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• purée
  purée

  noun

  a cooked food, especially a vegetable or fruit, that has been put through a sieve, blender, or the like.
• puree
  puree

  noun

  an unleavened flaky Indian bread, that is deep-fried in ghee and served hot

purée

American  

[pyoo-rey, -ree, pyoor-ey] / pjʊˈreɪ, -ˈri, ˈpjʊər eɪ /

Or puree

noun

• purées
  plural

1. a cooked food, especially a vegetable or fruit, that has been put through a sieve, blender, or the like.

2. a soup made with ingredients that have been puréed.

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verb (used with object)

puréed, puréeing

1. to make a purée of.

purée ¹ British  

/ ˈpjʊəreɪ /

noun

1. a smooth thick pulp of cooked and sieved fruit, vegetables, meat, or fish

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verb

1. (tr) to make (cooked foods) into a purée

puree ² British  

/ ˈpuːrɪ /

noun

1. an unleavened flaky Indian bread, that is deep-fried in ghee and served hot

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• purées
  plural

Etymology

Origin of purée

1700–10; < French, noun use of feminine past participle of purer to strain, literally, make pure; see pure

Explanation

A puree is a very smooth, crushed or blended food — like applesauce or mashed potatoes. To puree something is to blend, chop, mash, or strain a food until it reaches this soft consistency. If it tastes like mush, then it's a puree! You might think of purees as baby food, and it's true that a vegetable or fruit puree is the perfect first food for a baby to eat before she has teeth. There are plenty of things that adults like to puree too, though, like chickpeas (to make hummus) and avocados (to make guacamole). Puree is from the French purée, "pea soup."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

purée puree purées puréed puréeing

A can of pumpkin purée for making pies on Thanksgiving is $5 on the American food store website, and it’s difficult to find a turkey.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026

Police in Austria have warned about potentially poisoned HiPP baby food circulating in the country, after a sample of the brand's purée tested positive for rat poison.

From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2026

My favorite dish of the night followed: tawa-charred octopus served with cauliflower purée, fennel and crunchy rice for texture, all brightened with yuzu-lime chaat aioli and an orange glaze.

From Salon ● Mar. 7, 2026

“It’s sparkling water, sugar-free pineapple, sugar-free peach, sugar-free vanilla, raspberry purée with a fresh lime.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026

The jerricans smelled of petrol, and I saw packs of batteries, bottles of oil, and cans of tomato purée in one box.

From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo

You can also make a puree using two parts oil to one part garlic.

From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2026

“You would be surprised by how many ingredients you can turn into a syrup, puree, paste or concentrate,” Rajendran says.

From Salon ● Jan. 17, 2026

In the course of the 20th century, tomatoes became ubiquitous enough in Egyptian cuisine to make “salsa” a usual word for sauce and, more specifically, tomato puree.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2025

Sarah Champion’s comments come after a BBC Eye Investigation found that tomato puree sold in four leading UK supermarkets appeared to contain tomatoes produced using harsh and coercive forced labour in Xinjiang.

From BBC ● Dec. 3, 2024

For dinner we had a woodcock with souffle potatoes and puree de marron, a salad, and zabaione for dessert.

From "A Farewell To Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

On Saturday, HiPP recalled its entire range of jarred purées sold in Spar supermarkets in Austria, saying consuming them many be potentially "life-threatening".

From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2026

That’s what the creator of the chain Swig calls spiking Coke, Mountain Dew or Dr Pepper with fruit purées and flavored creams, served in plastic cups stuffed with pebble ice.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026

Fruit purées can also be transformed into high-impact components: grilled peach with shoyu, roasted apricot with miso, fig with ponzu.

From Salon ● May 16, 2025

Ali Slagle’s version can be made with fresh, canned or frozen corn, and she purées some of the kernels to thicken it up.

From New York Times ● Oct. 10, 2022

All soups are improved by a dash of onion, unless it is the white soups, or purées from chicken, veal, fish, etc.

From My Pet Recipes, Tried and True Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec by Various

“I was on a tube feeder then a puréed diet for a couple months. Then speech and swallow therapy. Then a vocal coach.”

From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026

But demand has grown in recent decades as scientists have trumpeted the fruit’s health benefits and as packaged forms — frozen, puréed, freeze-dried, powdered — have made it more accessible.

From New York Times ● May 12, 2023

In a food processor or high-speed blender, pulse the oranges until smooth with a bit of texture but not puréed.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 27, 2022

Plain, canned, puréed pumpkin can serve as a treat, but not spiced pumpkin pie filling.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 23, 2022

It gets its creaminess both from puréed squash and the water that it cooks in.

From Salon ● Nov. 6, 2022

This time-saving hummus recipe calls for soaking dried chickpeas overnight and puréeing them with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and a little bit of ice water.

From Salon ● May 6, 2022

Okara is the sediment left over after puréeing soybeans to make soy milk, and it is very perishable.

From Salon ● Oct. 13, 2021

You can use fresh or frozen berries for this; if frozen, thaw and retain the juice before puréeing.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 20, 2021

As the chefs prepped for lunch back in the kitchen — browning rabbit legs and puréeing warm beans with their cooking water and olive oil — Ms. Shi set up in the dining room.

From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2018

It starts with puréeing herbs into olive oil, then whisking that fragrant oil into a stiff mayonnaise with avocado, garlic and anchovy.

From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2018