This is the perfect lemon meringue pie! With a delicious homemade pie crust, tart and smooth lemon filling, and a fluffy toasted meringue topping, it’s impossible to resist.
Let’s welcome a fresh new season with a fresh new pie—the pie I’ve been taunting you with for weeks!! The beautiful, the timeless, the Classic Lemon Meringue Pie.
My lemon meringue pie recipe has a billowy and toasty meringue topping, a balanced sweet/tart lemon filling, and an extra thick and flaky pie crust. I worked on this recipe for a long time, making at least a dozen meringue pies in the past few months. Both my kitchen and head were exploding lemons. Whenever we had friends or family stop by, I’d force lemon meringue pie on them. “PLEASE TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS” I begged while barely blinking.
How to Make Lemon Meringue Pie
Over the years and especially the past few months, I learned that lemon meringue pie can be a daunting process but it doesn’t have to be. Let me make this recipe easy for you by giving you a tested (and praised!!!) recipe, lots of helpful recipe notes, and a video so you can watch it come to life. Perhaps you’re looking for Easter dessert recipes? Celebrating a birthday? Or just want to enjoy a beautiful lemon-y pie? No matter your reason, I’ve got you 🙂
- Blind bake pie crust
- Prepare lemon meringue pie filling
- Whip meringue topping
- Spread meringue on top of filling
- Bake pie until toasty brown on top
Now that you have a general idea of the process, let’s learn why this lemon meringue pie recipe works and what mistakes to avoid.
Here’s Why This Recipe Works
There are 3 main roadblocks when making lemon meringue pie: a soggy pie crust, a watery lemon filling, and/or a weeping meringue. Let’s work through each.
- Let’s avoid a soggy pie crust: Start by reviewing how we blind bake pie crust. You want to partially blind bake the crust because it will continue to bake when you bake the assembled lemon meringue pie. Watch me blind bake the crust I use for this lemon meringue pie in my separate post on how to blind bake pie crust. Lots of tips and tricks there. And to get those pretty decorative edges, see my how to crimp and flute pie crust tutorial.
- Let’s avoid a watery lemon filling: This is where I always had the most trouble. Lemon meringue pie filling is basically a thinner version of lemon curd. You’ll temper egg yolks. And before you run away screaming, watch me do this in the video below. Promise it’s not scary. While lemon meringue pie filling should be blissfully creamy, we also want it to be stable enough to slice somewhat neatly. (Think: a slightly firmer version of pudding, but not as firm as jello.) There was a lot of back and forth with the water vs lemon juice vs cornstarch vs sugar amounts. Follow my lemon meringue pie filling below. It’s not too tart, not too sweet, and has the silkiest, yet not-too-watery texture.
- Let’s avoid a weeping meringue: There are many different types of meringue topping, but let’s use a French meringue. Beat egg whites into soft peaks, add sugar, then beat into stiff peaks. Unless you want to waste a bunch of egg whites in failed meringue attempts, read these tips: Make sure you begin with just egg whites. Not even a drip of egg yolks. Make sure the bowl you’re using is completely wiped clean. No oil or water residue. Make sure you add cream of tartar. This will stabilize your meringue. Make sure you add the sugar *after* soft peaks are formed. If added before that, the egg whites could stretch too much which prevents a stiff peak altogether. (These tips apply for my chocolate swirled meringue cookies, too.) Make sure you spread the meringue topping so it touches the pie crust. This seals the lemon filling underneath and allows the crust to grip onto the meringue so the two do not separate. And, finally, don’t make lemon meringue pie on a humid day.
How to Make Lemon Meringue Pie Topping
The meringue toasts in the oven. A lot of recipes call for putting the whole pie under the broiler, but I prefer to bake it so that the egg whites have a chance to cook through. Also, see the end of step 6 in the recipe below. Make sure you spread the meringue topping on while the filling is still warm. The warm filling helps seal the two layers together, preventing separation.
- Did you know? (1) Room temperature egg whites whip faster than cold egg whites. And (2) room temperature egg whites whip into a greater volume than cold egg whites. So make sure your egg whites are at room temperature before starting the meringue.
- Time saving tip: You need 5 egg yolks for the lemon filling and 5 egg whites for the meringue topping. Separate the 5 eggs while they are cold. (Cold eggs separate easier! Remember NO egg yolks in the meringue, not even a smidge.) Leave the egg whites out on the counter. Blind bake the pie crust and prepare the lemon filling. By the time you’re ready to start the meringue, the egg whites will be room temperature.
Meringue can be tricky, but you’re a baker and you can absolutely handle this.
Craving something smaller? Here is my lemon bars recipe.
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Classic Lemon Meringue Pie
- Prep Time: 6 hours
- Cook Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
- Total Time: 7 hours, 10 minutes
- Yield: one 9-inch pie
- Category: Pie
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is the perfect lemon meringue pie! With a delicious homemade pie crust, tart and smooth lemon filling, and a fluffy toasted meringue topping, it’s impossible to resist.
Ingredients
- Homemade Pie Crust*
- 5 large egg yolks (use the whites in the meringue below)
- 1 and 1/3 cups (320ml) water
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (38g) cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (120ml) fresh lemon juice
- 1 Tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
Meringue
- 5 large egg whites, at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Pie crust: I like to make sure my pie dough is prepared before I begin making lemon meringue pie. I always make pie dough the night before because it needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before rolling out and blind baking (next step).
- Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C) and adjust your oven rack to the lowest position. Partially blind bake pie crust in a 9-inch pie dish. (Follow blind baking instructions through step 9. Be sure to crimp or flute the pie crust edges, too.) Tip: You can get started on the lemon meringue pie filling steps while your crust is blind baking. But making the filling is time sensitive because you will temper the egg yolks, so if multi-tasking isn’t your thing, just wait until your crust is done blind baking before beginning the filling.
- Reduce oven temperature to 350°F (177°C).
- Watch the video below to see how I work through each of the following steps.
- Make the filling: Whisk the egg yolks together in a medium bowl or liquid measuring cup. Set aside. Whisk the water, granulated sugar, cornstarch, salt, lemon juice, and lemon zest together in a medium saucepan over medium heat. The mixture will be thin and cloudy, then eventually begin thickening and bubbling after about 6 minutes. Once thickened, give it a whisk and reduce heat to low.
- Temper the egg yolks: Very slowly stream a few large spoonfuls of warm lemon mixture into the beaten egg yolks. Then, also in a very slow stream, whisk the egg yolk mixture into the saucepan. Turn heat back up to medium. Cook until the mixture is thick and big bubbles begin bursting at the surface. Remove the pan from heat and whisk in the butter. Spread filling into the warm partially baked crust. Set aside as you prepare the meringue. (Don’t let the filling cool down too much as you want a warm filling when you top with the meringue in step 7. The warm filling helps seal the two layers together, preventing separation.)
- Make the meringue: With a handheld mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together on medium speed for 1 minute, then increase to high speed until soft peaks form, about 4 more minutes. Add the sugar and salt, then continue beating on high speed until glossy stiff peaks form, about 2 more minutes. Spread meringue on top of filling. (I like to make decorative peaks with the back of a large spoon.) Make sure you spread the meringue all the way to the edges so that it touches the crust. This helps prevent the meringue from weeping.
- Bake pie on the lowest oven rack for 20-25 minutes. (If the meringue is browning too quickly, tent a piece of foil over it as best you can without the foil touching the meringue.) When pie is done, remove from the oven, place on a wire rack, and allow to cool at room temperature for 1 hour before placing in the refrigerator to chill. Chill for 4 hours before slicing and serving.
- Cover any leftovers and store in the refrigerator. Lemon meringue pie tastes best on day 1 because it doesn’t keep very well. No matter how hard you try to prevent it, the meringue will wilt and separate over time. Best to enjoy right away.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: The pie crust can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can also blind bake the crust ahead of time, see how to blind bake pie crust for details. Lemon meringue pie is not the best pie to freeze. The filling and meringue’s texture are never quite the same.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | 9-Inch Pie Dish | Pie Weights | Glass Mixing Bowls | Zester | Saucepan | Whisk | Cooling Rack
- Pie Crust: My homemade pie crust recipe makes 2 pie crusts. If you use my “dough strip” method explained in my how to blind bake pie crust tutorial, you will need 1 and 1/2 pie crusts. Or you can skip that little trick and just use 1 pie crust.
- Prepare Ahead of Time: Prep all of your ingredients before you begin, including grating the lemon zest and separating the eggs. Don’t multitask unless you’re confident! The filling is time sensitive and you want to make sure everything is ready when you need to add it. Prep all of the meringue ingredients as well. You want them on hand, especially the sugar and salt, the very moment you need them. Don’t walk away from the bowl of egg whites as they whip. Meringue can beat into stiff peaks quite quickly.
Why did my meringue look gritty?
Hi Helen, the grittiness is likely undissolved sugar. A few additional minutes of whipping the meringue should help dissolve them and create a nice smooth meringue.
Really yummy I’ve made a lot of lemon meringue pies in my time. This is good
Is there a way to use limes instead of lemon? Would the ratio of sugar and zest and juice change? Thx
Hi Lori, using fresh lime juice would be pretty tart, but some readers have reported success with using key lime juice here. You could also try this key lime pie recipe, and top with meringue!
Just wondering if this recipe can be turned into mini tarts.
Hi RL, you can use this recipe for mini pies but we’re unsure of the exact bake time. You may need to make a few batches, depending on how many mini pies you’d like to make. Let us know if you give it a try!
Amazing recepie. My first lemon merangue and it was delicious!!! All the hints made my pie a huge success.
Made this for my husband’s birthday! Not only did it look fantastic, but it tasted absolutely delicious!
The pie turned out great but the meringue fell a lot after I put it in the fridge. Any suggestions on how to prevent that next time?
Hi Aubrey, The common culprit behind meringue deflating is beating the egg whites too quickly (or at too high of a speed). In this instance, the whites form unstable air bubbles which collapse when heated in the oven. What might help is starting the egg whites on a lower speed at first, then gradually increasing to a higher speed. Also, see the “Let’s avoid a weeping meringue” section in the blog post above. Hope these tips help for next time!
So this would cause the meringue to shrink significantly after putting it in the fridge? It was tall and beautiful after baking. I let it sit at room temp for an hour before chilling and about 30 min later, I noticed it shrank a lot.
Thank you for this recipe. I’m practicing, practicing, practicing making pies these days, and I’m about to start my third rendition of your lemon meringue pie. The first time I made your pie the top and bottom adhered to one another well. The second time the filling must have cooled too much because the layers weren’t as tightly sealed together. I’m wondering if there is any reason why it would be unwise to make the meringue before making the filling? My thinking is that if the meringue is already prepared when the filling goes into the crust, then I could add the already prepared meringue before the filling cools too much for the layers to seal. Thoughts? Much appreciated!
Hi Jean, You can certainly try making the meringue before the filling so it’s ready to go. Also be sure that you spread it all the way out to the edges.
Everything worked, as always. Whenever I am looking for a recipe or a hint and see Sally’s Baking Addiction in a Google search on that particular subject, I click on it without hesitation. It works for me every time.
This is becoming a broken record with my Sally Recipe reviews, but once again, this was an amazing recipe. Perfect texture, perfect combo of sweet and tart, delicious crisp crust, and meringue that’s not overly sweet and was the perfect texture. Yes I had a touch of weeping, but the flavor was so delicious I didn’t care. It’s been 30 years since I made lemon meringue pie, and now I wish I had tried this recipe years ago. The only difference with the recipe that I made, was I accidentally used two fully ripe limes (yellow on outside) as part of the lemon juice. It added an extra special something!
Hi Sally
I made this over the Christmas and it turned out perfectly! However, I just bought myself an 11inch pie dish and I’m wondering how I would adjust the amounts for this size dish. I’d be grateful for any tips!
Thanks so much,
Anne – Ireland
Hi Anne, You may be fine as is, and just have a thinner pie. You can try scaling up the recipe, but we’ve never scaled up the filling and topping before. With the added volume, the stovetop cook time will be longer. (And so will the meringue mixing time.)
This pie turned out perfectly! I made a GF pie crust and kept everything else the same. We had it with Christmas dinner as a counterpoint to the richness, and everyone loved it!
THis is my go-to recipe for Lemon Meringue pie. And I’ve had compliments on it every time I brought it somewhere. FYI: Lemon Meringue has been my favorite pie for years. I make it with a graham cracker crust. I learned long ago that making a dough crust is best left to others. LOL. I also decrease the sugar by at least 1/4 cup as I prefer a more tart/sweet pie.
I’ve used this recipe for 3 christmas in a row now and it’s been a super big hit. A logger by trade, you can’t imagine how surprised people are at my awesome meringue!! thanks for the clear instruction and awesome recipes! I appreciate you!!!
Everything turned out perfectly according to the recipe! Looks beautiful too.
My daughter is making the meringue and will be using a torch to brown the top. Do I still need to bake the filling or can I just let it set up in the fridge?
Hi Jill, you can use a torch. The filling itself doesn’t need to be baked. The egg yolks are cooked on the stove. Hope you enjoy it!
Loved it, but found my meringue took a longtime to stiffen, not sure why compared to other recipes that I’ve used
I used your lemon curd recipe for the pie filling, turned out delicious. Thank you for the tips
I am planning on using some of the Meyer’s lemons I grew this year. I assume they can sub the regular lemons in this recipe? I am making this for my family for Christmas dinner and I really want it to be amazing.
Hi Jill, Meyer lemons would also work for a slightly sweeter pie.
My pie turned out perfect. Thank you for the great tips.
I’m a widower for several years and was married for 40 years. There were only two things I ever cooked in those 40 years of marriage … steaks, and hamburgers. So … when I decided to see if I could actually bake one of my favorite pies, i picked this recipe. I’ve just finished my 3rd pie and they’ve all been great. So … the recipe works, and produces a great tasting pie. Thank you!!!!!
Now … may I make a suggestion on your directions. For a person that’s only baked 3 things in their entire life (lemon meringue pie), I’m a long way from knowing what you know I’d like to suggest a minor change in your directions for the filling. Rather than telling me what to add (a very long list), please just tell me what NOT to add … as in … combine all the ingredients in a sace pan with the exception of the butter and egg yolks. These will be added later. By doing this you will keep me from having to keep track of all the ingredients you told me to add. This may seem minor to someone that knows what they’re doing. Butbto a beginner, this would be quite helpful.
Additionally, I’m curious why the butter is added at the end of the filling making process. I’ve never remembered to exclude the butter (with no apparent negative results), o I’m curious as to why I need to wait until the end of the filling making process to add the butter.
Thank you … David
Hi David, thank you very much for your feedback. In my experience over the last 13 years, I find that when I do not list out all of the ingredients that need to combine/be added/mixed etc., it’s easy to accidentally leave something out. I add the butter last because I want it to slowly melt into the warm mixture, instead of melting on the stove. It helps create a slightly thicker filling this way; I do the same when making lemon curd.
So happy with this pie as usual. I saw a question on how many eggs. The author asked about the # of eggs and I had to ng. Separate the 5 eggs while they are cold. (Cold eggs separate easier! Remember NO egg yolks in the meringue, not even a smidge.) since your staff is seeing this I have a question. Can this recipe be doubled?
Hi Sally, glad you enjoyed the pie! The homemade pie crust recipe makes 2 pie crusts so that should help. But this is a rather finicky recipe and we recommend making the rest of each pie one pie at a time.
This has gone from being scary and mysterious to my favorite pie to make!! It’s wonderful that it comes together so quickly and reliably each and every time.
I was so disappointed with this recipe! I’ve made lemon meringue pies for years, and since I’ve enjoyed other recipes of yours, I gave this one a whirl for Thanksgiving. I think you’ve made a mistake with how much corn starch you include— way, way too much! My pie filling thickened so quickly and so stiffly, it remained cloudy yellow- white instead of the strong yellow typical. It tasted ok, but it was too firm and unattractive.
Lynda, thank you for reporting back. I find the filling is too thin, and not really sliceable with less cornstarch. I appreciate your feedback.
We dislike meringue here at our house so I love making the filling and folding the meringue into it for a lovely Lemon Chiffon Pie. I blind bake the crust ( my own recipe) cool completely, cook filling and cool completely, then I make the meringue and fold in. Gently add it to the cooled crust and chill. Delicious!
Thank you so much for this suggestion! I have lemons begging to be made into pie, but I have to make overnight. I will be trying this so I don’t end up with deflated meringue
This is my go to lemon meringue pie recipe. I make it at thanksgiving and Easter. It’s delicious and the perfect lemony goodness. I wish I could get the meringue to hold up though. No matter what tricks I use, it weeps and weeps. I make a batch and a half of the meringue so there’s some left by dinner time. Still absolutely delicious and I go back to the recipe every time.
Hi Tory! I can’t remember where I found this info but it may be helpful: “Weeping, the leaking between the pie filling and the meringue, has two common causes – humidity and undercooking. Meringue’s high sugar content leads to weeping on damp days. To absorb that liquid, sprinkle fine cake or cookie crumbs on the pie filling before topping with meringue. To combat undercooking, spread meringue over hot pie filling so it begins cooking immediately from the bottom up.”
Good Morning Sally & Fellow Addicts! This is the 4th year that I’ve made this pie for my ex mother-in-law & she LOVES IT! I wasn’t always a “FAN” of hers until after my husband(her son) passed away. She’ WAS grouchy but in her twilight years, she’s “mellowed” and she LOVES me now & it’s PARTLY to do with YOUR PIE! It’s one of her favorites & YEARS ago, her youngest son & I ATE the whole pie she made for Thanksgiving (we were ahem…TIPSEY). NEEDLESS to say, she SCREAMED at us & all we could do was laugh! So, me learning how to make one that is up to HER standards is a Blessing. Sorry for so long but this time of year, you’ll hear ALL kinds of stories I’m sure. You & your loved ones have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING! That goes for ALL my fellow Sally Addicts!
Can I use lemon curd from another recipe instead of the filling listed?
Hi Marta! Curd won’t thicken up enough. We recommend sticking with this filling.
OMG! My family loves lemon meringue! I am terrified to make a pie crust, so, plan on using a pre-made crust. Do I need to still blind bake? If so, do I just bake the same as for your homemade crust? Thank you!
Hi Heather, correct, you will still want to blind bake the pre-made crust as in Step 2. Hope your family enjoys the pie!
So the total of amount of eggs used is 10 total correct?
I love this recipe. It is amazing.