Nothing brings people together like a great pie. Any season, every month, there are excellent pies to be made and shared with family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Even the best pie recipes for beginners are some of the most timeless you'll ever learn (we're looking at you, apple pie). From banana pudding to sweet potato honey, or a summery strawberry to a Boston cream pie, these are the pie flavors to bake all year round. There are plenty of classics as well as delicious riffs you'll want to make again and again. So pull out your favorite ice cream or whipped cream topping, grab some seasonal fruit for filling, and get to work on one (or more) of these delicious desserts.
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Double-Crust Apple Pie
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The most famous of the traditional double-crust pies, apple pie can be topped with a lattice design or a complete pastry cover. It's the ultimate American comfort food, can be made using several kinds of apples, and is perfect à la mode. Here, we use a mix of Granny Smith, Pink Lady, and Golden Delicious apples for this iconic dessert.
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Banana Pudding Pie
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Cool, creamy, and nostalgic, banana pudding gets a gourmet upgrade thanks to buttery, roasted macadamia nuts in the classic vanilla wafer crust. This is no place for instant pudding — this pie gets a rich lift from an easy homemade pudding made from whole milk and egg yolks flecked with flavorful vanilla bean seeds. Two layers of sliced banana and a billowy crown of fresh whipped cream take this make-ahead dessert over the top.
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Cherry-Berry Pie
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Cherry pie is a cornerstone of summer desserts, and the lattice design makes it one of the prettiest additions to any gathering. Pastry chef Paula Haney of Hoosier Mama Pie Company provides this version with pitted sweet cherries, raspberries, and blueberries.
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Tiramisu Icebox Pie
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Pastry chef Mathew Rice takes the familiar elements of a classic tiramisu — ladyfingers, coffee, and mascarpone — and reimagines them as an icebox pie. The dessert is full of playful textures and flavors, including a dense coffee mousse and salty-sweet coffee crunchies.
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Coconut Cream Pie
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Another summer staple, this fluffy, custard-filled pie from pastry chef Kierin Baldwin is a tropical-flavored treat. Every part of the dessert has coconut: the crust, the filling, and the topping.
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Lemony Sumac Pie with Ritz Cracker Crust
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Pastry chef Paola Velez loves making crumb crusts for no-bake pies during the hot summer months. Here she uses Ritz cracker crumbs as a salty, buttery foil to puckery lemon. Sumac, a tart spice that adds floral aroma and pops of red color, backs up fresh lemon juice in this sweet and sour filling.
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Black-and-Blue Pie with Brown Sugar Crumb
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For juicy — but never runny — berry pie, pastry chef Nicole Rucker crushes a single large handful of the berry filling to help create the perfect saucy consistency. Huckleberries and blackberries create the namesake black-and-blue filling, but a mix of any brambleberries and blueberries will do. A crumb topping adds texture and helps absorb some of the pie's juice, allowing it to slice cleanly.
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Boston Cream Pie
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Pastry chef Stella Parks makes the very best Boston cream pie, with a light and delicately sweet pastry cream filling and a great sponge cake. Top it with the silky dark chocolate ganache and serve it cold.
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Sour Cherry Pie
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Sour cherry season is fleeting, so be sure to make this pie while the cherries are around. Almond and sour cherries have complimentary flavor profiles; together, they create a delicious and elegant pie with perfect flavor balance. The frangipane along with the sour cherries give the pie a tender and custard-y filling with a pop of tartness and textures.
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Sweet Potato Honey Beer Pie
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"The different components of the pie can be prepared on different days," cookbook author Nik Sharma says. "Here's a suggested order of steps you might find useful, especially if you make this for Thanksgiving. Day 1: Roast sweet potatoes, reduce the beer, and prepare the pie crust, but don't blind bake (partially bake). Day 2: Blind bake the pie crust, prepare the sweet potato custard, and bake the pie. Of course, you can also do this all in one day."
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Deep-Dish All-American Cinnamon Apple Pie
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This pie gets its intensely apple-y flavor from macerating the apples in sugar for an hour. The liquid drained from the apples is simmered with a hit of butter until a syrup forms. That rich syrup is mixed with the apples, piled into the crust, and baked until tender and delicious. The pie is excellent the day it's made, but even better the next day.
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Mountain Rose Apple Pie
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This take on apple pie turns more toward an apple crumble, with a buttery and crispy crumble layered on top full of rolled oats and dark brown sugar. It's as good for breakfast as it is dessert.
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Strawberry Slab Pie
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With a perfectly buttery crust and a sweet, jammy filling, this slab pie is one of the most delicious strawberry pie desserts you'll eat all summer.
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Georgia Peach Pie
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When you slice into this delicious pie, don't be surprised by the gap between the filling and the top crust. This happens when a pie is baked at high heat because the crust sets before the fruit in the filling has cooked down.
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Creamy Peanut Butter Pie
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This luscious whipped cream-topped peanut butter pie offers the ideal balance of sweet and salty flavors.
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Banana Cream Pie
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Food historian Joyce White has perfected the art of making every sort of cream pie, from coconut to cocoa to her favorite, banana: rum-spiked custard sandwiched between banana slices and swirls of whipped cream, topped with white chocolate curls.
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Grilled S’mores Pie
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This decadent pie with a chocolate ganache filling is topped with gooey toasted marshmallows, giving you all the flavors of s’mores but in a pie cooked on a grill.
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Classic Pumpkin Pie
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To create a crisp crust on the bottom, we partially bake the pie shell before adding the filling. If the edge starts to darken too much, cover it with a pie shield or strips of foil.
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Lemon Meringue Pie with Marcona Shortbread Crust
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Here, a pat-in shortbread crust studded with salty, crunchy bits of toasted marcona almonds holds an assertively lemony filling, all topped with a creamy, dense Italian meringue.
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Chocolate Pecan Pie with Bourbon
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This pie from pastry chef David Lebovitz features an all-butter pie crust that's a cinch to throw together thanks to your food processor. A nip of sweet, caramel-scented bourbon adds depth to the traditional super-sweet filling; chocolate levels it up with its rich texture and just a hint of balancing bitterness.
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Tangy Key Lime Pie
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Based on a recipe from the Florida Keys Cooking pamphlet, published in 1946 by Patricia's Notebook newsletter, this pie is not the ordinarily dense and cloyingly sweet version. Folding in beaten egg whites gives it a light, mousse-like texture. The pie needs to chill overnight, so plan accordingly.
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Sweet Potato Pie with Cornmeal Crust
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A Southern take on pumpkin pie, this mashup of sweet potato, egg, milk, sugar, and nutmeg is as seasonal as it gets. It's the perfect pair with a pecan pie for a holiday spread.
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