A simple homemade strawberry cream cheese pie made with an easy graham cracker crust, a sweet cream cheese layer, and topped with fresh strawberries. This pie uses no Jello, gelatin, or artificial add-ins, and a quick strawberry sauce serves as a sweet glaze for the berries.
When it comes to sweets, it’s pretty well-known in my household that I have a complete and utter lack of restraint. Cookies, cakes, and pies (particularly strawberry cream cheese pies) need to be removed from the premises posthaste, or else it’s just a matter of time before I no longer fit through our doorways. Zach must take care to monitor the ice cream in our freezer closely, otherwise I’ll whittle it down to nothing, one sneaking spoonful at a time (he’s actually really bad at this, there’s a carton of ice cream in our freezer with a single spoonful of chocolate ice cream left because I’ve eaten nearly all of it).
But my inability to control myself is possibly most evident during strawberry picking season.
Because when it comes to strawberry picking, I just cannot stop myself. I will pick, and pick, and pick (and maybe sample a few, for, you know, quality control) until my arms are aching from the weight of my berries. Zach and I brought home more berries than two people can be realistically expected to eat in a year, but within a week we’d worked our way through all of them — mostly courtesy of this Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie.
Strawberry picking is a tradition with Zach’s family that I’m grateful to have been absorbed into, and each year for the past three years I’ve shared a strawberry dessert with you. First it was my Strawberries & cream daiquiris (I know, the photos could use a re-shoot), my homemade strawberry pop-tarts last year, and now this strawberry cream cheese pie.
Originally this year’s recipe was going to just be a plain Strawberry Pie, but when Zach’s mom mentioned that she’d had one before with a layer of cream cheese, I made the quick decision to re-route, and a fluffy layer of whipped cream cheese filling was the first thing to go into my homemade graham cracker crust.
It’s just four ingredients, and actually served as the inspiration for my no-bake cheesecake, which I shared with you last week.
We are using no Jello or gelatin in this strawberry cream cheese pie — no artificial flavors, just the pure juicy taste of fresh berries. However, that means that we have to get to work making a simple strawberry sauce, and while this pie is no-bake, you will have to whip out a saucepan for that — don’t worry, it will only take a few minutes.
We’re going to cook the berries with some sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch (a thickener), releasing the fresh juice of the berries and reducing the amount of liquid for a strawberry sauce that we will toss even more fresh strawberries into. Allow it to cool completely (once it’s finished cooking I usually pour the jam into a new heatproof container, that seems to speed up the process a bit since you don’t have to wait for the pan to come back down to temperature) and then stir in your berries.
And that’s it!
Super simple, isn’t it?
Enjoy!
I used some of these strawberries to make a strawberry icebox cheesecake, that I shared over on TheSpruce.com, make sure you check that out, too! 🙂
Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie
Ingredients
- 1 9-10" graham cracker crust prepared
Strawberry topping
- 5-6 cups quartered strawberries, stems removed divided (840g)
- 1/2 cup sugar (100g)
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
Cream Cheese Layer
- 8 oz cream cheese softened (225g
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar (65g)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup heavy cream (235ml)
Instructions
- In small saucepan, combine 2 cups strawberries (280g), sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice over medium-low heat.
- Stir frequently until strawberries release their juices.
- Use a potato masher to crush the strawberries until mostly liquid (it's fine if small pieces are remaining).
- Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Boil (still stirring constantly) for 1 minutes and remove from heat, place in new heat proof container to cool faster. Set aside while you prepare your cream cheese layer
- In a medium-sized bowl, beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract until combined.
- In a separate, clean bowl, beat 1 cup heavy cream to stiff peaks
- Fold into cream cheese mixture -- the resulting mixture will be thick and fluffy.
- Spread evenly into prepared graham cracker crust and place in refrigerator while your strawberry mixture continues to cool.
- Once strawberry mixture has cooled completely, add remaining srawberries and stir well.
- Pour over cream cheese layer, piling/mounding strawberries towards the center.
- Return to refrigerator and allow to set at least 4 hours (preferably overnight) before slicing and serving.
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Gloria Mitchell says
June 4, 2019 at 7:37 amCan you use strawberry pie filling in place of fresh strawberries in the strawberry cream cheese pie?
Sam says
June 6, 2019 at 5:35 pmYup! That would be fine. Enjoy, Gloria!
Brittney says
June 1, 2019 at 5:33 pmCan I do a layer of crust on top as well & put in oven or is this a bad idea
Sam says
June 1, 2019 at 11:39 pmHmm, I’d be worried about the cream cheese layer being baked, I don’t think I’d recommend it unfortunately.
Lynn says
May 26, 2019 at 11:25 amHi making this for my son’s bday. But he doesn’t like Graham cracker can I prepare a regular pie crust?
Sam says
May 26, 2019 at 8:34 pmHi Lynn! Yes, that will be fine, here is my favorite pie crust recipe if you want to try that one. Enjoy!
JoAnn says
May 16, 2019 at 8:07 pmI make a frozen blueberry pie. Same except substitute strawberries for blueberries. I mix cream and cream cheese together and then fold in cooled strawberries. Pour into pie shell and freeze. No berries on top.
Sam says
May 16, 2019 at 10:11 pmI bet it’s awesome with blueberries too! 🙂
Kimmy says
May 15, 2019 at 11:02 pmAbout how long does the strawberry mixture take to cool to top the pie? Just curious how long it will take me to make the pie altogether. Thanks!
Sam says
May 16, 2019 at 9:16 amHi Kimmy! I would plan on about an hour for it to cool. 🙂
Grace Hanners says
May 18, 2019 at 3:46 pmI sat the pot in a bowl of ice water. It was cool in less than 10 minutes.
Stephanie Thompson says
May 15, 2019 at 9:08 pmI have made this pie twice & everyone loves it!! It is called the Crack Strawberry pie!!! Used a store bought graham cracker crust, but will make one myself next time. This ones a keeper!!
Sam says
May 15, 2019 at 9:58 pmI like the name! I am so glad everyone is enjoying the pie, Stephanie! 🙂
Barbara Reed says
May 3, 2019 at 1:59 pmLove it being so simple to make.
Sam says
May 3, 2019 at 4:40 pmI’m so glad you enjoyed, Barbara!
Lawanda DANGERFIELD says
April 20, 2019 at 5:23 pmI have a question. It called for 5 to 6 cups of strawberries but it says to mash 2 cups to make the liquid do you mix the other 3 in the jelly mixture?
Sam says
April 20, 2019 at 5:59 pmHi Lawanda, see step 10 🙂
Cindy Koessler says
April 17, 2019 at 12:18 amFirst of all this is wonderful. I have 2 questions: first mine looked so bad but tasted great. I’m wondering if blending mixture instead of mashing and adding more strawberries at the end would work and make it prettier? Also I would like to try a lower sugar version, have you tried using Splenda or another sweetener instead of the sugars? Thanks so much for this great recipe.
Sam says
April 18, 2019 at 8:04 pmHi Cindy! I am not sure what happened and I’m sorry it wasn’t as pretty as you’d like. You could blend the entire mixture, but it would be a lot runnier that way. I have not tried a sweetener substitution in this recipe. If you try it again, I’d love to know how it turns out. 🙂
Edie says
March 15, 2019 at 10:04 amMade this pie for “pi day” contest at work yesterday and won!
Sam says
March 15, 2019 at 10:20 pmThat’s awesome, Edie! I am so glad everyone enjoyed it! 🙂
Annette says
December 21, 2018 at 10:11 amWhen making this no bake cheesecake can I add coconut flakes to the cheesecake batter and then top it with the strwaberry topping. The reason why I ask this is because I love love coconut and I love love strawberries so I figure I could probably do a coconut strawberry no bake cheese cake.
Sam says
December 21, 2018 at 6:00 pmI think that would be delicious! Just stir them in after you’ve folded together your heavy cream/cream cheese mixture (after step 8) and you should be good to go! Enjoy! 🙂
Lorraine cheng says
November 20, 2018 at 2:09 amhow long ahead can I make this pie? does it stay okay for a couple days?
Sam says
November 20, 2018 at 8:06 pmA couple of days in the refrigerator would be just fine. ☺️
Debbie says
May 11, 2019 at 8:29 amIm thinking the same as Cindy and not mashing just cut up in small pieces then fill in with rest of strawberries to make it prettier. I think i will try that. Thank you