Passion Fruit Panna Cotta Recipe (2024)

This passion fruit panna cotta recipe is equal parts sweet and tart. Using passion fruit juice makes this an easy dessert to put together and gives it a beautiful floral fragrance. Give this delicious no bake dessert a try!

If you like creamy desserts, you’ll love this strawberry panna cotta recipe. Plus, you’ll also enjoy my classic creme brulee and this caramel flan.

Passion Fruit Dessert

Have you ever tried a passion fruit dessert, or even a passion fruit itself? If not, it can be hard to describe—to date, it’s one of my favorite fruits of all time! It has a fresh, tropical flavor that’s both sweet and tart, with a beautiful yellow color, black crunchy seeds and a pleasant aroma.

Making a passion fruit dessert is practically guaranteed to be a novelty for most people. This is a great recipe to make for a party or a nice dinner. If you’re thinking that you don’t live anywhere near the tropics nor stores that carry passion fruits – neither do I! But I’ve got a workaround, just read on.

Panna Cotta Recipe

This passion fruit panna cotta is rich, smooth with just the right amount of tang and fragrance from the passion fruit. I had this milky jello, mousse-like dessert at a fancy, high-end spa resort in Leavenworth, WA.

I fell in love with it from the first spoonful and dreamt about re-making it when I get home. After making several trial versions, I nailed it with this panna cotta recipe.

The flavor is smooth and rich from the cream and sour cream. You’ll love the unique flavor of this sweet Italian dessert.

Shortcut: Use Passion Fruit Juice

With this recipe, there’s no guesswork as to how many passion fruits to use because we’ll use the premade 100% pure passion fruit juice. You can find this at specialty grocery stores, the frozen section of regular stores or online (I got it on amazon).

Yes, you can use fruits and just squeeze as many of them out to get the same amount of juice as the recipe calls. But buying fresh, prepackaged and already made juice is so much easier and ensures consistent results time after time. It’s up to you though which route you’d rather take.

If you’d like to add a topping of actual passion fruit pulp to the top of your panna cotta, you can get it here on amazon. It’s quite sour, so I’d add a little bit more sugar to the panna cotta itself if you’re going to use passion fruit pulp as the topping.

No-Bake Dessert

If you’ve never made a panna cotta, the hardest part is nailing that perfect texture. It should almost be like milky jello. The panna cotta dessert should be able to hold a shape but also be slightly wobbly.

I also like that you can make a batch and serve it in different sized containers. Sometimes I’ll serve this no-bake dessert in wine glasses portioned out between six people. Other times if I make it for a potluck, I’ll make it in a large trifle bowl, and then let people scoop portions on to their plates. Or, serve them all fancy in mini espresso cups.

Being that it’s no-bake, panna cotta makes a perfect treat for those days when turning on the oven is just too much. And since no baking is required, you can serve it in those fancy mini plastic cups which make absolutely stunning display pieces.

How to Make This Panna Cotta Recipe

*For detailed recipe instructions see the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

• In a saucepan, combine gelatin and whole milk. Stir it and allow it to bloom for 2-3 minutes.
• Then, add half of the heavy cream and heat while stirring until the gelatin dissolves. Do not boil.
• Next add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved in the warm cream.
• Slowly add the rest of the cold cream into the hot cream mixture stirring non stop.
• Add your vanilla and sour cream, then whisk until smooth.
• Add the passion fruit juice, then pour into your serving containers right away. Add freeze-dried strawberries by pushing them in, if desired.
• Refrigerate for several hours until it is set, then enjoy!

More Custard Desserts:

• Chocolate Custard Cake
• Coffee and Chocolate Pot de Creme
• Chocolate Banana No-Bake Custard Cake
• Bird Milk Cake