<p>The most widely used food preservative and color stabilizer is nitrate NO₃⁻ and mostly used in juices and beverages. Although high intake and long-term exposure to NO₃⁻ lead to health risk including generation of N-nitrosamines, a carcinogenic agent. It is necessary to develop modern and eco-friendly analytical strategies for the detection of NO₃⁻ in food samples. In present study, a rationally engineered bimetallic strontium-zirconium metal organic framework (Sr-Zr-MOF) was hydrothermally synthesized using terephthalic acid as a ligand and was employed as a modifier for screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) for ultrasensitive electrochemical detection of NO₃⁻. The synthesized material was characterized and its structural and morphological feature was confirmed using FTIR, XRD, SEM and EDX analysis. The Strontium-Zirconium metal organic framework screen-printed carbon electrode (Sr-Zr MOF/SPCE) exhibited a remarkable electrocatalytic activity toward the detection of NO₃⁻ ion, with the low limit of detection (LOD) = 0.012 µM and limit of quantification (LOQ) = 0.036 µM. The fabricated Zr-Sr MOF/SPCE possesses excellent repeatability sensitivity, selectivity, reproducibility and long-term stability with 2.34% RSD values because of highly porous structure and availability of large number of the active site for the adsorption of the NO₃⁻. The practical applicability of the proposed Zr-Sr MOF/SPCE was validated via detection of NO₃⁻ in commercial juices like grapes and beverages like cola and energy drink with the % recover 97.3-103.2%. These findings depict that synthesized Zr-Sr MOF/SPCE provides a simple easy, cost-effective, eco-friendly and highly sensitive platform for determination of the NO₃⁻ in complex food metrices.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>