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An empty pie crust with a crimped edge in a ceramic pie dish.

Easy Flaky “Buttery” Vegan Pie Crust Recipe

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.6 from 5 reviews
  • Author: BRITT BERLIN
  • Prep Time: 20
  • Chilling times: 2 hours or overnight
  • Cook Time: 27
  • Total Time: 0 hours
  • Yield: 2 pie crusts or 1 double crust 1x
  • Category: Dessert
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Vegan

Description

This ridiculously easy vegan pie crust is incredibly buttery, flaky, and tender, all without any eggs and dairy! We’re using a combination of vegan butter with vegan shortening and just 5 minutes of hands on work for either two single crusted pies or one double crust. Easily frozen for make ahead, this is the recipe that made me fall in love with pie making (when I used to hate it!). This is your go-to pie crust recipe from now on!

Ingredients

Scale

Pie dough:

  • 4 cups (500 g) all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour, plus more for rolling*
  • 1 cup (226 g) salted vegan butter, chilled and cubed
  • 1/2 cup (113 g) avocado shortening, chilled and cubed
  • 2 tbsp sugar, optional
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 3/4 cup (171 mL) chilled water

Vegan Egg Wash:

  • 1 tbsp soy milk
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup

Instructions

  1. Rub the fat into the flour: Add the flour and salt (as well as  optional sugar if making a sweet pie) to a large bowl. Using clean hands, add in the cubed vegan butter and avocado shortening to the flour, and rub the fats into the flour to create a sandy texture in the flour with pea-sized clumps of fats in the flour.
  2. Finish the dough: Pour in the cold water and at first, use a silicone spatula to begin mixing the water into the flour mixture. Once it’s been mostly integrated into the dough, you can switch back to your hands to gently knead and mix the mixture into a shaggy dough.  
  3. Chill: Cut out two large pieces of plastic wrap. Divide the dough in half and place one dough half onto a piece of plastic wrap and form the dough into a flat disk. Wrap the dough in the plastic wrap and repeat for the remaining half of the dough. Place both into the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours or overnight if needed.
  4. Prep: When the pie crust is ready to be rolled, remove one dough half from the fridge.
  5. Roll: Sprinkle a clean working surface with flour, as well as the dough disk and a rolling pin. Gently roll the dough to be about 1/8″ thick and at least 2″ wider than the pie dish edge. Gently drape the pie dough over the pie dish and gently press the dough into the sides of the pie dish. This is to prevent the pie dough from stretching over the pie dish and sinking while baking. Tuck any over hanging edges and crimp the dough with your thumb and forefingers.
  6. Par-bake: To par-bake, place the dough into the freezer to chill for at least 15 minutes while the oven is preheating to 400F. Once preheated, remove the pie from the freezer. Place a piece of parchment paper into the middle of the pie crust and pour either 3-4 cups of flour, dried rice, or dried beans into the middle of your parchment paper piece. This will be our pie weights. Use enough to fill the pie up to the brim. Place the pie dish into the oven on the middle rack to bake for 15 minutes.
  7. Brush with vegan egg wash: Carefully remove the parchment paper from the pie dish (if you used flour, you can let the flour cool and store for later use. Just make sure to sift it!). Mix together the soy milk and maple syrup, and use a pastry brush to brush the edges and inside of the pie crust with vegan egg wash. This is used for both sweet and savory pies
  8. Finish the par-baking: To finish par-baking, poke holes into the bottom of the crust and along the bottom rim of the pie crust to make sure that the pie crust doesn’t puff up in the oven. Place the pie crust back into the oven to continue baking for another 10-12 minutes, or until just turning golden brown. Remove the pie crust from the oven. Then your pie crust is ready to be filled to continue baking in your recipe.
  9. To blind bake (fully bake) from here: If you’ve placed the crust back into the oven to continue baking in step 8, instead of baking for only an additional 10-12 minutes, you’ll bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and flaky.

Equipment

Notes

Tip: Use tinfoil and a pie crust shield to protect the crust from burning while baking. Enjoy!

Gluten free: Check out this gluten free vegan pie crust recipe post for all of the details on how to make this pie crust gluten free. 

To make a lattice crust:

  1. Once you get to the first chilling section, separate the dough in half and cover in plastic wrap to chill in the fridge for an hour.
  2. To make a lattice, place the filling of the pie into the pie crust bottom and set aside (or in the fridge).
  3. Roll the second dough out to be a circle that measures about 12″ in diameter. To make the lattice, measure 1″ in width for each strip for the lattice, slicing 12 strips, depending on how many you want to go across each side. Drape half of the strips parallel to each other over the pie. Do not seal off the lattice yet. Then lift back the second, fourth, and sixth strip. Place a lattice strip that’s perpendicular across the strips. Place the second, fourth, and sixth strips back. Now pull back the first, third, and fifth strips. Place another lattice strip directly next to the last lattice strip, parallel across the first batch. Place the first, third, and fifth strips back. Repeat, alternating the groups of paralleled strips until you’ve achieved a woven lattice crust. Then continue onto Step 9.

Find it online: https://thebananadiaries.com/ultimate-pie-crust-recipe/