There has been a continual supply of Passionfruit at our house over the last month. I have been getting these delicious beauties from our local fruit and veg store. My kids love eating these fruit so I have been making sure the bowl on our table doesn’t run out.
With all the Passionfruit in our house, I had an idea to make Passionfruit Butter. I have never made this before, although I have made Lemon Butter and figured the process would be similar. After some thought, I decided to make a sauce instead, which could be drizzled over ice cream or pancakes.
While searching for a recipe on good ol’ Google, I came across a Brazilian recipe that had passionfruit sauce served over fish. Intrigued, I decided to try this interesting way to eat passionfruit for myself.
I had only ever had passionfruit as a sweet food (usually on the top of pavlova) – not as part of a savoury dish.
Here is the original recipe that I found – Tilapia with Passion Fruit Sauce and Toasted Sesame Seeds served with Coconut Rice (Surubim ao Molho de Maracujá e Gergelim com Arroz de Coco)
This wasn’t the recipe I used, as I didn’t have any white rum in the house. However, it got the ball rolling on finding more recipes that involved using Passionfruit sauce with fish.
This is the recipe I chose to use: Salmon with Passionfruit sauce This was the perfect recipe as I love salmon and I had all the sauce ingredients at hand.
Salmon with Passionfruit Sauce
1 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, shredded
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup frozen passion fruit pulp
½ cup table cream or crème fraîche.
I halved this sauce recipe just in case it wasn’t popular with the kids. The other adjustments I made were using half a red onion, rapadura sugar (instead of brown sugar), fresh passionfruit pulp with the seeds left in and sour cream instead of crème fraîche.
To cook the sauce you will need to:
Fry onion in the oil and butter until soft, add the sugar and passionfruit. Let simmer for a minute, take off the heat and add the cream. Stir until combined.
I served this over my salmon with rice and coriander and mint salsa on the side. The kids were also intrigued by this recipe – My oldest daughter loved it whereas my six year old wasn’t impressed!
Below is another interesting Passionfruit sauce recipe
Coconut Passionfruit Sauce
60ml (1/4 cup) coconut milk
60ml (1/4 cup) passionfruit pulp
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
There is no cooking required for this sauce – just combine ingredients in a bowl and wait until the sugar dissolves. The original recipe came from Taste.com.au- Fruit Wraps With Coconut Passionfruit Sauce
I didn’t make the fruit wraps to go with this but drizzled it over a plate of bananas and strawberries. Yum! – The kids and I thought it was delish.
The comment about too much nitrogen is correct – all leaf and no flowers. Buy the non-grafted passionfruit variety as the root stock is often banana passionfruit and it will take off/ over and will sucker. Also use a high potash, low nitrogen fertiliser ( marketed as being good for Flowers and Fruit) and despite passionfruit being a gross feeder frequent weak fertilising is better than too strong fertilising infrequently.
Hi Jennie, Thanks for the tips! Have a great day 🙂
I’m green with envy. I can’t grow passionfruit outside as our summers are too short and the winters too cold, but just love them I’ve now got one in the conservatory it’s growing beautifully and flowered prolifically but no fruit. I’ve tried pollinating with a brush to no avail. I’ve checked online but can’t find a solution. My tamarillo has pollinated fruit and so do tomatoes, capsicum and Pomelo, theýre all in the conservatory.’ Who can help?
Hey there Stavroula, interesting timing with your question as in a food sharing group I belong to, this issue came up.
One member had the exact same issue and could only suggest that is was because it came from Bunnings, once she mentioned this someone joined the conversation and said they also bought a passionfrut plant from Bunnings as well and it had similar problems…..
Found this on the Readers Digest Website – Passionfruit Not Producing Fruit
Not enough water
Passionfruit vines are heavy feeders and need plenty of water. A dry plant will not produce fruit, so ensure the soil is moist.
Wrong fertiliser
A fertiliser high in nitrogen promotes plenty of granadilla leaf growth at the expense of fruit and flowers. Fertilise with compost, citrus foods, chicken manure or well-rotted cow manure. You can even put used teabags at the base of established vines, leaving them to seep into the soil as fertiliser.
Note that overfertilising results in flowers but no fruit. Passionfruit usually only needs fertilising twice a year, after pruning and again after fruiting.
Lack of sunshine
Passionfruit require at least five hours of direct sunshine a day. They should be planted in a sunny spot with no trees or competitive roots.
Good luck with it!
Here is another link to an interesting discussion on Garden Web forum
https://www.au.gardenweb.com/forums/load/ozgard/msg0220071415169.html?6