We introduce and study strongly Gorenstein subcategory [Formula: see text], relative to an additive full subcategory [Formula: see text] of an abelian category [Formula: see text]. When [Formula: see text] is self-orthogonal, we give some sufficient conditions under which the property of an object in [Formula: see text] can be inherited by its subobjects and quotient objects. Then, we introduce the notions of one-sided (strongly) Gorenstein subcategories. Under the assumption that [Formula: see text] is closed under countable direct sums (respectively, direct products), we prove that an object is in right (respectively, left) Gorenstein category [Formula: see text] (respectively, [Formula: see text]) if and only if it is a direct summand of an object in right (respectively, left) strongly Gorenstein subcategory [Formula: see text] (respectively, [Formula: see text]). As applications, some known results are obtained as corollaries.