How To Make Strawberry Kakigori (Shaved Ice) With Fresh Strawberry Syrup

During the summer months, Japanese people love enjoying kakigori, or shaved ice. It’s a popular dessert sold all summer long, and you can find it on restaurant and cafe menus all over Japan.

Kakigori looks like a mountain of shaved ice, and it is always topped with a generous amount of fruity, colorful syrup. When you take a bite, you instantly feel the slightly crunchy yet fluffy texture of the ice followed by the sweet fruitiness from the syrup. It’s like eating fruity-flavored snow.

We’ve previously shared a recipe for Uji Kintoki, which is a more traditional way to enjoy kakigori with matcha. In this recipe, we’d like to share a fruitier way to enjoy Japanese shaved ice – strawberry kakigori!

We will be making homemade syrup for our kakigori with real strawberries. It has the perfect balance of sweetness and sourness and just the right amount of fruity strawberry flavor – perfect for strawberry lovers!

When making kakigori at home, you don’t need to run to the Japanese or Asian supermarket to purchase any special ingredients. As long as you have ice cubes, fruits, sugar, and a shaved ice maker or blender that is capable of blending ice, you can make kakigori at home. You can also use sweetened condensed milk to make your homemade kakigori a little bit sweeter if you wish.

We will be using frozen strawberries to make the kakigori syrup, but you can also use fresh strawberries if they are available. You can make the syrup in advance and keep it in the refrigerator for up to a week. You can also use it as a topping for ice cream, pancakes, or whatever your heart desires.

We hope that you’ll enjoy our strawberry kakigori recipe and try making it for yourself at home. Let us know in the comments below how it turns out!