Perfect Pumpkin Pie
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After more than 25 years of cooking professionally—and hosting plenty of Thanksgivings—I’ve made a lot of pumpkin pies. This is the one I make every year, and the one my family looks forward to most.
Pumpkin pie is a Thanksgiving classic, and when it’s made well, it’s hard to beat—a silky, warmly spiced pumpkin filling baked into a buttery, flaky crust. But for a dessert that seems so simple, pumpkin pie can be surprisingly finicky. Over the years, I’ve tried at least a dozen recipes and run into just about every issue: fillings that won’t set, unsightly cracks, and soggy crusts. Let’s just say the person who coined the phrase “easy as pie” had clearly never baked a pumpkin pie!
The good news is that all that testing paid off. This pumpkin pie recipe turns out beautifully, with a flaky crust, rich pumpkin filling, and smooth, crack-free top. And the best part? It’s truly easy to make.
If you’re planning your holiday dessert lineup, don’t miss my pecan pie, sweet potato pie, and apple pie—they’re all wonderful alongside this pumpkin pie.
“I’ve been baking pumpkin pie for what seems like an eternity. The custard always cracks. Not this time…it’s absolutely delicious!”
What You’ll Need To Make Homemade Pumpkin Pie
- Pie Crust: Use a homemade pie crust or store-bought—whichever you prefer. If using store-bought, opt for the frozen kind in an aluminum pie pan; it’s easier to blind bake and less likely to shrink.
- Pumpkin: For the best results, I recommend Libby’s canned pumpkin purée.
- Egg & Egg Yolks: The whole egg helps set the filling, while the extra yolks add richness and give it a silky texture.
- Granulated Sugar & Light Brown Sugar: Using both gives the filling a more complex sweetness, with a subtle molasses note from the brown sugar.
- All-Purpose Flour: Slightly thickens and stabilizes the filling, which helps prevent cracks.
- Spices (ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves & black pepper): This classic blend gives the pie its warm, spiced flavor, with just a hint of heat from the black pepper.
- Evaporated Milk: Gives the filling its rich, creamy texture without making it too heavy.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
How To Make Pumpkin Pie
Blind bake the crust: If using a store-bought crust, follow the package directions for pre-baking the crust. For homemade dough, fit it into a deep-dish pie pan and chill it. Line the chilled crust with parchment, fill it with pie weights (or dried beans), and bake until the edges look set.
Remove the weights and bake a bit longer until the bottom looks dry and lightly golden. If the crust puffs up, gently press it back down with a flat spatula. Blind baking gives the crust a head start so it stays nice and crisp once the wet pumpkin filling is added.
Make the filling: Whisk the filling ingredients together until completely smooth, making sure there are no pockets of flour or spices. Pour the filling into the pre-baked crust.
Bake and serve: Bake the pie at 325°F so the custard cooks gently and evenly. It’s done when the filling looks set and dry around the edges but still has a slight jiggle in the center when you nudge the pan—don’t worry, it will continue to set as it cools. If the crust edges start to brown too much before the filling is done, loosely cover them with foil.
Let the pie cool completely before slicing. Serve at room temperature or chilled, with whipped cream if you like.
Make-Ahead Instructions
Pumpkin pie is ideal for making ahead. You can bake it a day before serving, let it cool completely, then cover and refrigerate it overnight. For longer storage, the baked pie can also be frozen; see the recipe card below for full freezing instructions.
Video Tutorial
More Holiday Desserts You’ll Love
Perfect Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients
- 1 homemade pie crust or 9-inch deep-dish frozen pie crust shell thawed
- 1 (15-oz) can pure pumpkin (about 1¾ cups)
- 1 large egg
- 3 large egg yolks
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup (packed) light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1¼ cups evaporated milk (you'll need one 12-oz can but you won't use all of it)
Instructions
- Blind Bake the Crust: If you’re using a store-bought frozen crust, follow the pre-baking instructions on the package. If you’re using a homemade crust, roll out the dough and gently fit it into a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan, making sure it’s snug against the bottom and sides. Chill the crust for at least 30 minutes.Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375°F and set an oven rack in the middle position. Place the chilled crust on a baking sheet (it makes it much easier to move in and out of the oven). Line the crust with a piece of parchment paper and fill it about three-quarters full with dried beans or pie weights.Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven, lift out the parchment and weights, and tent the edges with a few strips of foil folded in half lengthwise to keep them from getting too dark. Return the crust to the oven and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the bottom looks dry and lightly golden. If it puffs up a bit, just press it down gently with a flat spatula—try not to puncture it. Remove the foil, but keep it nearby in case you need it again later.After blind-baking the crust, reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.
- Make the Filling: In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin, egg, egg yolks, granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, pepper, and evaporated milk. Whisk until smooth, then pour the filling into the pre-baked crust.
- Bake and cool: Bake the pie for 50 to 60 minutes (at 325°F), until the filling is just set. It should look dry around the edges, but the center should jiggle just slightly if you nudge the pan. Keep a close eye on the pie as it bakes; if ever the crust looks like it's browning too quickly, tent the edges with foil strips. Let the pie cool on a rack (leave it on the baking sheet) to room temperature, a few hours. Slice or refrigerate until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition Information
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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This is my new go-to pumpkin pie! I made this pie for Canadian Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit sceptical of the black pepper, but decided to include it, and to follow the recipe exactly, with no omissions or substitutions. This pie is absolutely delicious, not too sweet, not too spicy, just perfect!
I made this yesterday, it’s the best pumpkin pie I have ever made, to the folks that said it was too runny, just remember you don’t use ALL the evaporated milk.
I made this recipe – the comments were – did you make this? It’s amazing!
I baked this Pumpkin Pie today, and it was the best I’ve made. Light, flavourful and easy to make.
This truly is the perfect pumpkin pie recipe, when it turns out properly. This is the first Once Upon A Chef recipe that I’ve had an issue with inconsistency. I’ve made this pie about 5 times. The first time I made it I baked it for 60 min and it was absolutely perfect. The next 3 times I did the same thing in the same oven with all the same ingredients, including the same store bought pie shell, and after 60 min the pie was still liquid in the middle and was inedible. Most recently I made it with the homemade pie shell linked in the recipe (didn’t love it, don’t think it was worth it compared to a good store bought crust) and again after 60 min it was still liquid in the middle, so I decided to just keep it in the oven until the middle only wobbled a little bit, which ended up being a total of about 70 min. The filling was perfect this most recent time after baking for 70 min. The spices are perfection, including the black pepper – my favourite pumpkin pie (although it’s a bit stressful when it doesn’t follow the cooking time listed in the recipe)!
Hi Hilary! You may need to make sure your oven is calibrated properly. When you’ve set it to 375 it may actually be baking at a lower temperature. This could account for the pie not being fully cooked through in the proper amount of time stated. This can happen to ovens over time. A simple oven thermometer placed inside of your oven will tell you what the temperature actually is and you can adjust your baking time accordingly. Hope this helps!
Hi Jenn, happy Canadian Thanksgiving. I am planning to make your pumpkin pie and am wondering what the difference is between using whole eggs versus yolks only.
Hi Stella, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! The egg yolks help to prevent cracks and add richness to the filling. Enjoy!
YUM! Thank you Jenn for this amazing recipe. I’ve made a few of your other recipes and they’ve always turned out great! This time I made a pie, subbing honey nut squash, pumpkin pie spice, pinch of black pepper and 1 cup of sucanat—it came out fantastic—texture was firm and custardy; great creaminess, not to sweet; a key seemed to be blind-baking the bakery-bought crust. Would definitely repeat and recommend. I used the left-over pie filling in a ramekin to make a crust-less custard.
This is the best (and easiest) pumpkin pie I’ve made so far! Admittedly, I omitted the black pepper because even in everyday cooking I don’t enjoy the taste BUT, I don’t doubt that it would be good for others. I otherwise like the amount of spice – this is what was missing for me in other recipes I made.
The oven temp and bake times were also spot on for me – finished at 55 mins. Our old oven was not getting nearly hot enough without me knowing for months before it just died altogether. Every pie I had tried to make came out raw so, definitely worth checking your oven’s temperature with a probe thermometer if yours is coming out runny!
Per my son’s request, I made this pumpkin pie for Christmas lunch yesterday and it was absolutely delicious! I followed the recipe exactly and it was amazing (if I do say so myself!). I also made your Creamy Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potato Casserole, and Turkey Gravy and it was all perfect.
Side note, before the pandemic I didn’t know how to cook (could do little more than mac and cheese out of a box). Locked up at home, I discovered your blog and then your cookbooks and have made over 100 of your recipes since then! (No joke, I’ve actually counted) You have literally changed my life and made me a confident baker and cook – my family and I are soooo happy and every recipe is delicious without fail! Thank you for sharing your talents and knowledge with us!
Wow, good for you Irene!! And I’m flattered that my recipes have played a small part in increasing your confidence in the kitchen! 🙂
What a great review! You make me want to attempt my first effort at making a pumpkin pie. (By the way, I’m a huge fan of Jenn’s chai banana bread.)
Appears to be a sentence or two missing in the section about prebaking the pie crust. Says to put the weights in, then take them out and put back in oven. Ummm
Oh my gosh, thanks for pointing that out! Updating it now…