This easy Homemade Pie Crust recipe will take any pie up a notch or two! Learn how to make pie crust from scratch and see how simple it is. You’ll love this flaky, tender crust, and you can use it with any recipe you like.
What’s in this Homemade Pie Crust Recipe?
This homemade pie crust will make you feel like a professional baker right at home! Don’t let dessert-time intimidate you; you’ve got it covered. Bake up any pie you love with the freshest crust to make it perfect.
- Flour: Use all-purpose flour for this recipe.
- Shortening: I prefer shortening for my pie crust because it has a higher melting point than butter, which means it’s going to cook more evenly as it bakes, and it’s easier to roll out. It makes a really tender, moist, but still flaky crust, and it helps the crust to hold its shape.
- Water: Your water should be ice cold, not lukewarm. If it’s too warm, it’ll melt the shortening as you’re bringing the dough together.
- Salt: Just a little bit for flavor.
Pro Tip: The ingredients and dough should be kept cold/chilled through this whole process. If things start getting warm, put it in the fridge to chill before continuing.
Easy Homemade Pie Crust for a Double Crust Pie
If you want to make a double pie crust, increase the ingredient amounts slightly (as shown in the recipe card). You’ll set aside about ⅓ of the dough for the top.
When you’re ready to place it, cover the pie filling and press down around the edges to seal. Be sure to cut vents in the top to let air out, so the filling doesn’t ooze out as it bakes.
I like to brush the top with milk, an egg wash, or cinnamon sugar to finish it off.
Email This Recipe
Enter your email and we’ll send the recipe directly to you!
The answer depends on what kind of pie you’re making. Just fill it and bake the entire pie according to the recipe you’re following. A general rule of thumb: If you’re using a filling that doesn’t need to be baked (or doesn’t need to be baked long), you’ll bake the crust before filling it. Otherwise, bake it after filling.
If your recipe calls for blind baking the crust, you can do so at 450°F for about 10 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden.
While butter tends to create the flakiest crust, it is also way more finicky than shortening. For this easy pie crust recipe, we opted to use shortening to take away any stress! Shortening maintains the fat content but won’t melt out in the oven leaving you with a greasy mess.
Keep your ingredients cold for the flakiest crust! Warm ingredients will cause the crust to turn out greasy and dense.
The secret to keeping the dough from sticking is the flour. Dust the surface, dust the rolling pin, dust your hands, and dust the dough with flour as you proceed through the steps. Flour keeps the dough from sticking, but make sure not to overdo it or it’ll get too dry.
Roll out the dough to about ⅛ inch thickness. This makes it thick enough to hold up the filling, but not so thick that it overtakes every bite of pie.
There’s no need to do this unless you are blind baking the crust without any weights inside. I recommend filling the crust with pie weights, beans, or even sugar to weigh it down while blind baking, but you can dock it in a pinch to help prevent it from puffing up.
The best way to ensure a crispy crust is to use a metal or glass pie pan and bake the pie on a lower oven rack. Metal and glass conduct heat more quickly and efficiently than ceramic, and the lower rack helps the crust to brown more quickly. If you have a particularly wet filling, you can also brush the pie crust with egg whites to help seal out excess moisture.
If your crust falls apart after baking, it may have been too dry or overworked. It’s important to add water just until the dough is moistened, but you don’t want it to be dry and crumbly. It’s a delicate balance! You also need to mix the dough gently to avoid developing too much gluten, which could cause the same issue.
How to Make Ahead and Store
You can make the dough, roll it into a disc covered in plastic wrap, and keep it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Then roll it out, shape it into the pie plate, and finish your pie recipe.
How to Freeze
If you want to make the pie crust further in advance, follow the same instructions above (make it, shape it, wrap it tightly), and store in the freezer up to 3 months.
When ready to use it, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight.
Serving Suggestions
Use this homemade pie crust in your next baking project to take it to the next level. It’s perfect for apple pie, fresh strawberry pie, french silk pie, banana cream pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cherry pie, sweet potato pie, caramel pie, or lemon meringue pie.
It also works beautifully for savory applications, like quiche Lorraine, chicken salad pie, beef pot pie, chicken pot pie, or baked chicken empanadas.
Have tried many times to make pie crust, no luck until today. This was very easy and turned out wonderful!
We’re so happy to hear that, Rhea!
Hi there, I’ve been looking for a great all around pie crust. Am I able to make this in advance? If so how many days in advance? How should I store it if so? Thank you :)
Thanks for supplying this sort of fantastic written content!
Ok, you made this look easy. Maybe I can muster up the courage.
You can do it!!!! :) Thanks so much for stopping by!! Love your site :)