If passion fruit has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 17 recipes to try it in.

What is passion fruit?

Passion fruit is a small tropical fruit with a hard, round shell and a cavity packed with golden, jelly-coated seeds. You eat the pulp and seeds together, scooped straight from the cut shell with a spoon.

The flavor is intense. It is sharply tart and floral, so aromatic that one ripe fruit can perfume a whole bowl of cream.

The two common types are the purple passion fruit and the larger yellow one, also called granadilla in much of the world. Purple tends to be sweeter and less acidic, while yellow is bigger and tarter.

Either way, you are buying it for its perfume and its acid, which is why a little goes a long way.

How to Use Passion Fruit

Halve the fruit across the middle and scoop the pulp into a bowl. The crunchy black seeds are edible, so most people leave them in for texture and a faint bitterness.

When you want pure silky juice for a mousse or curd, press the pulp through a fine sieve and discard the seeds. Keep a spoonful of seeds aside to stir back in for looks.

That bright pulp carries desserts. It folds into whipped cream for a Passion Fruit Mousse, flavors the sponge and icing of a Granadilla Cake, and spoons over the top of a baked Australian Cheesecake where its tartness cuts the richness.

Blitz it into a Mango Passion Fruit Gelato or a smoothie and the acid wakes up sweeter tropical fruit.

It is just as good raw. Spoon the seedy pulp over yogurt or pavlova, stir it into a fruit salad, or shake the juice into cocktails where it does the work of both citrus and a floral note.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Passion fruit loves rich, sweet partners that soften its acid: heavy cream, mascarpone, white chocolate, coconut, and meringue. It pairs naturally with mango and pineapple, and with bright friends like lime and orange.

A passionfruit cake leans on this balance, the sweet crumb playing against the tart pulp.

The most common mistake is treating it as merely sour. Heat drives off the floral aroma you are paying for, so add it late or use it raw whenever you can. Folding raw pulp into a finished mousse or curd keeps the perfume that long cooking destroys.

The other mistake is under-sweetening. Straight pulp is far too tart to eat by the spoonful, so taste as you go and expect more sugar than you think. When sieving for juice, do not press so hard that you grind the seeds, or you pull bitterness into the cup.

Substitutes

There is no exact stand-in for that perfume, but you can get close by use. For the tartness in a curd or mousse, lime juice with a little mango or apricot puree mimics the acid and the tropical edge.

Frozen passion fruit pulp and bottled passion fruit juice or concentrate are the best swaps when fresh is out of season, and they save the straining step entirely.

For a garnish where you want the look of the seeds, pomegranate arils give a similar jeweled crunch. In a pinch, a splash of guava or mango nectar sharpened with lime covers the fruity-tart role in a drink.

Buying and Storage

Look for fruit that feels heavy for its size with deeply wrinkled, dimpled skin. A smooth taut shell means underripe; the wrinkles are the sign the fruit has ripened and the pulp inside has concentrated.

A smooth one will still ripen on the counter over a few days.

Ripe fruit keeps in the refrigerator for about a week. Underripe smooth fruit should sit at room temperature until it wrinkles, then move to the fridge.

The pulp freezes beautifully. Scoop it into an ice cube tray, freeze, then bag the cubes for up to several months so you always have a hit of the aroma for drinks and desserts.

Quick facts

Where to find passion fruit: Passion fruit is usually found in the fruit section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

In Chinese

百香果

British (UK) term

Passion fruit

en français

fruit de la passion

en español

maracuyá

Recipes using passion fruit

There are 17 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 17 recipes