No Bake Lemon Icebox Pie: Grandma's Favorite

Summer in Texas is hot -- but we still have to deal with the rampant Southern sweet tooth gene. No bake pies are the answer no matter what the question is.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Storage
• Variations
• Eagle Brand
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Ingredients

This is a simple pie that goes together fast. You can keep all of the ingredients on hand without any problem. Nothing crazy here!

• Crumb Crust of your choice
• Lemon juice can be fresh squeezed or whatever you usually use (use lime juice for key lime pie)
• Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk or your favorite
• Vanilla
• Lemon zest

Instructions

This lemon pie is so simple! It's a great recipe to start with when your kids want to learn to make things in the kitchen. Most 10 year olds can do this without help.

1. Add the sweetened condensed milk to a bowl.
2. Make sure it's NOT evaporated milk.
3. Mix in the vanilla until smooth.
4. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest.
5. Stir until it begins to thicken.
6. Pour into the prepared pie crust.
7. Chill for 4 hours or freeze overnight.
8. If frozen allow to stand at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.

Storage

Keep this pie in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

One of the things that I like best about this lemon pie is that you can serve it chilled or frozen. I personally like it better frozen.

I take it out about 20 minutes before I want to serve it... less if it is a very hot day. I thaw it just until it softens a little but still has the consistency of ice cream.

Variations

I used a combination of 'Nilla wafers and pretzels in the crust for this pie.

Another good crumb mixture for the crust is to use lemon sandwich cookies and gingersnaps in a ratio of about 3:1. It enhances the lemon flavor.

Key lime pie

Here's something cool, too. You can substitute the lemon juice with key lime and have a no bake lime icebox pie.

Really, any citrus juice should work. Let me know if you try something besides lemon or lime.

Eagle Brand

Lemon icebox pie has been served on countless tables and caused countless families to smile at dinner time.

It's Southern recipe that's been around close to 100 years. I have tweaked it a TINY bit by adding vanilla. I think it calms the tartness of the lemon down a little, soothes it, and makes it more enticing. Feel free to leave it out.

Y'all know that I am not real freaky about brand names except there are some that I feel are higher in quality and produce a better finished product.

You can get the Eagle Brand or you can use what you like best but if you get an off brand of sweetened condensed milk I will not guarantee the recipe. I like Eagle Brand.

It's been around forever and the results are always good. They didn't sponsor the post or pay me... I just like the product that they create. End of sermon.

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I'll admit a preference for chocolate pies like this chocolate overload pie or this no bake s'mores pie. Still if you had this simple lemon pie and those two chocolate pies on a table and told me I could only have one there might be some tears.

OK. A lot of tears.

📖 Recipe

First Published: May 30, 2015... Last Updated: April 5, 2020 for easier reading and better user experience.