Master the art of making a perfect vegan pie crust in minutes, with just three ingredients and with no special equipment needed! This versatile crust bakes up golden and flaky and crispy and you can use it as your go-to recipe for baking all sorts of delicious sweet and savory vegan pies, tarts, quiches and pot pies, like vegan blueberry pie, vegan frangipane tart, and vegan pot pie.
Why you will love this recipe
- It's easy and fun. Pie making might appear, to the new cook, a difficult process. But in reality a pie or a tart is one of the easiest desserts to put together. Fillings usually take minutes to make, and it is no different with this easy vegan pie crust. Just remember two things--keep everything as cold as possible, and work as quickly as you can. As always, you will get better with practice.
- The vegan pie crust is delicious, flaky and buttery without butter. And it has the perfect texture. I'll share with you my best tips, gleaned over years of pie making and countless pies. That way you can skip over the newbie mistakes and turn out great-looking and great-tasting pies from the get-go.
- It's way better for you than a storebought vegan pie crust. It might appear much easier to just run to the store and use a premade pie crust. But with this recipe you can put a foolproof pie crust together in less time. You know what's actually in this crust and, best of all, it tastes way better. You can also use this crust for both sweet and savory pies.
- You get two crusts. You can use one for the pie recipe you are making now and freeze the other for later. Or use both to make a double crust pie, like the strawberry pie I will share with you next.
Pro tips for a flaky crust
- Keep everything as cold as possible when working on the pie crust. Cold is your friend when it comes to pie crust making. That's because your pie crust dough has little bits of butter dispersed throughout it and when the crust hits the hot oven those pockets of butter will melt, creating flaky layers. If you handle the ingredients too much with your warm hands or work in a hot room, the butter will melt even as you are mixing the dough, depriving your crust, and you, of that flaky joy. You can't control the weather, but what you can do is keep everything that will come in contact with the ingredients, and the ingredients themselves, as cold as possible up until the moment you are actually making the recipe.
- If possible, refrigerate the bowl and the fork you will use to mix the pie dough 30 minutes before you begin.
- Make sure you keep the vegan butter refrigerated until the time you are ready to add it to the flour. Cut the butter in cubes and use it immediately.
- If you have a marble or granite countertop that remains cold, use that as the work surface to roll out the pie dough. Or refrigerate a baking sheet for 30 minutes and then use that to roll out the dough.
- Use cold water from the fridge to mix the dough and add ice cubes to it, if possible, to make sure it is extra cold.
- If your filling is not ready after you have rolled out the pie crust and put it in the pie plate, refrigerate the pie crust immediately and keep it there until the filling is ready to go in.
- Cut the cold vegan butter into the flour with a fork or a pastry cutter, not with your hands. Your hands are warm, so use a sturdy fork or pastry cutter as you cut the butter into the flour--which is just a fancy way of saying you will break the butter cubes into smaller pieces until they are evenly dispersed through the flour.
- Don't make the butter pieces too small or too large. In the past pie crust recipes would ask bakers to ensure the pieces of butter were the size of peas. While you can't ensure that every piece of butter in the dough will be of a uniform size, it's a good guideline to use. Some of the pieces could be a little larger than a pea, some a little smaller, but you don't want very big pieces or very small ones. If you can see yellow bits of butter dispersed through the dough as you roll it, you did it right!
- Add water slowly to the flour when mixing the pie pastry dough. The perfect pie dough should not be too dry nor too wet. A dry pie dough will be almost impossible to roll out without breaking into pieces. And a wet pie dough will cause the butter to melt, and will also be hard to roll out. So add water into the pie dough a tablespoon at a time, while mixing with the fork to make sure you are moistening the dough evenly. Stop when it still looks like the pie dough is slightly dry, but there is no dry flour remaining, and see if it holds together when you form a ball. If it does, place it in cling wrap, wrap it up, then use your fingers to shape it into a disc as best as you can.
- Keep moving the dough as you roll it. This will ensure that the dough hasn't stuck to the surface. Flour the surface and the rolling pin as needed.
- Fold the dough gently before lifting it into a pie plate. Fold the rolled dough over once and then, if you want, one more time, before you lift it into the plate. Once the folded dough is in the plate, unfold it gently and fit it into the pie pan. Some pie makers roll the crust around the rolling pin, starting at one edge, before lifting it to the pie plate and unrolling.
- Refrigerate the pie shell once it's in the pie plate and until you get your filling and, if it's a double crust pie, the top crust ready.
- Use a milk and oil wash to improve the color of the baked pie. Before baking the pie, it's a good idea to brush some nondairy milk or fat over the pie crust to improve the color. Most bakers use an egg wash or a combination of egg and milk, but I find that a vegan wash made by combining a tablespoon of soy milk or another non dairy milk with a teaspoon of vegetable oil works just as well.
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour. Use unbleached flour, preferably. You might be tempted to substitute with whole wheat flour, and I admit I have at times, but all purpose flour will give you the best, flakiest crust.
- ¼ cup cornstarch. The cornstarch helps cut through the gluten development in the crust, giving some added insurance for a flaky crust.
- 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) vegan butter. You can use any vegan butter of your choice -- I usually use Miyoko's European style cultured vegan butter or Earth Balance butter sticks. If you want to, you can substitute trans fat free vegetable shortening (like Crisco) for half the vegan butter. Vegan butter gives you the best flavor but shortening will give you a crispier, flakier crust.
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Ice water. Fill a cup with cold water from the fridge and add a few ice cubes to it to make it extra cold. You will need approximately ½ cup water, but have more on hand just in case.
How to make vegan pie crust
- Place the flour in a bowl. Add salt and mix. Then add in the cubed vegan butter.
- Use a fork or a pastry cutter to "cut" the butter into the flour. This is fancy speak for breaking the butter into pea-sized bits so it mixes evenly through the flour. See pro tips above for more details.
- Drizzle ice cold water, a tablespoon at a time, into the flour-butter mixture while mixing with a fork. Stop as soon as the dough begins to come together and there's no dry flour remaining in the bowl.
- Divide the dough into two. Wrap each half tightly in plastic wrap, shaping the dough into a disc with your hands as you do so. Refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes before rolling it out. This will give the butter time to harden up again before you bake it.
- Roll out the crust. Flour a cool work surface, like a marble or granite countertop. Alternatively use a large baking sheet placed in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Place one disc of the pie dough on the surface. Using a floured rolling pin, roll it into a circle two inches larger than the diameter of the pie plate.
- Transfer the crust to the pie plate. Fold the crust in half and, if you wish, fold it once more. Lift the folded crust carefully and place it in the pie plate. Unfold gently and fit it into the pie plate.
- Tuck any overhanging dough under the edges. Don't trim away the excess dough! This is tasty stuff and you want all the flaky crust you can get! So just tuck the excess in until you have an even edge. Then use your fingers to flute the edges in a decorative pattern. Or press the tines of a fork into the edges.
- Refrigerate the pie crust for 15 minutes before baking. This will help the butter harden up again and ensure a flakier crust.
- Bake the pie according to directions. This will vary slightly for different pie fillings but should roughly be around 50 minutes to an hour. For my strawberry pie, which is a double crust pie, I bake the pie at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. Then I reduce the heat to 400 degrees and bake for 30 more minutes.
Frequently asked questions
What size pie dish should I use with this crust?
This crust will fit any standard size pie pan (9 inches wide and 1 inch deep) or any deep-dish pie pan (about 9-10 inches wide and 1 ½ inches deep. It will also fit a 9-10 inch tart pan. You can also use this crust for smaller sized pies and tarts.
Can I use coconut oil instead of vegan butter?
You can, although if you are using coconut oil make sure you chill it first so it firms up quite a bit. You will also need to work faster if you are using coconut oil as it will melt faster than vegan butter. Also keep in mind that the coconut oil will add its flavor to the crust.
Can I make the vegan pie crust in advance?
You can make the dough or crust and refrigerate up to three days ahead of making the pie.
Can I freeze the vegan pie crust dough?
You can freeze the dough or the prepared crust for up to six months. Wrap the dough tightly in cling wrap, then place inside a freezer-safe bag or container. If freezing the pie plate with the crust in it, wrap tightly in two layers of freezer safe wrap.
Can I make the pie dough in a food processor?
To make pie dough in the food processor add the flour and salt to the processor and pulse for a few seconds to mix. Then add in the cubed butter and pulse four to five times until the butter has broken up into smaller bits and has dispersed through the flour. Remember the "pea-sized" rule! Continue to pulse in short bursts as you add the ice cold water through the feed tube and stop as soon as the dough comes together.
However, if you are new to pie baking, you should avoid using the food processor until you have a good sense of what the size of the butter particles in the flour should be, how pie dough should feel and look as you mix water into it, etc. That's because a food processor mixes fast and warms up fast and unless you know what you are doing it could end up melting the butter quickly and develop gluten in the flour--both undesirable outcomes.
How do I prebake a pie crust?
Some recipes call for prebaking a crust, which usually means you need to bake the crust before you add the filling to it. Most fruit pies don't require you to do this, but you will need to do it for some tarts, like this gluten free vegan French Onion Tart, where the filling takes a much shorter time to cook than the crust will.
But when the pie crust heats up in the absence of a filling it will shrink down the sides of the pan. To avoid this, dock the crust by poking holes into the bottom using a fork. This will prevent the bottom from puffing up. Then place parchment paper over the crust and fill the plate with pie weights, like uncooked rice or uncooked beans, before putting it into the oven. Once the crust is baked, remove the parchment paper and store the beans or rice in a container. Reuse them whenever you prebake a crust.
Pies to bake with this crust
- Vegan Pumpkin Pie
- Vegan Peach Berry Pie
- Vegan Pecan Pie
- Vegan Cherry Pie
- Vegan Sweet Potato Pie
- Vegan Skillet Apple Pie
The BEST Vegan Pie Crust
Master the art of making a perfect vegan pie crust in minutes, with just three ingredients and with no special equipment needed! This versatile crust bakes up golden and flaky and crispy and you can use it as your go-to recipe for baking all sorts of delicious sweet and savory vegan pies, tarts and pot pies.
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Servings: 2 pie crusts (serves about 16)
Calories: 1376kcal
Equipment
- Rolling pin
Ingredients
- 2¼ cups all purpose flour (preferably unbleached)
- ¼ cup cornstarch (this helps cut gluten in the flour, making the crust flakier. You can leave it out and just add another ¼ cup all purpose flour)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 16 tablespoons vegan butter (cut into small, roughly ¼-inch cubes)
- Ice cold water (Fill a cup with cold water from the fridge and add a few ice cubes to it to make it extra cold. You will need approximately ½ cup water, but have more on hand just in case.)
Instructions
- Place the flour in a bowl. Add salt and mix. Then add in the cold, cubed vegan butter.
- Use a fork or a pastry cutter to "cut" the butter into the flour. This is fancy speak for breaking the butter into smaller, pea-sized particles so it mixes evenly and gives the flour a grainy texture. See pro tips above for more details.
- Drizzle ice cold water, a tablespoon at a time, into the flour-butter mixture while mixing with a fork. Stop as soon as the dough begins to come together and you don't have any dry flour remaining in the bowl.
- Divide the dough into two. Wrap each half tightly in cling wrap, shaping the dough into a disc with your hands as you do so. Refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes before rolling it out. This will give the butter time to harden up again before you bake it.
- Roll out the crust. Flour a cool surface, like a marble or granite countertop or a large baking sheet that has been refrigerated for at least 15 minutes. Place one disc of the pie dough on the surface and, using a floured rolling pin, roll it into a circle two inches larger than the diameter of the pie plate.
- Transfer the crust to the pie plate. Fold the crust in half and, if you wish, fold it once more. Lift the folded crust carefully and place it in the pie plate. Unfold gently and fit it into the pie plate.
- Tuck any overhanging dough under the edges. Don't trim away any excess dough! This is tasty stuff and you want all of that flaky crust you can get, so just tuck the excess in until you have an even edge. Then use your fingers to flute the edges in a decorative pattern, or press the tines of a fork into the edges.
- Refrigerate the pie crust for 15 minutes before baking. This will help the butter harden up again and ensure a flakier crust.
- Bake the pie according to directions. This will vary slightly for different pie fillings but should roughly be around 50 minutes to an hour. For my strawberry pie, for instance, which is a double crust pie, I bake the pie at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, and then at 400 degrees for 30 more minutes.
Recipe notes
- This crust will fit any standard size pie pan (9 inches wide and 1 inch deep) or any deep-dish pie pan (about 9-10 inches wide and 1 ½ inches deep. It will also fit a 9-10 inch tart pan. You can also use this crust for smaller sized pies and tarts.
- You can make the dough or crust and refrigerate up to three days ahead of making the pie.
- You can freeze the dough for up to six months. Wrap the dough tightly in cling wrap, then place inside a freezer-safe bag or container. If freezing the pie plate with the crust in it, wrap tightly in two layers of freezer safe wrap, then freeze.
- For directions on making the pie dough in a food processor see the FAQs above.
- Read the pro pie crust tips above for more ideas on making your pie crust foolproof.
Nutrition
Serving: 1pie crust (serves 8 people approx) | Calories: 1376kcal | Carbohydrates: 123g | Protein: 15g | Fat: 92g | Saturated Fat: 17g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 28g | Monounsaturated Fat: 44g | Trans Fat: 17g | Sodium: 1027mg | Potassium: 171mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 0.4g | Calcium: 25mg | Iron: 7mg
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Amber
Can I use whole wheat flour in place of the all purpose flour?
Vaishali
Hi Amber, you definitely can. The whole wheat crust will taste nuttier and will be a bit more dense, but it should still be delicious. Use a lighter wheat flour, like durum whole wheat flour, if possible.