Easy Pies Recipes & Ideas

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Chilling pie dough is standard practice, but it's especially important for this recipe because vegan butters remain soft even at cooler temperatures. The pie crust is flaky and tender, while the sweet-tart cherry filling gets a mild warmth from black pepper. Bake the pie on a preheated baking sheet to help the bottom crust cook through and to catch any syrupy filling that bubbles over during baking. If you like, serve slices topped with a scoop of Vegan Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

These Instagram Pies Are Pure Eye Candy

Precision meets whimsy in these picturesque bakes.

Sweet Potato Honey Beer Pie

Sweet potatoes are on a monthly rotation in my household; even my dog, Snoopy, loved them. The different components of the pie can be prepared on different days. Here’s a suggested order of steps you might find useful, especially if you make this for Thanksgiving. Day 1: Roast sweet potatoes, reduce the beer, and prepare the pie crust, but don’t blind bake (partially bake). Day 2: Blind bake the pie crust, prepare the sweet potato custard, and bake the pie. Of course, you can also do this all in one day.

Lemon Chiffon Pie with Saltine Cracker Crust

Pastry chef Kelly Field's great-aunt Jean, who first made this pie during the Great Depression, swapped pricey graham crackers in the crust for less-expensive saltines, which play well with the tart lemon filling. To create the voluminous filling, be sure to whip the egg whites to stiff peaks; if they’re too soft, the filling will be dense instead of airy.

How to Make a Homemade Pie Crust from Scratch

Don’t be intimidated. Homemade pie crust is as easy as following a few simple steps.

Honey-Pear Sweet Cream Galette

A mix of alternative flours—here, two kinds of rice flour and arrowroot—delivers a gluten-free crust that is flaky, buttery, and crisp. The floral sweetness from the honey and pears is nicely balanced by tangy cream cheese. Be sure to let the galette rest at least 30 minutes to give the filling time to firm up for easier slicing. This gluten-free fall dessert was made by Sarah Ann Hahn (who goes by "the Gluten-Free Cowgirl") as the sweet finish for a harvest feast at Big Table Farm in Gaston, Oregon.

More Pies

Bourbon-Pecan-Apple Pie with Cinnamon Whipped Cream

Chef and cookbook author Alexander Smalls spikes his sticky-sweet pecan pie with just enough bourbon to add a kick of flavor that accents the sweet chunks of apple. Fuji apples are perfect for this pie; they bake up soft but retain their texture. Braeburn and Honeycrisp also work well.

Galettes Are Pie When You Can't Deal With Pie

A great way to make use of summer fruit and a dessert that looks more beautiful the messier it is.

Miso Chocolate Tart with Black Sesame–Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust

Dried Apple Hand Pies

Sweet Potato Pie with Honeycrisp-Kabocha Salad

Pecan-Pumpkin Cream Pie

Grill-Baked Apple Galette

Being a gal who lives on the rustic side of life (mismatched dishware, Mason jar centerpieces, a general disregard for fussiness), fruit galettes have long been my go-to desserts. I love how you can roll the crust into a haphazard circle, top it with a heap of the season’s best fruit (lightly sweetened, casually spiced), flop over the ragged edges, and bake something wildly fragrant, bubbly, and downright gorgeous.Because I’m somewhat obsessed about making the most of my fire and the lingering heat that a bed of embers provides, lately I’ve been baking galettes on the grill. I love how a chimney of charcoal can carry you through cocktails (see charred citrus margaritas) to dinner to dessert. It’s easier than it sounds, particularly when you think about working your grill as an oven (e.g. grill-roasted chicken). Just as a chicken benefits from the unique “charred” flavor of charcoal, so do fruit and pastry. The first time I grill-baked this tart, I slid the parchment onto a pizza stone. I should have realized that the concentrated heat would blacken the bottom of the crust before the fruit had time to cook—and it did. Now I drape the pastry into a lavishly buttered cast-iron skillet or enamel-coated baking dish, and the results are perfect (with the added bonus of not heating up my kitchen).When the berry conga line of summer transitions to fall, it’s apples that capture my attention—particularly thin-skinned varieties like Pink Lady that don’t need peeling (their skins have a snappy cider flavor). I’ve loved the combination of black pepper and pastry since I bit into the pepper-flecked flaky apple tart at Poilâine in Paris. The subtle warmth shoots through the buttery crust (and caramel sweetness of the fruit) like a swallow of Cognac on a winter day. Here I use pink peppercorns, which have a more delicate floral flavor. There’s no shame in embracing the color motif (what’s life without whimsy?) so in addition to those Pink Lady apples I also use Himalayan pink salt, but feel free to swap in another sweet-tart fall apple variety and your favorite fancy salt.