Store-bought lemon curd doesn’t even deserve to share the same name as homemade. This from-scratch lemon curd is deliciously tangy, creamy, and sweet. You only need 5 ingredients and it comes together on the stove in 10 minutes! Lemon curd is perfect for scones, crepes, angel food cake, quick breads, pound cake, and so much more.
Let’s talk lemon.
- Are lemon bars your main squeeze?
- Is lemon blueberry cake your favorite dessert?
- Are you head-over-heels for lemon meringue pie?
If your answer is YES to all of the above, you’re going to flip for this creamy, dense, intensely flavorful spread. Homemade lemon curd is 1 million times tastier than store-bought, which is filled with ingredients we can’t pronounce and has likely been sitting on the shelf for too long. Spread the blissful homemade version on scones, biscuits, homemade English muffins, and so much more. This is the recipe you never realized you needed!
What Is Lemon Curd?
Lemon curd is a very rich dessert topping or spread. It’s buttery and sweet with intense tart lemon flavor—like a creamy lemon version of jam. Lemon curd is made from simple ingredients and comes together quickly on the stove. Lemon lovers, this is your jam.
Get it? Get it? 🙂
How to Make Lemon Curd
Here’s how we make DIY lemon curd. The full recipe and instructions are below.
You need 5 ingredients for lemon curd recipe: egg yolks, fresh lemons, sugar, salt, and butter. Each ingredient serves a critical purpose for thickening and flavoring. The egg yolks thicken the curd, just as they do in creme brûlée, pastry cream, or butterscotch pudding. Use real lemons; you need both the zest and juice. The sugar supplies sweetness and structure, while the salt balances out the flavor. Add the butter after the curd finishes on the stove. Butter makes it super creamy.
Make lemon curd on the stove. Make sure you are constantly whisking as the mixture thickens—we’re talking about 10 minutes of whisking. The good news? That’s the only step in this recipe: whisking!
Use a Double Boiler
I strongly recommend cooking the lemon curd in a double boiler because mixing these ingredients over direct heat quickly leads to burning. Don’t fret! If you don’t have a double boiler, craft a makeshift double boiler by placing a heatproof glass bowl on top of a larger pot. (You can see my DIY double boiler in my brownie baked Alaska post!) Make sure the bottom of the top pot or bowl does not touch the simmering water. It’s worth repeating: lemon curd should never be cooked on direct heat.
Why Does My Lemon Curd Taste Metallic?
Lemon curd may have a metallic aftertaste if you cook it in a metal double boiler. It’s a result of the eggs and lemon reacting with the pan, but is easily avoidable! Use a non-metal double boiler (this one has a porcelain insert) or the glass bowl option I mention above (but make sure it’s heatproof glass, like Pyrex). While you’re at it, use a silicone whisk too!
FAQ: Can I Make This With Other Citrus Fruits?
Absolutely! You can use this same recipe for lemon curd and swap the lemons for limes, grapefruits, or oranges. You can even use pineapple juice, just like we do for the layers of pineapple curd filling in this pineapple coconut cake!
Uses for Lemon Curd
There are so many ways to enjoy lemon curd. Here are a few suggestions:
- Enjoy on scones, muffins, buttermilk waffles, whole wheat blueberry pancakes, or a Dutch baby pancake
- Use as a filling for crepes, lemon cupcakes, or lemon coconut cake
- Use as a topping for pound cake or pavlova (uses the egg whites!)
- Fill French macarons, choux pastry, or eclairs
- Layer on strawberry shortcake
- Make a lemon berry trifle
- Spread on English muffins, homemade biscuits, toast, croissants
- Mix it with whipped frosting for the fluffiest filling in a citrus cake
- Top your classic cheesecake, lemon cheesecake, or easy cheesecake pie
- Stir in yogurt, cottage cheese, or spoon on ice cream
- Try it on gingerbread waffles (seriously, try this!)
- Use as a filling to add extra flavor to lemon blueberry cupcakes
- Fill your lemon thumbprint cookies
- Fill your favorite cupcake recipe (see my How to Fill Cupcakes post for details on how and for flavor pairing inspiration!)
Lemon Curd
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes (includes cooling)
- Yield: 1 – 1.5 cups
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
You only need 5 simple ingredients for homemade lemon curd—and the recipe comes together on the stove in 10 minutes! If you know how to whisk, you can make this delicious spread.
Ingredients
- 4 large egg yolks (for thicker lemon curd, see Note on eggs)
- 2/3 cup (134g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon lemon zest (about 1 lemon)
- 1/3 cup (80ml) fresh lemon juice (about 2–3 lemons)
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into 6 pieces
Instructions
- Fill the bottom pot of your double boiler with 1–2 inches of water. (Or use the DIY double boiler method listed in the notes.) Place on high heat. Once the water begins to boil, reduce to low heat to keep the water at a simmer.
- Place egg yolks, granulated sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt into the top pot of your double boiler. Using a silicone whisk, whisk until completely blended, then continue to whisk as the curd cooks. Constant whisking prevents the egg yolks from curdling. Whisk and cook until the mixture becomes thick, resembling the texture of hollandaise sauce, about 10 minutes. If you’d like to be precise and use a candy or instant-read thermometer, the temperature will rise to about 170°F (77°C). If curd isn’t thickening, turn up the heat and constantly whisk.
- Remove pan from heat. Whisk the sliced butter into the curd. The butter will melt from the heat of the curd as you whisk. Pour curd into a jar or bowl and place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top so it is touching the top of the curd. (This prevents a skin from forming on top.) The curd will continue to thicken as it cools. Once cool, the plastic wrap can be removed.
- Refrigerate the curd for up to about 10 days.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: For longer storage, you can freeze the curd up to 3–6 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before enjoying.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Egg Separator | Citrus Juicer | Citrus Zester | Non-Metal Double Boiler | Silicone Whisk
- Thicker Lemon Curd: For thicker lemon curd, replace 2 of the egg yolks with 1 whole egg. This means you will use 2 egg yolks plus 1 whole egg. Keep the rest of the recipe and instructions the same.
- Lemon Juice: Do not use bottled lemon juice. Use fresh-squeezed lemon juice.
- Butter: You can use salted butter instead of unsalted butter. Simply omit 1/8 teaspoon salt in the recipe.
- No Double Boiler? No Problem! If you do not own a double boiler, you can simply place a small heatproof glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water—you will cook the curd in the top pot/bowl.
- No Straining: I don’t strain the lemon curd. The zest is very tiny and has been cooked, so you can hardly detect its texture. It’s really just there for flavor. However, feel free to run the finished lemon curd through a fine mesh sieve if you want to take the extra step.
Reader Comments and Reviews
10 Minutes to Heaven! This is so Delicious & Easy. Only takes a couple of minutes to get the ingredients together, and then 10 minutes on the stove in a heat friendly bowl over simmering water. Love it & made it exactly as the recipe directs!
Living in Portugal, I’m often given lemons by my neighbour. I decided to give this a go and it’s delicious! Worked great to sandwich 2 lemon drizzle cakes too.
Hi Sally, this recipe is amazing! I’ve made it twice now and am about to make it for the third time this week. Just wondering – can I double or triple the recipe? Or should I make a single recipe each time, followed by another, and another? I have company coming and am guessing they would love some to take home.
Hi Irene, we’re so glad you enjoy the lemon curd! You can make double batches of this lemon curd, and cooking time should be about the same.
Hi Sally – have you made this with salted butter? I don’t have unsalted right now.
Hi Terry, if you use salted butter we would omit the added salt.
How could one add more acidity, can I use more lemon juice?
Hi MD, Feel free to stir in a bit of lemon zest or an extra squeeze of lemon juice to make it even more tangy. Enjoy!
Delicious lemon curd recipe ! Will definitely make again.
As always…your recipes never fail. Just made the lemon curd for your mini cheesecakes…it’s like silk!!! And the cheesecakes turned out perfectly!! Also made your caramel apple cheesecake pie today, and everything was perfectly delicious!! Every recipe I have ever made from your site has been outstanding!!
If using Meyer lemons, would you use the same amounts? I saw another recipe that has you do a mix of regular lemon and Meyer lemons. Thanks!
Hi Kjb, many readers have reported success using Meyer lemons here. Let us know if you try it!
This turned out great! I followed the recipe exactly, but it took a little longer than 10 minutes for it to thicken. Super tasty and perfect on my pavlova!
Excellent & easy. Thanks
I made this to pipe in cupcakes. After making it, I will make this on the regular to add to danish, cupcakes, cake filling… Just by itself. It’s delicious!!!
I did love this recipe very much – easy, very eye appealing, and very tasty
This was AMAZING! I made it with my daughter, it was so easy and it turned out perfectly. We want to put it on EVERYTHING! Thanks for sharing!
Delicious however mine did have a slight metallic taste. Does a stainless steel double boiler prevent it or do I need to use a Pyrex bowl?
Hi Sally, the lemon curd may have a slight metallic taste if using a metal whisk.
Hail to sally! This recipe is perfect.
I have made this lemon curd at least a dozen times and it always turns out perfect! Thank you!
You have so many great recipes, the lemon curd recipe being one. I did make the curd and it was just right. I intended to use the curd as a filling for a pie using a coconut shortbread crust. I found the curd completely overwhelmed the flavor of the pie crust. Could you suggest how I could adjust your recipe so that result would be a much milder flavored curd? The obvious would be decreasing the lemon juice, zest and sugar, but I’m not sure what the proportions would be. Sure would appreciate your help. Thank you so much.
Hi Linda, it will take some tinkering to get to your desired taste. We’d start by reducing the lemon zest, as that should have less of an impact on the texture and how the curd sets than reducing the lemon juice or sugar. Hope this helps!
I have made lemon curd for 20 years using my mother’s recipe which she used for 40 years!
Mix 300cc lemon juice and grated rind with 300gm sugar and 200 gram butter in a Bain Marie till the butter melts. Beat 5 eggs and add slowly to the bowl through a sieve. Mix all the time till the mixture thickens. Pour into about 4 glass jars Keep in the refrigerator. Or gift to friends
This lemon curd is so delicious! I made it to use in the lemon thumbprint cookies! I did have to cook it a little longer to get it to thicken up, but I followed the tip of turning up the heat and it thickened up beautifully! It’s the perfect balance of tart and sweet!
I just made this recipe for the second time. This time I made it thicker to put inside birthday cupcakes. It’s perfect! We love it and it’s so easy.
Tastes great and easy, but…. why as it is sitting to cool is the butter separating from the rest? I used real unsalted butter.
Hi Karen! The curd may have needed to cook longer. You can gently heat it oven medium/ medium-low heat, whisking constantly, to bring it back together and cook a little longer.
Thanks you so much for your fast response. As I was reheating it and reading over the recipe, I realized I had doubled my lemon juice! I made the adjustments and now it is perfect! Thanks so much, you are my baking guru, I always go to your recipes first!
Sally, why would putting a whole egg in instead of all yolks make it thicker? I like mine thicker but thought perhaps corn starch but will try a whole egg and cooking longer as suggested. I attempted to fill a cake with the lemon curd I made, and refrigerated over night but it collapsed.
Hi Anna! Egg white will help bind everything together and yield a thicker curd. Let us know how it goes! We find that curd is best layered with frosting when adding it to a cake, like we do with this lemon coconut cake.
I just made this! It so far tastes amazing! Thank you !
Question, why shouldn’t one use bottled lemon juice?
Hi Maggie, fresh-squeezed lemon juice is best for the most vibrant flavor.
We enjoyed this and have made it a few times. How would you modify it to make orange or grapefruit curd?
Hi David, you can definitely make orange or grapefruit curd with this recipe. We recommend using at least *some* lemon juice with the orange juice/grapefruit juice for best flavor.
This wasn’t tangy enough for me, unfortunately. Too sweet which dulled the flavor from what I was looking for. I made lemon curd a couple times before and LOVED it, but wasn’t sure what recipe I used. After making this I looked at other recipes and noticed the sugar:lemon ratio was 1:1. So if you like tangier lemon curd, I recommend using more lemon. This is a personal preference thing!
This was my first time making lemon curd, inspired by your recipe for Pavlova – I used the 4 egg yolks left over from the Pavlova to make this extra treat! Thanks so much for the instructions for the DIY double boiler, worked like a charm!
I loved this recipe so much! Easy to make, tasty absolutely loved this! First time I make homemade lemon curd and it was a success!! Yum!
I would love to make this recipe. What could I use instead of sugar?
Hi Eva, We’d love to help but we are not trained in baking with sugar substitutes. For best taste and texture (and so you don’t waste your time trying to adapt this recipe since it may not work properly), it may be more useful to find a recipe that is specifically formulated for sugar substitutes. Thank you!
What scone recipe is the one you have up in the beginning with the curd on top?
Hi Jenny! That is our master scones recipe with mixed berries.
If I’m doubling their recipe, but I want to do the thicker curd like in the notes, what would I have to change?
Hi Jenny! You would use 4 egg yolks plus 2 whole eggs for a double batch.