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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

You can find many salads without lettuce as a main ingredient on the site, such as this eggplant purée with tomato salad or this summer medley of melon, mozzarella and prosciutto.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Finished with the vivid pea purée and crispy toppings, the whole thing tasted far more luxurious than its pantry origins would suggest.

From Salon ● May 12, 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

Tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves, devilled barley pearls in acorn purée, apple and carrot chews, marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

If you’re looking to enliven jarred sauce or some plain tomato puree, you can never go wrong with enriching the latent flavors.

From Salon ● Mar. 21, 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

It is not uncommon to puree this soup, but generally each bowl would then be garnished with a whole oyster or two and some chunkier bits of artichoke.

From Salon ● Nov. 7, 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

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

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

Into the cream base, he purées whole croissants to produce Morning in Paris, swirled with raspberry jam; he blends bananas and Nilla Wafers to make Banana Pudding.

From New York Times ● Jun. 16, 2023

Some toddler foods marketed as "no added sugar" or "all natural" are in some cases, up to 50% fruit sugar in the form of fruit purées or concentrates.

From Salon ● Nov. 28, 2022

We could put down some twenty or more other ways, but any one with an ordinary amount of natural capacity can do it, by varying the garnitures, purées, decorations, etc.

From Hand-Book of Practical Cookery for Ladies and Professional Cooks by Pierre Blot

Roughly chop the onion by hand, or pulse it briefly in a food processor until finely chopped but not puréed.

From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026

“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

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

Finally, after puréeing, the soup is strained through a fine sieve and the seasonings are adjusted.

From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2019

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

From New York Times ● Jan. 9, 2019