Easy Eton Mess Parfait – Your no bake summer go-to dessert
If strawberries and whipped cream had a fling at a meringue garden party, this would be their love child. Light, sweet, a little chaotic – but only in the best way.
This strawberry Eton Mess parfait is the dessert you throw together when it’s too hot to bake, but you still want to look like you tried. It’s creamy, crunchy, juicy, and soft all at once, looking like a fancy trifle, individual style.
Minimal ingredients. Zero oven time. Big summer energy.
Please refer to the printable recipe card below for exact amounts, detailed instructions, and helpful tips to make this recipe perfect every time.
🛒Ingredient Notes
- ✅Meringue Cookies: Let’s talk about these Meringues! Those crisp, little sugar clouds bring just the right amount of textural crunch to balance out the softness of the whipped cream and the saucy strawberries. They’re really the secret to the deliciousness of this parfait and can’t be skipped. To check the box on ‘easy’, I recommend just buying them. But if you’re a “I can doooooo it” person, no worries, go ahead and make easy strawberry ones – you’ll just need more make-ahead prep time.
- ✅Whipped Cream: This whipped cream was made with heavy whipping cream and sugar, BUT, if you want to make life even easier, go ahead and buy some Cool Whip or even prettier, buy the whipped cream in a can – all options are perfect here.
- ✅Strawberry Mix: Fresh strawberries are ideal, frozen work fine as well. Feel free to mix up the berries – use blueberries, raspberries, etc.
💡 What to Know Before You Layer This Parfait
- ✅Serving glasses – Just like my Easy Banana Bread Parfaits, I like to use globe-shaped drinking glasses. The globe shape and the fact that they’re glass shows off the layers and make them look fancy and boujie. Kinda. Just don’t use red Solo cups if you want ‘pretty’.
- ✅Chilled – Keep the ingredients chilled before layering. I find that chilling the ingredients helps keep the layers more supported (weird, I know).
- ✅Assembly – Assemble the desserts just before you make them. Merengues and moisture are arch enemies and don’t play well together. Moisture will win every time and melt them if they hang around too long.
- ✅Extra Ingredients? – If you have extra strawberry mix and/or meringues, use them up by making my Easy Strawberry Eton Mess Cupcakes!
🕒Make-Ahead Secret
Because the meringue bits will melt if they sit around any moisture for too long, a really fun idea to serve these parfaits would be to break them into large, bite-sized pieces. Then make the meringues WITHOUT adding the meringue bits, and instead, use them as a dipper!
This way, you can keep the parfaits icily chilled in their gorgeous layers and make them ahead of time – win-win!
And there you have it – proof that dessert doesn’t need a ton of effort (or an oven!) to feel a little fancy. Whether you’re serving it up at a backyard BBQ, Sunday brunch, or just because Tuesday needed whipped cream, this Eton Mess parfait brings big summer vibes with minimal fuss.
Thanks for stopping by The Salty Pot! If you give this sweet mess a go, I’d love to hear how it turned out. Leave a comment or drop me a line at joanne@thesaltypot.com. Have a great day!
Strawberry Eton Mess Parfaits
This strawberry Eton Mess parfait is a light and easy no-bake dessert that comes together in minutes. Juicy berries, whipped cream, and crunchy meringues get layered into a dreamy little treat that tastes like summer in a glass.
Ingredients
- 3 vanilla meringues
- 1 cup fresh strawberries
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 Tablespoon sugar (powdered or granulated)
Instructions
- Rinse strawberries in running water and pat dry. (Set aside a few berries for garnish if you want to).
- Dice the strawberries and place them into a big enough bowl for a potato masher to get in and crush the berries.
- Add a teaspoon of sugar to the bowl and crush the berries until you've reached a desired consistency (see notes below).
- Meanwhile, add the remaining sugar to the heavy cream and begin whipping it until it reaches soft peaks. (Taste the cream after sugar has dissolved and adjust for desired sweetness.)
- Break the meringues into small pieces.
- Assemble the parfaits. Place some meringue in the bottom of a glass, then the strawberry mixture. Cover with a layer of whipped cream. Alternate the layers.
- Finish the assembly with a layer of cream. Decorate the dessert with strawberries and meringue crumbs.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
The extent to which you crush the berries will depend on what you'd like for consistency. If you want some chunky texture, only mash so that there are some chunks, but most of it is pureed. If you'd prefer a pureed, sauce-like texture, keep mashing, or use a blender or an immersion blender for a smoother sauce.
Also, you can alternate the layers by adding diced strawberries, and then adding the mashed strawberries on top of them for even more texture.
If you use granulated sugar, add it to the cream at the beginning of the whipping time so that it can dissolve.
Serve the dessert immediately after making as the meringues will lose their crispness as the moisture is absorbed into them.
I highly recommend chilling the cream and the strawberry mixture before assembling.
Storing: You can't store the assembled dessert without the merigues going soft. You can store the layers separately and then assemble at the last minute.
In the body of the post, I give alternate ways to eat the parfait, along with good things to know before making/assembling the parfait.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 2 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 506Total Fat: 43gSaturated Fat: 27gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 13gCholesterol: 134mgSodium: 40mgCarbohydrates: 25gFiber: 2gSugar: 22gProtein: 4g
All nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods, and portion sizes per household.
