key lime pie

Key Lime Pie Recipe. Vegan. Gluten-Free-Friendly.

Key Lime Pie

key lime pie

It’s a sort of citrus-lover dream. Non citrus lovers need not apply, OK? All others, enjoy it, and enjoy my lemon curd and my lemon bars too!

But it has a few less-than-ideal trademarks I was forever dancing around until I finally settled on my ideal recipe

  1. It uses key limes, the tiny and delicious Florida variety so prized for their intense flavor and fragrance; expensive, and in season only briefly.
  2. It uses sweetened condensed milk.
  3. It uses lots of egg yolks.

These three prerequisites don’t sit well with me. In my constant tinkering I believe I have found a wonderful way to make Key Lime Pie, taking some poetic license in the name of nutritional correctness, using regular limes, coconut milk, tapioca, and no eggs. I am sharing. It doesn’t hurt that it can very easily be made Gluten-Free, and that it is naturally Vegan. Feedback please!

Now that coconut oil is increasingly available at a reasonable price, at health food stores, online, and at price clubs, I am experimenting baking with it, with wonderful results.

A large pie or two smaller pies

I am instructing you to use a 12-inch pie plate, but you can also make the recipe using 2 9-inch plates.

Lazy Crust

Can’t be bothered to press the crust up the sides of the plate? Do it the lazy way, as I do, and press it all firmly in the bottom.

Key Lime Pie Variations

Key Lime Pie being a huge crowd pleaser, I often tweak some details, always with great results which I am sharing with you at the bottom of this post. You will love the variations I have included: the one with the nut crust; the one that includes gelatin, the frozen pie one. All of them super easy and super delicious. Just as long as the food processor does all your mixing! Again: Don’t worry if key limes are not in season and are hard to procure. Gold old lime juice will work beautifully.

Make it Dairy!

On a splurge day, use dairy cream cheese, and half and half instead of the coconut milk. Still I should say I like to keep mine dairy free at all times, so I can serve it anytime: it is most welcome and most refreshing  after any meal.

Key Lime Pie Freezes Beautifully!

This makes it a perfect choice for parties. Freeze the uneaten portion. Better yet, make a double batch, serve one, freeze one.

Ingredients

Crust:

  • 2 5-ounce packages plain graham crackers (gluten-free OK too)
    1/2 cup natural coconut oil or margarine spread (health-food stores)

Filling:

  • 2/3 cup tapioca flour (health food stores), or 1/3 cup corn or potato starch
  • 3/4 cup fresh key lime or lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons lime zest
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 15-ounce can full-fat coconut milk (not the one marked "light")
  • 1/3 cup coconut oil or natural margarine spread (health food stores)
  • 1 pound silken tofu, drained
  • 1 8-ounce container vegan cream cheese (health food stores)

Instructions

Make the crust

Grind the graham crackers with the coconut oil until fine crumbs form. Press them firmly on the bottom and sides of a 12 inch pie plate, or 2 9-inch pie plates.

Make the filling

Place the tapioca, juice, zest, sugar and coconut milk in a small saucepan. Whisk until perfectly smooth. Only then, turn on the flame. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking and making sure the bottom is not scorching. Reduce the flame to low, and cook, still whisking, just 1-2 more minutes (do not cook longer, or the action of the starch will be disabled, and the pie will not set properly). The mixture will thicken. Transfer the mixture to a food processor, add the coconut oil, tofu and  cream cheese, and whisk a full minute, until perfectly smooth. Pour the filling into the pie plate (or plates). Chill until firm.

Playing with a Couple Details in the Recipe:

  • Make a richer crustMix in a food processor: 1 Package (5 ounces) graham crackers, 1 dozen pitted dates, 2/3 cup unblanched almonds, 1/3 cup coconut oil or natural margarine spread, or a drop more to make a nice spreadable crust. Richer and more outrageous still? No graham crackers. 2 dozen pitted dates, 1 cup almonds,  1 cup grated coconut, 1/2 cup coconut oil or a drop more to make a nice spreadable crust.
  • Make a green pieAlthough Key Lime Pie is traditionally white, I found it fun to make it green, the all-natural way, by throwing in 4-5 sprigs parsley in the food processor at mixing time. It imparts a brilliant green color and doesn't encroach in the least on the flavor and texture of the pie. Good to know, for this and many other dishes where we want the color but don't want to change anything about the dish. If you are using it, grind it in the food processor all by itself, very finely, then add all other ingredients.

  • Use gelatin instead of starchProceed with the recipe, with these changes: skip the tofu. Skip the starch. Dissolve 2 tablespoons gelatin in the coconut milk, then heat the mixture until very warm but not boiling (or microwave for 1 mn)
  • Frozen Key Lime PieI often serve it this way. Fabulous. Use the gelatin version right above and freeze. The gelatin prevents the pie from freezing solid, and makes it ideally easy to slice and eat straight out of the freezer.
14 replies
  1. SH
    SH says:

    Ugh, kosher gelatin may be kosher, but it sure isn’t vegetarian, much less vegan.
    The other recipes sound good though!
    Still, key lime pie is on my Do Not Eat list since most do have gelatin. Sadness.

    Reply
    • Lévana
      Lévana says:

      Susanna gelatin-based vegetarian and vegan desserts and savories are all over.
      Besides, please take a look: this dessert does NOT gelatin, and is 100% vegan.
      So maybe you WILL put Key Lime Pie on your To Eat List:-)

  2. Shelley
    Shelley says:

    My food processor isn’t big enough to contain all of this recipe! Thankfully I decided to process the tofu, vegan cream cheese and coconut oil FIRST before adding any of the fruit juice/sugar mixture from the sauce pan. I got about have of it into the food processor and then poured everything into a big bowl and hand mixed the rest of it all together. I used corn starch and am freezing the pies so haven’t had a chance to slice it or eat it yet, but the left over batter in the bowl was fantastic!

    Reply
    • Lévana
      Lévana says:

      Shelley If you invested in a food processor one size above, you’d be amazed at all the fantastic stuff you can whip up. It’s not even such a big investment, and it saves so much time!

  3. oftheWood
    oftheWood says:

    This turned out wonderfully!
    I am not vegan and I have never made anything purposefully vegan before :)
    I was a little worried about the taste of the filling before it chilled because it got very bitter but the finished pie tasted exactly like it should!
    I had some trouble finding vegan graham crackers but I got a tip to look at baby cookies as babies apparently can’t have honey (you learn something new every day!)
    Thanks for the recipe!

    Reply
    • Lévana
      Lévana says:

      Not sure what you mean, but in the cartons, it is a coconut-based drink, as opposed to pure coconut milk. So yes there is a huge difference. When coconut milk is listed as an ingredient, it means pure coconut milk

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *