This red, delicious Vegan Strawberry Pie has a star-studded, flaky, golden crust, and a delicious, brilliant filling of strawberries. Serve it up any time of the year for a delicious, beautiful treat. Nut-free and soy-free

Because everyone deserves pie for Thanksgiving, I have for you today this gorgeous vegan Strawberry Pie.
In our house, the berry is the king. Desi loves blueberries, I love raspberries, and we both adore strawberries. We blitz them into smoothies, add them to our breakfast oatmeal, and brown-bag them to work for a great after-lunch treat.
My recipe for a vegan Strawberry Pie is a very simple one. I don't fuss around with mashing and macerating the berries first, as some recipes do, or with cooking all or some of the berries separately, as most recipes do. Instead, the procedure I follow is not unlike the one I use when I make my Vegan Skillet Apple Pie where I just put the fruit in the crust and bake it all up.
A few readers have recently asked me about using just Earth Balance or just shortening in pie crust recipes, instead of the 50-50 mix I usually use, and the answer is, yes, you can use only one or the other.
But do keep a few things in mind when you make an all-Earth Balance pie crust. The reason shortening is added to crusts is because it remains solid at room temperature even as you break it into small pieces and mix and disperse it within the dough. When you cook the crust in the oven, the small bits of shortening melt, creating air pockets in the dough that give you a flaky crust.

Butter substitutes like Earth Balance add great flavor to a crust but they melt at room temperature, so unless you work really fast and at really cold temperatures, the butter can melt into your dough as you are kneading it, not allowing for those little air pockets. There are some ways you can avoid this from happening: make sure you keep the butter substitute really, really cold all the way up until you add it to the flour. I cut up the sticks into small pieces and refrigerate them for about 15 minutes before adding them to the flour.
Also be sure to allow the dough to sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour before baking so the butter substitute has a chance to resolidify. Try to keep all your work surfaces as cold as possible, including the rolling pin (if you own a marble pin and had no idea what to do with it, this is the time to put it to work, because marble remains really cool).
If you happen to use Earth Balance, also remember not to add any more salt to the crust, because the Earth Balance sticks tend to be rather salty.
The crust for today's vegan Strawberry Pie is made entirely with Earth Balance and as you can see it is very flaky and quite beautiful. Use any butter substitute you can find that has a butter-like consistency. Because I like a spice in my pie, I added some cardamom to this Strawberry Pie. Cardamom goes beautifully with the tart-sweetness of strawberries, and it rounds out the flavor of this pie really nicely without being too heavy.
I made the crust rather decorative by cutting little star shapes with a cookie cutter and arranging them on top of the strawberries. This is a fun crust to make and you can even customize it to your favorite shapes or for the seasons or, if you have kids, you can cut it into their favorite animal shapes. If you'd rather not, just roll out the dough, place it over the strawberries and crimp the edges. Remember to cut some slits on the upper crust before you bake it.
Or make a lattice top, like this Vegan Apple Tart.
More vegan strawberry recipes
- Vegan Strawberry Cake
- Vegan Strawberry Bread
- Vegan Chocolate Strawberry Shortbread Bars
- Vegan Strawberry Scones


Vegan Strawberry Pie
Ingredients
For the crust
- 2 ยฝ cups all-purpose flour
- 16 tablespoon vegan butter (can use a mix of 8 tablespoon vegan butter and 8 tablespoon vegan trans-fat-free shortening)
- 2 tablespoon powdered sugar
- Ice-cold water
For the strawberry filling
- 4 cups frozen strawberries (it's hard to measure strawberries into cups because of their shapes, but I'd say you should have about 9 medium-large strawberries in each cup)
- ยผ cup sugar (use more if your strawberries are very tart, or if you like a sweeter pie)
- ยฝ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 3 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
Make the crust
- Place all the ingredients except the water in a glass or steel bowl. Using a fork, mix the ingredients.
- Then slowly drizzle the cold water, a tablespoon at a time, over the flour, mixing with the fork quickly until the dough starts to clear the sides of the bowl and comes together.
- Divide the dough into half and place each half in cling wrap, shaping into a disc as you wrap. Place both dough discs in the refrigerator for an hour at least or longer.
Make the strawberry filling
- Let the strawberries thaw to the point where they are no longer icy. Cut into halves and place in a bowl. Mix in the other ingredients. Set aside for 15 minutes.
Assemble the pie
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Take one of the discs of dough and roll it out to about 12 inches, using as much flour as you need to keep it from sticking to the surface. Keep moving the dough as you roll it to ensure it does not stick. Fold into half and lift into a 9-inch pie pan (regular, not deep-dish).
- Unfold the dough and fit it into the pie pan. Fold any overhanging dough under itself so you have a neat-looking crust.
- Pour the filling into the crust. Place the pie pan into the refrigerator while you prepare the top crust using the second disc of dough.
- If you are making just a regular, covered pie, roll the disc out so it is slightly bigger than the diameter of the dish. Place on top of the pie dish and with your fingers or with a fork crimp the edges to seal them. Cut four slits at the top of the pie, preferably in a cross pattern.
- If you are making a lattice crust, cut the dough into strips and then weave them into a lattice top. Or for a star-studded or other fun-shaped crust, use a small cookie cutter to cut out little cookie-shaped pieces of the dogh. I used a star-shaped cookie cutter. Arrange the shapes any way you like on top of the strawberries.
- Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar on the crust. This gives some additional sweetness and helps the crust brown.
- Place the pie pan on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Then lower the heat to 400 degrees and bake another 30 minutes. Once more lower the heat to 350 degrees and cook 20 more minutes or until the juices have thickened and are bubbling.
- Remove the pie pan to a rack and cool thoroughly before cutting and serving. Because of the tartness of the strawberries, this pie would be great with vegan whipped cream.
Amber Da Ponte
Can I use white whole wheat flour in place of the all-purpose flour?
Vaishali
Yes, sure, but keep in mind any whole wheat flour, even white, will make the crust dense.
Chyanne
I don't usually rate recipes. What one person likes might not be what someone else likes. But HOLY COW!!!!! the filling in the recipe is Fan-freaking-tastic! I was was looking for a way to use up some strawberries from the summer smoothies and a 50 lb bag of oatmeal. This filling works wonders with in a oat-crisp style dish! Highly recommend!
Vaishali
So happy you made the filling. I love the idea of using this in an oat crisp. Thanks for the feedback!
Allison Koziol
Our grocery store didnโt have frozen strawberries. Can we use fresh for this recipe?
Valerie
This was a runaway hit. Absolutely delicious. I'll be making again and again!!!
Paula
Made this yesterday. Was amazing!! It's my first pie. Got frozen strawberries a while ago from Costco to make smoothies but never made them so they were sitting in my freezer. I have to say that the total time was a bit longer than 1h 35 min, added a little less cardamom, and replace some of the sugar in the filling with splenda. Also had some blueberries and bananas that had to use so I just mixed them with the strawberries. Turned out very good, specially the crust!!
Thanks for sharing the recipe!
BTW, this is my first time commenting in a recipe because I'm really surprised with the results haha. Usually my baked sweets don't turn that good.
Vaishali
Hi Paula, so glad it turned out well! Baking is all about practice-- if you keep at it, you will be perfect soon. ๐ Thanks for letting me know.
Bilqis
This recipe was amazing. I didn't have all of the things on hand, so I made a few substitutions. I ended up substituting lemon juice for orange juice (I can't seem to have enough lemons at one point in time). I didn't have the green cardomom (I had black, but decided against using it), so I substituted both cinnamon and nutmeg together. Today, I had just run out of vanilla, so I ended up using maple syrup (something my sister recommended). The pie turned out great. It's definitely a keeper.
Vaishali Honawar
Hi Bilqis, nice substitutions, and glad it turned out well for you. Maple syrup is great in pies, so great idea to sub. Try it in apple pie sometime-- it's really rich and wonderful.