I will tell you something before we get to the best pie recipes: when there is no time to make a crust from scratch, I reach for the Pillsbury packaged one and I have never once apologized for it. Pie is the part of Thanksgiving and Christmas I actually look forward to, and the filling is where the work belongs anyway. So here are 39 pie recipes worth clearing a shelf in the fridge for, from deep chocolate and gooey pecan to no bake cream pies you can build the night before, plus fruit pies, cheesecake pies and one apple cobbler for the year the crust is simply not happening. Some need ten minutes of prep, some are a proper afternoon, and every one of them earned its spot. Perfect for Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas Eve, a potluck, a bake sale, or a Tuesday when you just want pie!
1. Black Forest Pie
Black Forest gets a lot easier when you stop trying to build the cake. This one is a chocolate crust, two pounds of pitted cherries cooked down with kirsch, lemon juice and almond extract, then whipped cream and shaved chocolate on top. It looks like a showstopper and barely goes near the oven. If you have a cherry person in the family, this is their pie.
Get the full tutorial at A Cookie Named Desire.
2. White Chocolate Velvet Pie
Five things: a prepared Oreo crust, white chocolate chips, cream cheese, vanilla and heavy cream. That is the entire list, and there is no baking at all. The filling sets silky rather than stiff, which is exactly what you want from a cream pie. Give it the full chilling time, because rushing a no bake filling is how you end up serving pudding with a spoon.
Get the full tutorial at The Domestic Rebel.
3. Best Brownie Pie
This is a from scratch brownie baked inside an all butter pie crust, made with both unsweetened and semi sweet baking chocolate so the filling is deep rather than just sweet. It takes about an hour and a quarter and serves ten. Pull it while the center still looks a little underdone, because a brownie pie firms up as it cools and an extra five minutes turns gooey into cakey.
Get the full tutorial at Crazy for Crust.
4. Best Key Lime Pie
A graham cracker crust filled to the brim with a tart, creamy lime filling, and the writer admits she did not squeeze a mountain of key limes for it. Bottled juice is the shortcut that makes this one actually happen on a weeknight. Tart and sweet at once, which is why it wakes up a heavy holiday menu better than another chocolate dessert would.
Get the full tutorial at Mom On Timeout.
5. Brown Sugar Peach Crumble Pie
Half pie and half crumble: a buttery flaky crust, tender peaches, brown sugar and warm cinnamon, with a crumb topping instead of a top crust. That topping is the reason to make it, because it stays crisp over the juice. Serve every slice with vanilla ice cream while it is still barely warm. Sally is one of my idols, and her recipes are the ones I trust to work as written.
Get the full tutorial at Sally's Baking Addiction.
6. Caramel Banana Cream Pie
Start with a graham cracker crust, then a layer of soft caramels thinned with heavy cream, then bananas, vanilla and banana cream pudding, with Cool Whip over the top. The caramel is the smart part, because thinning it means you can actually cut through the layer instead of fighting it. No baking past the crust. Make it the night before and it slices better cold.
Get the full tutorial at Like Mother Like Daughter.
7. Peanut Butter Pie
A no bake chocolate peanut butter pie with no cream cheese and no Cool Whip in it, which is unusual for the genre and makes the peanut butter layer taste like peanut butter instead of sweetened filler. It is built the night before and sits in the fridge overnight, so it is just as good the next day. That makes it the pie to bring when you are already carrying two other dishes.
Get the full tutorial at Kevin & Amanda.
8. Sugar Cream Pie
Ten minutes of prep, twenty six minutes of baking, and a deep dish crust holding cornstarch, sugar, butter, heavy cream and vanilla with a cinnamon sugar top. No eggs anywhere. Old Indiana farm pie, made from things that live in the pantry year round, which is why it is the one to know for a night when the store is closed.
Get the full tutorial at The Domestic Rebel.
9. Caramel Apple Crumble Pie
Apple pie crossed with apple crumble, oats and all. She poured the filling straight into a frozen crust without thawing it and filled it to the brim, which is the shortcut most apple pie recipes will not admit to. It bakes close to an hour and the oats give the topping real chew. Your house will smell like a bakery, which I consider part of the payoff.
Get the full tutorial at Averie Cooks.
10. Snickerdoodle Pie
A pie crust topped with a soft snickerdoodle cookie center and a cinnamon caramel sauce, about an hour and twenty five minutes start to finish. If you have somebody at the table who does not really want fruit or chocolate, this is their slice. Serve it warm with ice cream, because the caramel is much better loose than set.
Get the full tutorial at Taste and Tell.
11. Fresh Strawberry Pie
Five ingredients past the crust: four to six cups of quartered strawberries, water, sugar, a box of strawberry Jell-O and cornstarch. Twenty minutes of prep, thirty of baking, eight slices. The gelatin is what holds the glaze together so the fruit stays glossy and the slices stand up instead of sliding. Best made the day you plan to eat it.
Get the full tutorial at Sugar Apron.
12. Blueberry Custard Pie
Classic blueberry pie rebuilt with a creamy custard filling and a crunchy streusel on top instead of a second crust. Minimal prep, and the custard is what makes it feel like a proper occasion dessert rather than a weeknight fruit bake. Blueberries are on my permanent shopping list anyway, so this one is an easy sell.
Get the full tutorial at The Girl Who Ate Everything.
13. Fresh Strawberry Peach Pie
Strawberries and peaches together in one crust, which is a better idea than either fruit gets on its own. Strawberry brings the sweetness and peach brings the perfume, and the two juices thicken into something between a pie and a cobbler. Worth making in late summer when both are actually good, and worth knowing about for the rest of the year.
Get the full tutorial at Mama Plus One.
14. Super Easy Gluten Free Cannoli Pie
All the taste of a cannoli with none of the frying: whole milk ricotta, mascarpone, eggs, vanilla, sugar and mini chocolate chips, baked at 375 in a nine inch deep dish. It works with a pastry crust, a cookie crust or no crust at all. I went gluten free about a year ago and I am still learning this world, so a pie this forgiving is a real find.
Get the full tutorial at Gluten Free on a Shoestring.
15. Salted Caramel Apple Pie
A classic apple pie with homemade pie crust and homemade salted caramel sauce poured over the apples before the top crust goes on. The salt is the whole argument: it cuts the sugar and makes the apples taste more like apples. It is more work than a plain apple pie and it is the one people remember.
Get the full tutorial at Sally's Baking Addiction.
16. No Bake Nutella Pie
Two ingredients for the crust, three for the filling, and twenty minutes of work. Nutella, cream cheese and whipped topping turn into a filling that is light and fluffy but genuinely rich, and the oven never gets turned on. This is the pie to hand a kid who wants to make dessert themselves. Toppings are optional and entirely up to whoever is holding the spoon.
Get the full tutorial at Recipe Boy.
17. Toll House Chocolate Chip Pie
Everything a Toll House cookie tastes like, baked into a warm, dense, fudgy pie. It is one of the most popular recipes on their site and you can see why: no decorating, no chilling, no technique to speak of, just a crust and a chocolate chip cookie batter. Serve it warm. A scoop of vanilla on the side turns it into something else entirely.
Get the full tutorial at A Family Feast.
18. Lemon Brulee Pie
Lemon meringue and creme brulee in one dish: six eggs, a cup and a half of sugar, two tablespoons of lemon zest and three quarters of a cup of juice, with a crisp caramelized sugar lid instead of meringue. The torched top is the part that makes people stop talking. Note the recipe is now published under the name Lemon Custard Pie.
Get the full tutorial at Self Proclaimed Foodie.
19. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Strawberries, tart rhubarb and a homemade flaky crust, with a thick jammy filling that actually slices instead of flooding the plate. That is the hard part of any rhubarb pie and this recipe solves it. Strawberry rhubarb is one of my own favorite things to bake, so I am not remotely objective about this one.
Get the full tutorial at Sally's Baking Addiction.
20. Maple Cream Pie
A creamy maple filling under whipped cream and sugared almonds, and it can be made with no refined sugar at all. Total time is about six hours, nearly all of it chilling, so this is a make ahead pie rather than an afternoon one. Real maple is the only thing that tastes like maple, so this is not the place for pancake syrup.
Get the full tutorial at Taste and Tell.
21. Almond Joy Pie
A chocolate cookie crust filled with a creamy coconut filling, and although the stove comes on briefly, there is no actual baking. If you are the person who picks the Almond Joy out of the Halloween bowl, this is a whole pie of that. Coconut, chocolate and almond, in the right proportions and not too sweet.
Get the full tutorial at Life Love and Sugar.
22. Chocolate Strawberry Oasis Pie
Inspired by the pies in the movie Waitress, and built like one: a black bottom chocolate wafer crust, a pint of halved strawberries lining it, and a spiced chocolate custard made with six egg yolks, whole milk, a half tablespoon of bourbon, ginger and nutmeg poured over. Two hours, ten servings. The ginger and nutmeg are what make it taste like more than chocolate.
Get the full tutorial at Love and Olive Oil.
23. Lemon Meringue Pie
A tart smooth lemon filling, a homemade flaky crust and a mile high meringue, with a specific step for keeping that meringue from weeping. Anyone who has cut into a lemon meringue the next morning and found a layer of liquid under the peaks knows exactly why that matters. Elegant with a manageable amount of effort.
Get the full tutorial at Serena Bakes Simply From Scratch.
24. The Best Boston Cream Pie
Not really a pie at all: a soft tender sponge cake, a thick creamy vanilla custard and a dark chocolate ganache poured over the top. The recipe exists to fix the usual failure, which is a dry crumbly sponge. She made this one for a friend’s birthday and everyone cleaned their plates. Make the custard first so it has time to chill properly.
Get the full tutorial at Chew Out Loud.
25. Easy Eclair Pie
Bake a frozen pie crust, whisk a few things together, pour the pudding style filling in once the crust is cool, then whipped topping and chocolate syrup over the top. Also called Zebra Pie. It is an impressive looking dessert built almost entirely from shortcuts, and one of her kids who does not even like dessert asked for two of them at Thanksgiving.
Get the full tutorial at Real Life Dinner.
26. Coconut Pumpkin Chiffon Pie
No oven at all. A light and airy pumpkin chiffon filling with coconut and fall spices, served chilled under a rich mascarpone whipped cream. If your family riots when the usual pumpkin pie is missing, this is the compromise: it still reads as pumpkin, it just tastes lighter after a heavy Thanksgiving dinner. Coconut and pumpkin turn out to be a good idea.
Get the full tutorial at Spicy Southern Kitchen.
27. No Bake Cherry Chocolate Chip Pie
Cherries and chocolate chips in a no bake pie, so the whole thing is stirring and chilling. It is a good answer to the last minute dessert problem, the one where you find out on the drive over that you were supposed to bring something. Cherry pie filling from a can is completely allowed here.
Get the full tutorial at Passion for Savings.
28. Caribbean Truffle Pie
Sweet, tart and creamy all at once, built on lemon, lime and coconut. Total time is about two hours and thirty eight minutes. If your dessert table is all brown and beige by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, a citrus pie is the fix, and this one has enough going on to hold its own next to the pecan.
Get the full tutorial at Taste and Tell.
29. White Chocolate Silk Pie
A white chocolate take on French silk: heavy cream, eight ounces of white baking chocolate, four eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla, with toffee bits for garnish. The crust gets blind baked filled to the top with granulated sugar for 45 to 50 minutes, which is a clever trick worth stealing for any custard pie. Dress it with peppermint or cranberries for the holidays.
Get the full tutorial at The Gracious Wife.
30. Lemon Impossible Pie
Mix everything in one bowl with a hand whisk, pour it into a greased and floured pie plate, and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. It makes its own crust as it bakes, which is the impossible part. Milk, flaked coconut, four eggs, vanilla, flour, melted butter, sugar and the juice and zest of half a lemon. Five minutes of prep, six to eight slices.
Get the full tutorial at Lovefoodies.
31. Upside Down Apple Pecan Pie
Chopped pecans and brown sugar go in the bottom of the pan with melted butter, then the crust, then six cups of sliced apples with cinnamon and nutmeg, then a top crust. Bake at 375 for 40 to 50 minutes, cover the edges with foil for the last 20, and flip it out so the pecan layer lands on top. Cover the edges or they will go dark.
Get the full tutorial at Recipe Girl.
32. Easy Chocolate Pecan Pie From Scratch
Two cups of chopped pecans go into the crust first, then a filling built from melted chocolate chips and butter, brown sugar, cocoa, flour, eggs and vanilla, with shaved chocolate on top. It is a pecan pie for people who think pecan pie is a little one note. No corn syrup anywhere in it, which I appreciate.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
33. Easy Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie Recipe
Eight ingredients, one bowl and a deep dish crust: melted butter, sugar, light corn syrup, three eggs, vanilla, two and a half cups of pecans and a cup of chocolate chips, baked at 375. Whisk in the order given, because adding the pecans and chips at the end is what keeps them from sinking into a solid layer.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
34. Easy Chocolate Mud Pie Recipe
Four layers and worth every one: a crust of 25 crushed Oreos and butter, a real brownie layer with bittersweet chocolate, a cooked chocolate pudding made with egg yolks and cornstarch, then sweetened whipped cream with chocolate shavings, chopped pecans and cookie crumbs. Build it in stages and let each layer cool before the next.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
35. Easy Pecan Pie Cheesecake Recipe
Pecan pie and cheesecake stop competing for the last spot on the table and become one dessert. A graham cracker crust, a brown sugar cheesecake with sour cream baked at 325 in a springform pan, and a butter, brown sugar and cinnamon topping loaded with whole pecans. Make it a day ahead, because cheesecake is always better on day two.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
36. Easy Gooey Pecan Pie Bars Recipe
All the pecan pie flavor with none of the slicing drama, baked in a 9 by 13 pan. A press in shortbread crust of flour, sugar, salt and melted butter, then a topping of eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, vanilla and two cups of chopped pecans. Bars travel far better than a pie does, which matters when you are the one driving it over.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
37. Peanut Butter Pumpkin Spice Pie Recipe
The crust is two cups of pretzel sticks crushed with brown sugar and melted butter, and that salty base is what makes the whole thing work. The filling is cream cheese, creamy peanut butter, powdered sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin spice, heavy cream and vanilla, no pumpkin puree at all. Crush the pretzels in a bag with a rolling pin.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
38. Classic Sugar Cream Pie
Sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, heavy cream, half and half, two egg yolks, vanilla, a pie crust and melted butter. That is the whole shopping list and most of it is already in your kitchen. Stir the cream into the dry mix until there are no white lumps left, because lumps at that stage stay lumps all the way to the plate.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
39. Old-Fashioned Apple Cobbler
Not a pie, and included here on purpose for the year you run out of time. Three to five pounds of granny smiths with brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla go into a 9 by 13, topped with a batter of flour, powdered sugar, baking powder, salt and cold diced butter, baked at 350. No crust to roll, no lattice to weave.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
