This easy cheesecake pie is perfect for cheesecake lovers who want a quicker, easier alternative to making a classic cheesecake. The smooth and creamy filling is made of just 6 simple ingredients, and there’s no springform pan or water bath step required. It’s delicious on its own, or you can top it with raspberry sauce, whipped cream, lemon curd, fresh berries, or salted caramel.
This pie recipe wasn’t actually in my original plan for posting on the website, but it just kind of… happened. I was working on perfecting the recipe and technique for graham cracker crust, and needed something easy and reliable to use on repeat for a filling… approximately 75 cheesecake pies later, I thought: Well, I should probably share this recipe, too!
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Easy Cheesecake Pie
- It’s cheesecake… without the fuss
- Batter & crust come together quickly
- Same velvety, creamy texture and tangy-sweet taste as my classic cheesecake
- 6 simple ingredients, plus a 3-ingredient graham cracker crust
- Bakes and cools much faster than a regular cheesecake
- It’s very adaptable to taste and season, depending on toppings
What Is the Difference Between Cheesecake and Cheesecake Pie?
Today’s cheesecake pie is like a regular cheesecake, only (1) the filling layer isn’t as thick and tall and (2) you bake it in a pie dish instead of a springform pan. Basically, the taste and texture are the same, but you don’t have as much filling in each bite.
If you’re in the mood for real, classic cheesecake… definitely put in the time and effort to make a real, classic cheesecake. However, if you love cheesecake and don’t have the energy (whether that’s physically or emotionally!) for a water bath, accidentally over-baking or under-baking it, exceptionally long cooling and chilling times, plus the possibility of large cracks on the surface, just make a cheesecake pie!
(Because regular cheesecake can be finicky, right?!)
I have made at least 12 of these in the past few weeks and every single taste tester, neighbor, family member, and friend has said it tastes exactly like regular cheesecake. (And that’s because it is! Only thinner!) You’re going to love this dessert.
And if you are in the mood for a fall inspired flavor, try pumpkin cheesecake pie next.
Can I Skip the Water Bath?
Yes! As if there wasn’t enough to persuade you to make this cheesecake pie! You see, water baths are used to help an egg-heavy dessert like traditional cheesecake bake in a humid environment. The humidity evenly bakes the rich and creamy filling so it doesn’t burn, sink, and/or crack. Since today’s filling isn’t as tall, we don’t have those problems. So, skip the water bath today!
Success Tips for a Perfect Graham Cracker Crust
We’re using my perfected graham cracker crust recipe. You need 3 ingredients including graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. The ratio of ingredients is imperative and what you’ll find below (and also on the graham cracker crust page) yields a crisp, crumbly crust that holds shape beautifully. But what’s more important than the ingredients is the technique you use to press the crust into the pan.
Over the years, I’ve learned exactly what makes and (literally) breaks a great graham cracker crust:
- Use your hands first: Press the bottom and around the sides with medium-firm pressure until the crumbs aren’t moving around anymore—you don’t want any loose crumbs. You can even use a small flat-bottomed measuring cup to help smooth out the surface.
- Don’t pack too tightly: The crust needs to be compact, so it doesn’t crumble apart, but not so tight that it bakes into a hard, dense crust. You really just want to pack it until the shape has set and it’s no longer crumbly.
- Keep it rounded: This sounds a bit odd, but you don’t want a right angle at the bottom edges where the sides and the bottom meet. Instead, you want it a little bit rounded so it stays connected when you slice into it—so the side crust doesn’t immediately separate from the bottom crust. Slide a spoon around the inside of the crust where the sides and bottom meet, to get that rounded shape.
Or you could use an Oreo cookie crust or Biscoff pie crust instead if you’d like.
Here is a photo of the rounded crust. Be sure to pre-bake this for 10 minutes before adding the filling.
Grab These 6 Ingredients for the Filling:
- Bricks of Cream Cheese: Philadelphia cream cheese isn’t affiliated with this post, but it IS my favorite cream cheese brand. Whichever brand you use, make sure you’re using bricks of full-fat cream cheese and not the cream cheese in a tub you would use for spreading on bagels. Same rule applies when making cream cheese frosting and strawberry cream cheese pie.
- Granulated Sugar: You’ll love that this cheesecake isn’t overly sweet. Vanilla sugar would be great here.
- Sour Cream: My team and I tested this cheesecake pie several (several!!!!) times and there was a major difference between the pies with sour cream and the pies without sour cream. You need 1/4 cup of sour cream to help bind the ingredients together and smooth out the filling so it tastes creamy. Without it, the filling tasted like cream cheese, not cheesecake.
- Vanilla Extract: Feel free to use homemade vanilla extract in this pie!
- Lemon Juice: A splash of lemon juice adds freshness and depth of flavor—I recommend you don’t leave it out. This cheesecake pie does not taste like lemon cheesecake.
- Eggs: A main ingredient in any baked cheesecake! Careful not to over-mix these, and be sure to add them right at the end.
Pour the filling into the warm pre-baked crust, and then bake:
Can I Add Chocolate Chips to the Filling?
I have no idea if anyone would even ask this question, but I love chocolate chips in cheesecakes and the answer is YES! Feel free to add 3/4 cups mini or regular semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter. (What we do when making amaretto cheesecake.) This version would be tasty served with salted caramel on top.
Cooling & Chilling Is a Breeze
You know how you have to wait a few hours for a regular cheesecake to cool and then you have to wait some more for it to chill in the refrigerator? You’re doing the same thing here, only in a fraction of the time. The cheesecake cools for about 1 hour at room temperature (no need to let it cool in the oven like some cheesecake recipes!) and then you chill it for about 2–3 hours before serving.
Low-maintenance cheesecake!
What to Serve With Cheesecake Pie
You can, of course, serve the cheesecake pie plain, but I like to add raspberry sauce, whipped cream, and fresh raspberries. Or you can spruce it up with:
- Salted caramel
- Blueberry sauce/swirl from blueberry swirl cheesecake (you can prepare a blueberry swirl cheesecake pie by using the same swirling instructions in that recipe)
- Chocolate ganache or red wine chocolate ganache
- Strawberry sauce
- Lemon curd
- Brown sugar pecan topping from pecan pie cheesecake
- We slightly scaled down the filling to make room for extra toppings in this caramel apple cheesecake pie
Easy Cheesecake Pie
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes (includes crust pre-bake)
- Total Time: 4 hours
- Yield: one 9-inch pie
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is regular cheesecake… made easier! Enjoy a creamy, velvety smooth filling with a crispy, crunchy graham cracker crust. Skip the water bath and use a pie dish instead of a springform pan. Feel free to serve with optional toppings listed in recipe Note.
Ingredients
Graham Cracker Crust
- 1 and 1/2 cups (180g) graham cracker crumbs (about 12 full sheet graham crackers)
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 6 Tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, melted
Filling
- 16 ounces (452g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (60g) full-fat sour cream, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- optional for topping: raspberry dessert sauce, fresh raspberries, & whipped cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C).
- Make the crust: If you’re starting out with full graham crackers, use a food processor or blender to grind them into fine crumbs. Stir the graham cracker crumbs and granulated sugar together in a medium bowl, and then stir in the melted butter. The mixture will be thick, coarse, and sandy. Try to smash/break up any large chunks. Pour the mixture into an ungreased 9-inch pie dish. With medium pressure using your hand, pat the crumbs down into the bottom and up the sides to make a compact crust. Do not pack down with heavy force because that makes the crust too hard. Simply pat down until the mixture is no longer crumby/crumbly. Tips: You can use a small flat-bottomed measuring cup to help press down the bottom crust and smooth out the surface, but do not pack down too hard. And run a spoon around the bottom “corner” where the edge and bottom meet to help make a rounded crust—this helps prevent the crust from falling apart. For more shaping technique tips, see the graham cracker crust recipe page.
- Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Make the filling in the next step as the crust bakes.
- Make the filling: Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed in a large bowl until the mixture is smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the sour cream, vanilla extract, and lemon juice, and then beat until fully combined and very smooth. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed to combine—you don’t want any lumps. Then on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until just blended. After the second egg is incorporated into the batter, stop mixing. If you still see some lumps at this point, switch to a whisk and whisk by hand just until you break up the large lumps. Some small lumps are OK.
- Lower the oven temperature to 325°F (163°C) and spread the cheesecake filling into the warm crust.
- Bake the pie for 35 minutes or until the center is almost set. Check it at the 25-minute mark, and if it’s browning too quickly on top and around the edges, tent it with aluminum foil for the last 10 minutes of baking.
- Set the pie on a wire rack and cool for 1 hour at room temperature. Then place it in the refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days before serving. (Cover if chilling it for longer than a few hours.)
- Feel free to garnish the pie with any of the optional toppings listed in the notes right before or a couple hours before serving. (Keep pie refrigerated if you decorate it and plan to serve later.) I use a squeeze bottle to drizzle raspberry sauce on top and a piping bag fitted with Wilton 1M piping tip to zigzag whipped cream on top. For neat slices, use a clean sharp knife, and wipe the knife clean between each slice. Tip: The first slice is never pretty! Much easier to slice after that first piece is out.
- Cover and store leftover pie in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: This cheesecake pie can be made up to 2 days in advance. See step 7. It’s best if the crust is still a bit warm when you pour in the filling, so I don’t recommend pre-baking the crust in advance. You can also freeze the baked and cooled cheesecake for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Food Processor | Glass Mixing Bowl | 9-inch Pie Dish | Electric Mixer (Stand Mixer or Handheld) | Cooling Rack
- Oreo Cookie Crust: You can use an Oreo cookie crust instead of a graham cracker crust.
- Toppings: My favorite toppings for this pie are raspberry sauce, fresh raspberries, and whipped cream, which are pictured in the post. You can also top the baked and cooled cheesecake with salted caramel, lemon curd, strawberry topping, chocolate ganache, or red wine chocolate ganache.
- Room Temperature Ingredients: Bring all cold ingredients to room temperature before beginning. Room temperature ingredients combine quickly and evenly, so you won’t risk over-mixing. Also, beating cold ingredients together will result in a chunky cheesecake filling, hardly the way you want to begin!
- Non-US Readers: If graham crackers are not available where you live, we have also tested this pie with a crust made from digestive biscuits, and it turned out great. Use 200g ground digestive biscuit crumbs (about 2 cups; 13–14 biscuits), 1/3 cup (67g) granulated sugar, and 6 Tablespoons (85g) melted butter. Pre-bake the crust for a bit longer, about 12–14 minutes. And from what I understand, spreadable cream cheese sold in a tub in countries outside of the US is a little different from the spreadable cream cheese in the US. It’s thicker, sturdier, and more solid and should be OK to make this pie. I have no experience with it, but this is what I’ve heard from other non-US readers. If you try it, let us know how it turns out!
Omgosh. Thank you. Definitely am going to make this. I must be careful though because I am a T2D. Thank you so much.
Thank you for all of your wonderful recipes.
Can I incorporate pine nuts or macadamia nuts into the crust.
Hi Stephanie, you can use the macadamia nut crust from our key lime pie recipe here instead. Enjoy!
could you use plain full fat yogurt instead of sour cream? thanks!
Hi Annie, you can use plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream here. Enjoy!
I made this for my in laws anniversary – plain with no topping. A friend came over and got a store bought fancy cheesecake. Everyone preferred mine over that!! Thank you so much.
PS: I made your cheesecake a few years ago when we had to celebrate my child’s 3rd bday in lockdown – that was a hit too!! Thank you for making me look better than gourmet store chefs
Hi Darryl, we haven’t tested a chocolate version (either with cocoa powder or melted chocolate in the batter), but let us know if you try anything. It would be fantastic with chocolate ganache on top!
I’ve made this recipe twice and LOVE it. I was going to make it today but just realized that I don’t have a lemon and can’t get to the store because of snow. In a pinch, would you use lime juice as a substitute? Or just leave it out.
Hi Meg! Lime juice will work just fine here. It’s such a small amount, you shouldn’t able to taste it. It just adds freshness and depth of flavor.
I loved it So yummy and simple! But at first it came out half raw I had to put it in the oven for another 25 mins I cooked it for 40 mins the first time
I loved it!!! Soo good & so simple But it did take mine way longer to cook at least another 20 mins or more!!
The best cheesecake pie that I have ever made and tasted. I have made cheesecakes with the water bath and spring board cake pan that take up a lot of time. Personally I think your recipe is the best! It tastes so silky and smooth that I can not stop eating it. I topped my with a wild raspberry sauce I made from the raspberries I picked in my woods. Yum! Please keep giving out these great recipes.
Another winning recipe from Sally. I appreciated the ease of this recipe compared to a regular cheesecake. My mother in law is visiting from England and enjoyed it so much she asked for the recipe so she can make at home. She said they can’t get block cream cheese in the UK. Is there something else that would work as a substitute? Thanks for any tips!
Hi Jessica, we’re so glad you enjoyed this recipe! In the U.S. block cream cheese is very different than the tubs and is the only cream cheese that will work. We have been told by readers outside the U.S. that cream cheese in a tub is different from ours and can work, but we have not tested it. Please let us know if she gives it a try!
Hi Sally, Thanks for this wonderful recipe, I tried it and it tasted great!
Though I had a few questions I think you might be able to answer.
I made it in a 9-inch cake springform, in this form it seemed the amount of crumb crust was only barely enough to make a pie-shape, the filling nearly spilled over, would you suggest making more crust if this is the case or will this affect the bake time too much?
After taking it out of the oven I left it to cool in the springform for an hour, in fear of it ‘falling apart’ if I took the springform off. Is this recommended or would it be better to have it cool off out of the form?
The crust turned out to be quite buttery, I’m not sure why, since I used the 85g and a bit too soft at the bottom part. I just read the non-US part which I missed before, I used 180g digestive crackers and baked them for 10 minutes. Do you think adjusting them to 12 crackers (so around 200-210g) and baking them slightly longer 12-14 min will fix this issue?
Besides these things the taste was great and the filling turned out great as well, I plan to make this again soon and top it with a blueberry compote. Thanks again for your recipes!
Hi Gerb, sorry for the slow response on your comment! I think baking this cheesecake pie in a springform pan instead of a glass pie dish is probably the main reason for your issues. If you’d prefer to bake in a springform, it would be better to use this recipe for classic cheesecake. Hope you give it a try, and have great results!
can you explain why you instruct to stop blending right after you mix in the 2nd egg, and switch to whisk? is there some concern with overmixing and if so, what would happen? sorry…but I have baking fails a lot…so I was excited to see you tested this pie so many times!!
Hi Kathy! You don’t want to over-mix the eggs here. If you do, you could incorporate too much air, which would rise, fall, and crack when baked.
Sally,
I’d like to add a raspberry swirl on top before baking. Is this possible? If so, would I use raspberry sauce or raspberry jam?
I follow you almost exclusively as your recipes always work for me!
Hi Cynthia, we haven’t tried it with this specific recipe, but you could try adding a raspberry swirl like we do in these white chocolate raspberry cheesecake bars. Let us know if you try it!
I made this over Thanksgiving and it was a huge hit!! My husband LOVES cheesecake and he said this was his all time favorite. Thank you!
I really appreciate how you managed to make something that tastes just like cheesecake without the springform pan and the water bath. It makes me so much more excited to make a cheesecake. I also tried the pumpkin one and it turned out amazing for thanksgiving. Can you advise how to make a chocolate version of this?
Hi Brandon, we’re so glad you enjoyed it! We haven’t tested a chocolate version (either with cocoa powder or melted chocolate in the batter), but let us know if you try anything. It would be fantastic with chocolate ganache on top!
Perfect! Foolproof recipe. I used canned cherries to put on top. I heated them up on the stove with a teaspoon of cornstarch then refrigerated it first.
We loved the Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake so much, I’ve already made it twice.
I had never made a baked cheesecake, and I was a bit intimidated by the idea, but this recipe was simple and delicious! Perfect addition to our Thanksgiving table!
This cheesecake pie was delicious and decadent. I topped it with blueberry sauce. I will make it again and again…
So glad to hear this, Mary!
Can I use a pre made crust?
Absolutely.
I used a pre made crust. It turned out great
Can I use a premade graham cracker crust for this or will it burn when cooked in the oven?
Hi Brenda, you can use a pre-made crust. We still recommend pre-baking it.
I So appreciate all the explanations and specifics. I’m one of those people that need it, and of course the pictures. Silly question…how to cover in the fridge? Think my cake holder is too large. Was thinking parchment then foil but I’m worried about anything touching the top. Maybe I should make room for the cake holder!
Hi MMR, a cake holder will work or simply a piece of aluminum foil (what we use!). If you’re worried about it touching the top, you can tent it a bit to make sure the middle isn’t touching. Hope you love it!
My stepdaughter loved this! She said it tasted awesome and just like cheesecake! She couldn’t tell the difference. I just want to know can I bake this in an 8×8 glass baking dish?
Hi Diane, this will work in a 9 x 9 baking dish!
Can I use a regular mixer? I don’t have a paddle attachment.
Hi Pauline, yes, you can use a standard hand mixer here instead.
I am now calling you, “my friend Sally”, since I make so many of your recipes. This recipe is so easy and yummy without the fuss! I will never make the classic water bath recipe again!
I threw a small birthday part this past week. The birthday girl (an adult) loves cheesecake. I did not want to go full cheesecake mode due to the prep time of all I was making. I decided on this Cheesecake Pie. It was not only a big hit with everyone, but my hubby who does not like cheesecake was in love! Not too heavy or too sweet. Perfect in every way.
What a delicious, creamy Cheesecake Pie. Fast and easy to make. You have done it again. Thank you for another wonderful recipe.