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, hot fudge, lemon curd, fresh berries, or salted caramel.
One reader, Jeff, commented: “I made this and it is one of the best cheesecakes I have had. It is easy and has a very New York cheesecake flavor. I make a lot of water bath cheesecakes and I found this to be just as creamy and flavorful as any others I have made. ★★★★★“
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
Talk about a versatile dessert recipe!
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!
Reader Comments and Reviews
Hi, do you think is it possible to make this without the crust?
Hi Ashley, a crustless cheesecake pie would be very tricky and messy to serve, but let us know if you try it!
Could I make these as bars in a 9X9 square pan?
Hi Kara, yes, this should work well in a 9-inch square pan. Enjoy!
Made it for my family. Delicious and light. Topped with apple pie filling after cooling, then refrigerated for 3 hours.
This is such a delicious and quick to make dessert! I read many reviews and recall seeing a couple people asking whether or not this recipe will work with a monk fruit sweetener instead of sugar. Well, I used a blend of monk fruit/erythritol to sweeten the pie filling and it turned out perfect and creamy. Used a one-to-one substitution. I also used a pecan crust to avoid the carbs in graham cracker crust, using the same sweetener. This also turned out well. Same for the blueberry sauce recipe. I just wanted to share, in case somebody else wants fewer carbs. Thank you for the excellent recipe!
Can you use a regular frozen pie crust vs. a graham cracker crust? Thank you
You absolutely can, but the texture won’t be as desirable paired with the cheesecake filling. I still recommend pre-baking it.
So simple and fast to make and SO good. This is my new go-to for cheesecake. We don’t need any topping. It’s perfectly divine plain!
Hi Sally…I bake for gluten-free people in a commercial kitchen. I have had quite a time looking for gluten-free graham crackers. Some super expensive ones found are called Schar Honeygrams. The boxes are 5.6 oz only and are close to $6.00 a box! Can you recommend any other gluten-free brands for graham crackers? Thank you!!
Hi Dionakaye, we don’t have much experience with gluten-free baking and haven’t tried this recipe with any gluten-free graham crackers, so unfortunately we don’t have any recommendations here. Perhaps another reader who uses gluten-free grahams can chime in!
Pamela’s Honey Grahams are more tasty (IMO); 7.5 oz for $6.50 or less.
Would this fit into a 6″ springform pan?
Hi Alan, This recipe and its ratios really are best for a pie dish. If you wish to use a springform pan, we’d recommend halving our traditional cheesecake recipe instead.
hi sally I live in France what kind of cookies can I put since I don’t have Graham cookies here
thanks
Hi Yvette! See recipe Notes about using digestive biscuits instead.
This is a favorite recipe of mine, and, my husband likes it. Reminds me of the Jello instant cheesecake in a box from years past!
We enjoyed the simplicity of this recipe and will make it again. That being said, we found it was a little too less sweet, lol. With toppings (we let each add preferred toppings individually like caramel sauce or chocolate fudge) it was okay, but I do think it would benefit from at least 25g more of sugar so next time we will try it.
All time favorite and a huge crowd pleaser!! Looking to make and store in the freezer, how do I go about defrosting?
Hi Penny, Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
Thank you Sally! I make a cake or pie every year on my cat’s remembrance day, she loved cheese and peanuts so i made this with homemade whip cream and crushed nuts on the top. Very easy and very presentable! Thank you for the recipe, it turned out perfect♥️
I used 500 gram tub of Philadelphia.
Although it says “Original” it seemed a bit softer than the standard blocks of cream cheese. I increased other ingredients by 10% and added an extra egg to compensate for the tub size. It took 20 minutes longer to cook than online recipe indicated. The top cracked a bit and the texture was not as smooth as I had hoped, it might be that the extra egg was overkill?? But it tasted great anyways!
Good morning- love this recipe so much! My daughter requested it for her birthday. She’s on a keto diet and using swerve and no crust works perfectly. Do you think it would work in a spring mold pan? If so what size would you recommend? I’m thinking an 8 in pan? Thank you!
Hi Brenda! This recipe and its ratios really are best for a pie dish. If you wish to use a springform pan, we’d recommend making our traditional cheesecake recipe instead.
Hi Sally and team!
I would love to try this recipe for some who is lactose intolerant. Can I use lactose free cream cheese and sour cream and obtain the same results?
Hi Chantal, we haven’t tested a lactose free version of this recipe, but one of our readers reported success. We’d love to know how it turns out if you give it a try!
I made this recipe, I added 1.5 bags of freeze dried strawberry powder to the Cheesecake. For the topping I used your Not-So-Sweet Whipped Frosting which I added the rest of the strawberry powder. This was another hit, I made it for Valentine’s dessert. I’m currently going through Chemo and baking helps me stay positive and I use Sally’s recipes almost weekly.
GREAT recipe. I love it and so does everyone else. Pretty fuss-free too, surprisingly!
I’m wondering if I can make this as small tarts in a muffin tin? Any idea what I would need to adjust if so? Thank you!
Hi Marianne, Using smaller tins shouldn’t be a problem, just divide up the crust and filling. The crust pre-bake and filling bake times will change and I’m uncertain how long both would be without testing it and knowing the exact sizes of your tins. So, just keep a watchful eye on them. The cheesecake is done when the center is just about almost set. (Only slightly jiggly.)
I made this last year for Valentine’s day and I forgot how good it is when I made it again this year. This year I made a mistake and only added one cream cheese block. When I noticed at the end I added it. It still turned out great! I made a simple strawberry sauce to top it and used the cinnamon grahams for the crust. So good!
Perfect, yet again! Super easy and convenient for a quick cheesecake. Second time making this for Valentine’s day (and some chocolate covered strawberries to go with it) Thanks so much for sharing! You’re the best! 🙂
Hi! Is there a way to change it into a chocolate cheese cake?
Hi Meghan, 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!
Delicious! I substituted a chocolate graham cracker crust recipe I had. Otherwise I made it as the recipe called for. I made sour cherry topping using a can of sour cherries and adding sugar and corn starch (NOT pie filling). So good!!! Gone in no time 🙂
Love the taste of this recipe, but my cheesecake cracked badly without it overbaking. Will try to keep an eye out on the temp next time or out of abundance of caution, bake in water bath. No biggie. I covered the cheesecake with whipped cream and bananas! Very lovely flavor. Thank you!
Hi! I don’t have sour cream around where I live. Can this be left out in the recipe and if so, how will it change the flavor or the overall recipe? I know there are ways to “create” sour cream with yogurt and vinegar, but I haven’t tried that out. Please let me know any of your thoughts. Thanks so much Sally 🙂 Blessings!
Hi Nikki, you can use plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream here. Enjoy!
Hello! Would you have any suggestions on how to turn this into a lemon cheesecake pie, by chance? Thank you for your time!
Hi Kate, we’d try adding 1/4 cup of lemon juice and then reduce the sour cream by about 2 Tablespoons. Let us know how it turns out if you try it.
It turned out perfect, thank you! So, so yummy.
Do you think there’s a way I could incorporate eggnog into this recipe?
Hi Megan, we haven’t tested this recipe with eggnog, but it sounds tasty! Without testing it ourselves, we are unsure what to recommend, but if you try anything, please let us know how it goes!
Can you use a pre-made graham cracker crust? I want it gluten-free and the stores seem to be out of gluten-free graham crackers, but they have a pre-made gluten-free graham cracker crust.
Thanks!
Hi Donna, you can absolutely use a pre-made crust. We still recommend pre-baking it.
Hi! I make your pumpkin swirl cheesecake every Thanksgiving and I love the gingersnap crust. Do you think it would work with this pie?
Definitely!
I don’t know. I have enough Graham cracker crust for 2 and not enough filling for one
I made this cheesecake for thanksgiving and I was absolutely thrilled with how it came out. It’s very simple but so, so delicious. It can be dressed up with toppings or sauces but it truly doesn’t need it. I love not needing a springform pan or a water bath. I honestly sought out this recipe because I wanted to use a cute pie dish I had and boy am I glad I did. I will be saving this as my go-to cheesecake recipe!