawberry Turnovers
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Turnovers:
- 8 ounces frozen strawberries
- 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry dough, thawed (8.8 ounces)
- 1 egg
For the Glaze:
- ¾ cup powdered sugar (3.2 ounces)
- 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
- Defrost strawberries for 5 minutes in the microwave, then chop.
- Add to saucepan with sugar and bring to a low boil over medium heat, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar.
- Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer for 2 minutes.
- Stir cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water and the vanilla extract in a small bowl.
- Stir into strawberries and simmer for 3 minutes, until mixture thickens. Stir vigorously to prevent scorching.
- Scrape strawberry mixture into a bowl, and let cool completely. (Put into the refrigerator once the bowl is no longer hot.)
- Roll out puff pastry dough on a lightly floured surface to an 10.5-inch square, then cut each side evenly into 3 pieces, so you have a total of 9 squares.
- Crack egg into a small bowl and whisk with a pinch of salt and a splash of water to make the egg wash.
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Use a pastry brush to paint two connecting edges of a square with egg wash.
- Add about a tablespoon and ½ of the strawberry mixture to each square and fold over one side to make a triangle.
- Crimp the sides with a fork to seal.
- Repeat with remaining puff pastry squares.
- Lay turnovers on the baking sheet, leaving an inch or two of space between them.
- Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes. Put egg wash in the refrigerator.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Remove baking sheet from the freezer, and paint each turnover with egg wash.
- Cut 3 slits in the top of each pastry, cutting all the way through the top layer of pastry.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes, until pastries are golden brown.
- While turnovers are baking, make a glaze by stirring together powdered sugar with milk.
- Remove turnovers from oven.
- Use a spoon to push back any filling that has come out the sides of the turnovers.
- When turnovers have cooled slightly, drizzle with the glaze.
Notes
Follow the steps through chilling the turnovers in the freezer. When they have fully hardened (after about an hour), take off the baking sheet and put into a freezer-safe ziplock bag. You can freeze these for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to bake, place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, paint with egg wash and proceed with the recipe. You may need to add a couple of minutes to the baking time.
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made these homemade Strawberry Turnovers, tag us @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because we’d love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
bakergirlmd says
I wanted to like the recipe, truly, but found the filling bland and puff pastry not great even with the glaze. Not worth repeating, and a waste of ingredients.
Tam says
Can you make the filling a couple of days ahead and keep it refrigerated?
Molly Pisula says
Definitely! That might make it easier to work with as well since it won't be as runny.
Joy Havner says
I had to scrimp on the chill times, but otherwise followed the instructions and these still turned out great. Thank you.
Molly Pisula says
Glad to hear it! Thanks so much for letting me know.
Julie Ann Sardon says
I'm wondering if I can use jam instead of cooking down some kind of fruit? Jam would be nice and thick so I'm thinking that might work?
Molly Pisula says
Sure, you could do that. I'd recommend a nice thick jam with chunks of fruit in it. If you try it, I'd love to know how it came out!
Kandy says
These aren't homemade. You use a commercial pastry filled with chemicals and processed oils! These are fast and easy only.
Molly Pisula says
Your definition of homemade is obviously different than mine. You can use whatever puff pastry dough you like. I do recommend all-butter puff pastry dough in the ingredients section of the post, and of course you can make your own dough as well. But even with a packaged dough, these are much more homemade than the turnovers you can buy in the freezer section of a grocery store.
Sarah says
Kandy, your personality doesn't match your name. Relax, it's a great recipe. Make your own dough and tell us how nice it turned out and perhaps suggest we try it instead of whining about it.