The Best Pie Recipes: 17 New Classics to Master

The most famous of the traditionally double crust pies, apple pie can be topped with a lattice design or a complete pastry cover. It's the ultimate American comfort food, can be made using several kinds of apples and is perfect a la mode. Grace Parisi uses a mix of Granny Smith, Pink Lady and Golden Delicious apples for this iconic dessert.See more: Apple Pie Recipes

Cherry pie is a cornerstone of summer desserts, and the lattice design makes it one of the prettiest additions to barbecue dinner gatherings. Pastry chef Paula Haney of Hoosier Mama Pie Company provides this version with pitted sweet cherries, raspberries and blueberries. 

Pastry chef Mathew Rice takes the familiar elements of a classic tiramisu—ladyfingers, coffee, and mascarpone—and reimagines them as an icebox pie. The dessert is full of playful textures and flavors, including a dense coffee mousse and salty-sweet coffee crunchies.

Another summer staple, this fluffy, custard-filled pie from pastry chef Kierin Baldwin is a tropical-flavored treat. Every part of the dessert has coconut: the crust, the filling and the topping.

Pastry chef Paola Velez loves making crumb crusts for no-bake pies during the hot summer months. Here she uses Ritz cracker crumbs as a salty, buttery foil to a tart lemon and sumac curd filling. Sumac, a tart spice that adds floral aroma and pops of red color, backs up fresh lemon juice in this sweet and sour filling. 

For juicy—but never runny—berry pie, pastry chef Nicole Rucker crushes a single large handful of the berry filling to help create the perfect saucy consistency. Huckleberries and blackberries create the namesake black-and-blue filling, but a mix of any brambleberries and blueberries will do. A crumb topping adds texture and helps absorb some of the pie's juice, allowing it to slice cleanly.

Pastry chef Stella Parks makes the very best Boston cream pie, with a light and delicately sweet pastry cream filling and a great sponge cake. Top it with the silky dark chocolate ganache and serve it cold.

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.

Cool, creamy, and nostalgic, banana pudding gets a gourmet upgrade thanks to buttery, roasted macadamia nuts in the classic vanilla wafer crust. This is no place for instant pudding—this pie gets a rich lift from an easy homemade pudding made from whole milk and egg yolks flecked with flavorful vanilla bean seeds. Two layers of sliced banana and a billowy crown of fresh whipped cream takes this make-ahead dessert over the top.

"The different components of the pie can be prepared on different days," Nik Sharma says. "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".

A Southern take on pumpkin pie, this mashup of sweet potato, egg, milk, sugar and nutmeg is as seasonal as it gets. It's the perfect pair with a pecan pie for a holiday spread.

This pie gets its intensely apple-y flavor from macerating the apples in sugar for an hour. The liquid drained from the apples is simmered with a hit of butter until a syrup forms. That rich syrup is mixed with the apples, piled into the crust, and baked until tender and delicious. The pie is excellent the day it's made, but even better the next day.

This take on apple pie turns more towards an apple crumble, with a buttery and crispy crumble layered on top full of rolled oats and dark brown sugar. We dare you not to eat the whole thing.

With a perfectly buttery crust and a sweet, jammy filling, this slab pie is one of the most delicious strawberry pie desserts you'll eat all summer.

When you slice into this delicious pie, don't be surprised by the gap between the filling and the top crust. This happens when a pie is baked at high heat because the crust sets before the fruit in the filling has cooked down.

This delicious whipped-cream-topped peanut butter pie offers the perfect balance of sweet and salty flavors.

Joyce White has perfected the art of making every sort of cream pie, from coconut to cocoa to her favorite, banana: rum-spiked custard sandwiched between banana slices and swirls of whipped cream, topped with white chocolate curls.