Frozen Strawberry Margaritas

Bright, bold, sweet, and tart strawberries give an early summer punch to the classic margarita recipe. Serve up this strawberry margarita blended and garnished with a juicy, red berry for the ultimate summer cocktail.

Side view of the best strawberry margarita in a glass with a salted rim.
Elana Lepkowski

A margarita is a fabulous chameleon of a cocktail. Serve it up classic, serve it up frozen, add in some fruit… There are just so many ways you can make it your own without sacrificing taste.

Right now, strawberries are in high season. They’re ripe, sweet, and guess what? That sweetness complements the earthy agave flavors in tequila.

If your idea of a frozen Strawberry Margarita makes you think electric pink and maybe a headache afterwards, this fresh take, whipped up frozen for those hot, summer months, is a refreshing change.

While muddled strawberries would work for an on the rocks margarita, frozen strawberry slices give an intense, strawberry flavor, and super smooth frozen version. This recipe is for 4 drinks, but it will easily scale up or down depending on how many you desire.

What's in a Strawberry Margarita?

A Frozen Strawberry Margarita builds on the classic margarita with blanco/silver (unaged) tequila, lime juice, simple syrup, and Cointreau—but with the addition of fresh, frozen strawberries.

The addition of strawberries in this frozen version of a margarita adds a bright, zingy punch to what could otherwise be a flat blended beverage.

You might notice that the sugar content in this recipe may be slightly higher than you would see in a margarita on the rocks, and that is due to a frozen drink's tendency to slightly dull flavors.

However, using fresh, frozen strawberries enhances that higher sugar content with a flavorful freshness that is anything but dull. It’s early summer in cup!

Two blender margaritas in wide glasses garnished with strawberries.
Elana Lepkowski

Tips and Tricks on Making the Perfect Frozen Strawberry Margarita

Yes, all the ingredients go into the blender, but here’s some helpful tips from what tequila to buy, to how to choose the right kind of strawberries.

  • Use a blanco, or unaged, tequila for making this drink. A reposado or añejo’s nuanced flavors will get lost in this frozen drink and might clash with the strawberry flavor. My go-to tequila for making this—and lots of other mixed tequila cocktails—is Cazadores. It’s a nation-wide brand at a solid price point. If you need more info on the best tequilas to buy, use, and when, check out our guide to tequila.
  • Freeze everything! With frozen drink season knocking on my door, I’ve been stocking up on portioned out ounces of lime juice, simple syrup, and fruit purees. Keeping as many ingredients frozen as possible means less ice watering down your drink, too.
  • Use sliced or diced frozen berries rather than whole (your blender will thank you).

How to Freeze and Fresh Strawberries

Frozen strawberries mostly come whole at the supermarket but have the potential to wreak havoc on your blender, seizing up the blades—even more so if it’s not high-powered.

If you can, get sliced or diced, and, if that’s not an option, I’d suggest buying fresh, slicing, and then freezing yourself. If you’re in the market for a new blender, here are a few options to consider.

To freeze fresh strawberries start with well-washed, hulled (meaning the center stem and leaves are removed) strawberries. Slice them at least a 1/4-inch thick. Lay them on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a single layer. Freeze until frozen solid, and then transfer them to an airtight, freezer-safe, container. They’ll last up to 6 months in the freezer.

Don’t have a high-powered blender or something powerful enough to blend up frozen strawberries? Use a food processor.

My bar blender is almost 20 years old and is not blending things as smoothly as I’d like, so I’ve turned to my food processor, which produces a silky smooth frozen margarita every time. If using a food processor, you may need to halve this recipe so it doesn’t overflow.

Make Ahead Strawberry Margaritas

If I were batching this cocktail for a party, I’d blend all the ingredients, minus the ice, and store in a container in the freezer the night before. You can easily double or triple the recipe this way so you can refill drinks all night long.

The day of, dump it all into a blender with some ice (you’ll need less than you would making it with room temperature ingredients) and whiz it up.

Don’t try and skip the ice though! You’ll need some water content to balance out the drink to take the place of ice that is shaken or stirred in a non-frozen cocktail. Otherwise, you’d end up with a much more potent cocktail.

Strawberry margarita in wide glasses and garnished with strawberries and with a strawberry to the side.
Elana Lepkowski

Strawberry Margarita Garnish and Glass Options

Keep it simple! A singular sliced fresh strawberry on top is a signal to guests about what’s inside the cocktail (although its vivid red color might be a giveaway).

If you’d like to get a little fancy with rimming your glass, grind together coarse salt with dehydrated strawberries. It adds a little extra color and aroma to the cocktail and glass.

And speaking of the glass, I prefer a double rocks glass for this cocktail. If you have a fun margarita glass you want to use, go for it!

Try All the Margaritas!

Frozen Strawberry Margaritas

Prep Time 15 mins
Total Time 15 mins
Servings 5 servings
Yield 5 drinks

For ease of blending, use frozen sliced or diced strawberries, or freeze your own strawberries rather than whole frozen berries. If freezing your own fresh strawberries, first wash, hull, and slice them. Lay the strawberries in a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze for at least 6 hours or overnight. At this point you can also freeze portioned-out lime juice and simple syrup in an ice cube tray.

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces blanco tequila

  • 3 ounces Cointreau

  • 4 ounces lime juice

  • 4 ounces simple syrup

  • 2 cups frozen strawberry slices

  • 1 cup ice

  • Coarse salt, for rimming, optional

  • Sliced strawberries, for garnish

Method

  1. Combine ingredients in a blender:

    Into a blender add, tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, simple syrup, frozen strawberries, and ice. Process until smooth for about 30 seconds. For a more slushy-type cocktail, use between 1/4 to 1/3 cup of ice.

  2. Rim glasses with salt:

    Pour salt onto a plate slightly larger than your glasses. Take a lime slice and rub it around the rim of the glasses and lightly press or roll the glasses at an angle to coat with salt.

  3. Serve cocktails:

    Pour the frozen cocktail equally between the glasses, garnish with a strawberry slice, and enjoy!

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
207 Calories
0g Fat
18g Carbs
0g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 5
Amount per serving
Calories 207
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 5mg 0%
Total Carbohydrate 18g 7%
Dietary Fiber 0g 2%
Total Sugars 16g
Protein 0g
Vitamin C 18mg 90%
Calcium 9mg 1%
Iron 0mg 1%
Potassium 58mg 1%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included.