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 and baked (click on link)
Strawberry topping
- 5-6 cups (840 g) quartered strawberries, stems removed divided
- ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
Cream Cheese Layer
- 8 oz (225 g) cream cheese softened
- ½ cup (65 g) powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (235 ml) heavy cream
Instructions
- In small saucepan, combine 2 cups (280g) strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice over medium-low heat.½ cup (100 g) sugar, 2 Tbsp cornstarch, 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 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.8 oz (225 g) cream cheese, ½ cup (65 g) powdered sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a separate, clean bowl, beat 1 cup heavy cream to stiff peaks1 cup (235 ml) heavy cream
- 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.1 9-10" graham cracker crust
- Once strawberry mixture has cooled completely, add the 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.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
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Peggy
Great recipe! Family loved it.
Betty
Can you use frozen strawberries?
Sam
Hi Betty! That should work just fine. 🙂
Cheryl
Delicious, colorful dessert! And easy! I used a oat, nut crust and used a mixture of blueberries, strawberry, red and black raspberries for the topping. A new family favorite.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Sounds delicious, Cheryl! We’re so glad you enjoyed it 😊
Donna
Delicious!!! Everyone loved it! Will make this again!!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks so much for your review, Donna 😊
Karen
I made this Monday. How long can I keep in the refrigerator? Would it be okay until Thursday?
BTW, it was easy to prepare, looks beautiful and I can’t wait to eat it!
Sam
Hi Karen! I would say three days is the longest I would keep it. I would worry about it starting to become soggy. I hope you love it! 🙂
Bonnie Diemer
I made the recipe, it is delicious. instead of using a pie pan I used a 9″ square pan
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you enjoyed it, Bonnie! ❤
Mary
Tried using 1/2 and 1/2 don’t recommend it I had to refrigerate until hard enough to spread. I’ll use heavy cream next time. Great recipe, even with my mistake 😳😊
Debbe
Do you think I could used canned strawberry pie filling?
Sam
Hi Debbe! For best results I would really recommend the strawberry topping in the instructions. It’s really the star of the pie. The canned stuff would probably work, but you’ll be sacrificing a lot of flavor.
Luanda T Manzie
So addicting
Luanda T Manzie
Can I use blueberry instead of strawberry
Sam
Hi Luanda! That should be fine. 🙂
Luanda T Manzie
A smash hit. I loved it.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Wonderful! Thanks so much for trying our recipe, Lauanda 🙂
Janice
Can this finished pie be frozen to eat later?
Sam
Hi Janice! That should work fine. 🙂
Alex
Can you prepare any parts of this in advance to limit the amount of time spend day of?
Sam
Hi Alex! You could make the crust and the filling a day or two in advance 🙂
Gretchen
Looks soooo good! I’m in love with the regular flaky, buttery pie crust though– could I switch out the graham crust for regular? Any adjustments you would recommend?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We have not tried it with a regular crust but don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work and be delicious. Follow the instructions for how to blind bake pie crust and you should be good! 🙂
L Inselmann
Very easy to make. It came out delicious with fresh strawberries. Recommended and I’d make again.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for letting us know how it turned out for you! ❤️
Mary
Simple but delicious. I used and immersion blender instead of a potato masher – worked great!
doris stuart
can you mix the cream cheese and heavy cream together instead of seperate bowls
Sam
Hi Doris! You need to get the heavy cream to stiff peaks and you also don’t want to overdo it so I really recommend doing it in 2 bowls. 🙂
doris stuart
thank you
Heidi Hyndman
This is fantastic!!! I had it at a dinner party and everyone went nuts.
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Heidi! 🙂