Photo: Brent Hofacker (Shutterstock)
Sometimes—especially in the heat of summer—you just want a dessert to be as easy as possible. This new 3-ingredient no-bake key lime pie recipe released by Kirbie’s Cravings is exactly that. The recipe just calls for three ingredients: limes, sweetened condensed milk, and a pre-made graham cracker crust. And it makes for a sweet, tart, and delicious key lime pie.
The original recipe calls for mixing two cans of sweetened condensed milk with 3/4 cup lime juice and one tablespoon of lime zest, which is then poured into a graham cracker crust and placed in the refrigerator. If you don’t have key limes or don’t want the added work of squeezing a whole bunch of mini-limes, regular limes work just fine.
If the original recipe’s two 14-ounce cans of sweetened condensed milk sounds too sweet for your taste, you can swap out one of those cans for eight ounces of cream cheese, which you’d whip it into soft peaks and stir into the mixture of lime and sweetened condensed milk. When I made that version, I found that the pie filling was a little on the soft side and I ended up sticking the leftover pie in the freezer. But it’s definitely a pie I’ll make again in the future.
This key lime pie can easily be made vegan
After testing out the original recipe, I wondered if it could be tweaked to make a vegan version by using sweetened condensed coconut milk. As it turns out, as long as you place the pie in the freezer, the answer is yes—you can make a vegan key lime pie with a creamy, soft-serve-like filling. I was expecting a strong coconut flavor, but it was just a hint, with the lime flavor taking center stage. (You’ll need to freeze the pie and eat while frozen, as placing it into the fridge yields a filling that just doesn’t set.)
You’ll need:
4 7-ounce cans of sweetened condensed coconut milk 1 tablespoon key lime zest ¾ cup freshly squeezed key lime juice Pre-made graham cracker crustHow to make vegan key lime pie
Stir lime juice and lime zest into sweetened condensed coconut milk. Stir until well-mixed. Pour mixture into graham cracker pie crust. Place in freezer until mixture freezes into a consistency that is similar to soft-serve ice cream. Serve while frozen. If you desire, top with whipped cream and additional lime zest.
