Lemon Meringue Pie

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With a graham cracker crust and sweetened condensed milk filling, this lemon meringue pie is foolproof and easy.

Slice of lemon meringue pie on a plate with a fork.

This lemon meringue pie recipe comes from Myra Santoro, the mom of one of my oldest and dearest friends. Originally from Snow Hill, North Carolina, Myra is a fabulous Southern cook with a huge heart. As a kid, I practically lived at her house and, with so many good smells coming from the kitchen, I was always trying to finagle a way to stay for dinner.

Unlike most lemon meringue pie recipes, which can be rife with issues — a soggy crust, a soupy filling, or a meringue that weeps — Myra’s recipe is foolproof. It’s delicious too: I once made it and left it on the counter with a note for my husband and kids to try it. I came home to find the pie butchered with forks and almost entirely gone; they had not even bothered to slice it!

What You’ll Need To Make Myra’s Lemon Meringue Pie

Pie ingredients including graham cracker crumbs, eggs, and condensed milk.

How To Make Lemon Meringue Pie

Step 1: Make the Crust

Graham cracker crumbs and sugar in a bowl.Start with the crust. In a medium bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs and sugar. Add the melted butter.

Melted butter in a bowl with graham cracker crumbs and sugar.

Stir with a fork first, and then your hands until the mixture is well combined.

Graham cracker mixture in a bowl.

Using your fingers and the bottom of a clean drinking glass or measuring cup, press the crumbs firmly into the bottom and up the sides of a deep dish pie pan. The crust should be about 1/4-in thick. Bake for about 10 minutes, until just slightly browned. Let the crust sit on a wire rack while you prepared the rest of the pie, and lower the oven temperature to 325°F.

Pie pan with a graham cracker crust.

Step 2: Make the Filling

Combine the egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a medium bowl.

Egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and lemon in a bowl.

Whisk to combine and set aside.

Whisk in a bowl of lemon mixture.

Step 3: Make the Meringue

Bring about 1/2 inch of water to a simmer in a pot that’s large enough to hold the bowl of a stand mixer without letting it touch the water. Reduce the heat to low.

Put the egg whites and sugar in the bowl off the heat and whisk until frothy. Put the bowl over the pot and whisk gently but constantly until the whites are very warm to the touch, or about 115°F and the sugar is completely dissolved, 2 to 4 minutes. (Heating the egg whites and sugar before beating them helps stabilize the meringue so it doesn’t weep once cooked.)

Person whisking egg whites and sugar in a bowl on a saucepan on a stovetop.

Remove the bowl from the heat and transfer it to the stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment. Add the cream of tartar.

Bowl in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment.

Beat over medium-high speed until the egg whites form thick, glossy medium-firm peaks, 3 to 5 minutes total.

Thick, glossy egg white mixture in a stand mixer.

When you lift the whisk out of the bowl, the whites should hold their shape but curl at their tips.

Egg white mixture with a curled peak.

Step 4: Assemble the Pie

Pour the lemon filling into the baked crust.

Lemon filling in a graham cracker crust.

Mound the meringue onto the wet lemon filling.

Meringue on wet lemon filling in a pie pan.

Using a soup spoon, gently spread the meringue over the entire surface of the filling, making sure to go all the way to the crust’s edge (it is essential that the edge of the meringue be anchored to the rim of the crust; otherwise it will shrink). Make decorative peaks and swirls in the meringue with the back of the spoon.

Meringue piled on a lemon pie.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the meringue is lightly browned.

Baked lemon meringue pie in a pie pan.

Let the pie cool completely on a rack before serving, about 3 hours.

Fork on a plate with a slice of lemon meringue pie.

Photo by Our Salty Kitchen

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Easy Lemon Meringue Pie

With a graham cracker crust and sweetened condensed milk filling, this lemon meringue pie is foolproof and easy.

Servings: Serves 8 to 10
Prep Time: 25 Minutes
Cook Time: 20 Minutes
Total Time: 45 Minutes

Ingredients

For the Crust

  • 1½ cups graham cracker crumbs, from about 12 whole crackers
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • ¼ cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

For the Filling

  • 4 large egg yolks (reserve the whites for the meringue)
  • 1 (14-oz) can Eagle sweetened condensed milk (see note)
  • 1 teaspoon packed finely grated lemon zest, from 1 lemon
  • ½ cup fresh lemon juice, from about 3 lemons

For the Meringue

  • 4 large egg whites
  • 6 tablespoons sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

Instructions

For the Crust:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F and set an oven rack in the middle position.
  2. In a medium bowl, mix together the graham cracker crumbs and sugar. Add the melted butter; stir with a fork first, and then your hands until the mixture is well combined. Using your fingers and the bottom of a clean drinking glass or measuring cup, press the crumbs firmly into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 x 1.5-inch pie pan. The crust should be about ¼ inch thick.
  3. Bake for about 10 minutes, until just slightly browned. Let the crust sit on a wire rack while you prepared the rest of the pie. Lower the oven temperature to 325°F.

For the Filling:

  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Pour into the warm crust.

For the Meringue:

  1. Bring about ½ inch of water to a simmer in a pot that's large enough to hold the bowl of a stand mixer without letting it touch the water. Reduce the heat to low. Put the egg whites and sugar in the bowl off the heat and whisk until frothy. Put the bowl over the pot and whisk gently but constantly until the whites are very warm to the touch, or about 115°F (the temperature does not need to be exact; the mixture should feel hot, but not so hot that you can't leave your finger in there) and the sugar is completely dissolved, 2 to 4 minutes.
  2. Remove the bowl from the heat and transfer it to the stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment. Add the cream of tartar. Beat over medium high speed until the egg whites form thick, glossy medium-firm peaks (they should hold their shape but curl at their tips), 3 to 5 minutes total.
  3. Mound the meringue onto the wet lemon filling. Using a soup spoon, gently spread the meringue over the entire surface of the filling, making sure to go all the way to the crust’s edge (it is essential that the edge of the meringue be anchored to the rim of the crust; otherwise it will shrink). Make decorative peaks and swirls in the meringue with the back of the spoon.
  4. (Be sure you've reduced the oven temperature to 325°F.) Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the meringue is lightly browned. Let the pie cool completely on a rack before serving, about 3 hours.
  5. Lemon meringue pie is best eaten the day it’s made, but leftovers will keep, loosely tented with aluminum foil and refrigerated, for 2 days. Just keep in mind that meringue gets quite sticky in the fridge. Do not freeze.
  6. Note: Several readers have had issues with the filling being too runny. I believe this is likely caused by using less common brands of sweetened condensed milk, such as Meadow Gold or Weis. Please use Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk for reliable results. Also, for Canadians, please note that Canadian Eagle sweetened condensed milk comes in a smaller-sized can than the American version (you will need two cans but you won't use all of it).

Nutrition Information

Powered by Edamam

  • Per serving (10 servings)
  • Calories: 309
  • Fat: 11 g
  • Saturated fat: 6 g
  • Carbohydrates: 47 g
  • Sugar: 39 g
  • Fiber: 0 g
  • Protein: 7 g
  • Sodium: 138 mg
  • Cholesterol: 100 mg

This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.

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Comments

  • Whipped this up as a quick, fancy dessert . SOOOO good, definitely adding it to the repertoire.

  • Hi! It’ll be my first time making pie so I don’t have a pie pan ready. Will using a 9-in springform cake pan be ok? 🙂

    • Sure, Kris, Just don’t remove the sides of the springform pan before serving. (Keep in mind that the higher sides on the springform may make it a bit more challenging to serve.) Hope you enjoy!

  • Loosey Goosey is what the filling of this recipe is. There is no thickening agent like corn starch or gelatin and boy is it needed. My pie looked gorgeous, meringue was on point but when I cut into it, fail. Think Christmas Vacation movie, cutting into the turkey, that was me. I followed the recipe exactly. After reading other reviews, it’s clear many others had the same problem. Real bummer and waste of money.

    • Mine was runny too. I used condensed milk (and not evaporated milk). Hope Jen addresses this problem soon.

      • Hi Kris, thanks for your feedback and so sorry you had a problem with this! I am paying attention to the comments coming in and it’s a bit of a head-scratcher for me because this has always been very predictable when I’ve made it. Any chance you used whole eggs in the filling instead of egg yolks? Also, what brand of sweetened condensed milk did you use? I’ve had the best luck with Eagle brand. I did some research and found that lesser-known brands can be much runnier and may contribute to the runny filling.

      • Honestly. Absolutely fail with the runny ness. And I did just use yolks and not the whole egg. I think there isn’t enough lemon for the recipe for it to set as I’ve followed a key lime pie recipe before which worked amazingly (not from this blog) and with the same condensed milk so can’t blame the brand. This recipe was awful 😫

        • and clearly you did something wrong as the vast majority have 0 problems. but, yeah, blame the recipe and be rude, great way to learn.

          • — betty on April 20, 2023
          • Reply
  • I wanted to make a lemon meringue pie for a friend of mine for his birthday. I’ve always been so intimidated by the process of making this type of pie. I finally faced my fears and did it and it was much easier than I expected. When they say it’s full proof it definitely is! The process took longer then the time shown as far as prep work goes, but I had never made a pie like this so everything was going to take longer anyway. My friend loved it and even though I don’t like lemon meringue pie I had a piece and I loved it! Bon appétit!

  • I made this the night before for a NYE party and it was pretty simple to put together. It was very tasty and a big hit at the party; I would definitely make it again but maybe with some cornstarch. The filling held up at first, but started oozing and losing shape after about 45 min out on the table. The meringue turned out perfectly. I also rebaked the pie for about 10 min at 325F before serving since the meringue had gotten sticky. My only modification was to use biscoff cookies for the crust since I didn’t have graham crackers (delicious btw).

    • Mmm Biscoff crust!! I’ve gotta try that!!😋

  • This recipe was excellent. The pie nice and creamy. Not to sweet or sour.

  • I’ve tried it twice for Thanksgiving and my filling was very much like a soup and not thick what is it I’m doing wrong?

    • — Angela Collier
    • Reply
    • Sorry you had a problem with this Angela! Are you sure you used sweetened condensed milk (and not evaporated milk)?

  • Hi Jenn,

    I made this pie for the first time today and loved the flavor and how simple it was to prepare. However, the filling didn’t set up at all and 4 egg whites were not enough to mound at all in my 9” deep pie dish, the meringue laid flat across the top. Next time I will add more egg whites. Any idea why the filling didn’t set?

    • Hi Amanda, sorry to hear you had a problem with the meringue on this! It sounds like perhaps you didn’t beat the egg whites long enough. Did you beat them until the mixture formed thick, glossy medium-firm peaks?

      • I thought I had beat the beat the egg whites long enough but with an excited little girl helping me, maybe we rushed it a little, lol. The biggest problem was the lemon filling not settting.

      • Why would the Amanda’s filling not set up?

        • So sorry I forgot to address that! Amanda, are you sure you used sweetened condensed milk and not evaporated milk?

          • I used sweetened condensed milk. My filling didnt set up. I made a 2nd pie, it too didnt set up.

            • — cynthia
          • Hi Cynthia – sorry you had a problem with this (twice!). What brand of sweetened condensed milk did you use? Some brands are quite runny and cause problems. I always have success with Eagle brand.

            • — Jenn
  • This recipe was a winner. I love lemon meringue pie, and was really interested in the ease of this recipe – using just cookies, condensed milk, 4 eggs, 3 lemons and a bit of sugar. It was super simple and delicious. The meringue technique worked perfectly. However, I only wound up with about an inch-deep meringue. If I had whipped longer (I whipped about 4 min, till the peaks were stiff and glossy) would I have gotten more volume? It baked up perfectly and held its shape – no oozing or anything. I’ll definitely make this one again.

    • Glad you liked it, Audrey! Yes, I do think that whipping the meringue for a little longer would give you a bit more height.

  • Hi Jenn…I have tried to make graham cracker crusts and when it calls for being baked and the I fill it with filling, when it comes to serving it, the crust is almost impossible to slice thru…what am I doing wrong?…thx for any input.

    • Hi Marlene, Although you should press the crust firmly into the bottom of the pie pan before baking it, my guess is maybe you’re pressing it too hard. Your goal is to press hard enough to get a good shape and keep the crumbs in place, but not so compacted that it makes the crust hard to slice. Hope that helps!

    • Easy to make and so delicious. I’ve wanted to make a lemon meringue pie like my grandmother’s and this is it.
      I failed to push the crust sufficiently up the sides of the pan, but I anchored the meringue to the edge of the pie plate, and no shrinkage!

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