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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
Synonyms

purée

American  
[pyoo-ray, -ree, pyoor-ay] / 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.


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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
puree 2 British  
/ ˈpuːrɪ /

noun

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

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."

Keep Reading on Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary lists containing puree

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

So I started playing: pumpkin purée for softness, cold coffee to deepen the cocoa, melted butter, two whole zucchini and a frankly generous amount of chocolate.

From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026

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

The meal begins with scallop brightened with currant and rye-seasoned buttermilk, then slow-cooked reindeer, sirloin and tongue, finished over wood, mushroom purée beneath and fermented cabbage cutting richness.

From Salon ● Mar. 8, 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

Sold as powder, extract, paste, or frozen puree, ube is easily mixed into coffee, pastries, ice cream, spreads and even make-up.

From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 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

I paired mine with eggplant puree, crispy zucchini, roasted potatoes and a rich, well-seasoned gravy.

From Salon ● May 9, 2025

The new FDA guidance comes more than a year after lead-tainted pouches of apple cinnamon puree sickened more than 560 children in the U.S. between October 2023 and April 2024, according to the CDC.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2025

Charlotte would puree almost everything in a blender now.

From "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom

Her agency has fielded all sorts of parenting requests: providing equestrian nannies who travel to tournaments, baby chefs to prepare culturally specific purées for infants, personal stylists for the children.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026

Baby food brand HiPP has recalled its entire range of jarred purées sold in Spar supermarkets in Austria over fears they may have been contaminated.

From BBC ● Apr. 18, 2026

And nearly a third of savory foods for toddlers contain fruit purées, as well.

From Salon ● Nov. 28, 2022

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

Presumably the two purées are to be mixed, or to be served as integral parts of one dish.

From Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Joseph Dommers Vehling

“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

I checked the ingredients: puréed tomato, carrots, onions, red bell pepper, spices, olive oil and salt.

From Salon ● Mar. 18, 2023

Then, the vegetables and broth are puréed together.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 16, 2023

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

From Washington Times ● Nov. 23, 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

He last wrote about a neuroscientist who has made groundbreaking discoveries by puréeing brains.

From New York Times ● Jan. 9, 2019

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

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