Gluten Free Lemon Meringue Pie from scratch is easy to achieve with this recipe! Enjoy the fresh lemony tartness of classic, old-fashioned pie with the best traditional-style gluten free crust.
Made without cornstarch or cream of tartar and with pure, freshly-squeezed lemon juice and raw cane sugar, this is a fresh, new version of your old favourite.
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What is lemon meringue pie filling made of?
- Lemons - Use freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Don't be tempted to substitute it with the bottled stuff! Using tangy, freshly-squeezed real lemons makes a world of difference to the flavour of this pie. It takes it from just "okay" to fantastic!
- Butter - There's no substitute for the taste of butter, except ghee! Ghee is purely the fat part of butter, without any of the protein, casein.
- Tapioca Flour - While most lemon meringue pie recipes use cornstarch, many gluten-intolerant people cannot have corn products, either. Tapioca flour works just as well for both thickening and retaining the nice translucent quality in lemon filling.
- Raw Cane Sugar - I like to use natural sweeteners. Raw cane sugar is the least refined form of sugar, and yet it gives the familiar sugar taste.
- Gluten Free Pie Dough - The gluten free crust for this lemon meringue pie is made from the same great recipe that most of my other gluten free pies begin with. With just a few tweaks in the way we use it, it can make a pretty terrific blind crust.
For the exact amounts and detailed recipe instructions, scroll down to the end of this post, or click the Jump to Recipe button at the top.
Instructions
Crust
For more detailed information and tips for pre-baking a pie crust, refer to How to Bake a Blind Crust.
Roll out pie crust with plenty of extra flour.
Transfer pastry to pie plate and prick with holes.
Wet and crumple parchment and press it into pie crust. Chill it in the refrigerator for a while before baking.
Fill with beans for pie weights and bake for 15 min. Allow to cool before removing beans and parchment.
Filling and Meringue
Whisk sugar, flour, and water together. Bring to boil for a minute.
Whisk the egg yolks, and whisk some of hot mixture into them. Then whisk it all back into the hot saucepan.
Cook, while whisking constantly, and then remove from heat.
Add lemon juice and butter. As the butter melts, whisk the filling until smooth.
Pour filling into pie shell.
Top with meringue.
Bake until the meringue has golden tips. Serve cold.
Recipe FAQ's
While not completely dairy free, this pie filling is casein free when made with ghee. Casein is the protein in dairy. Some people, including myself, cannot tolerate it. So while most dairy is off limits, ghee safely gives us the butter flavour.
Keep lemon meringue pie from getting soggy by returning the crust to the oven for 5 minutes, after removing the pie weights and parchment paper but before adding the filling.
Add a little cornstarch, tapioca starch, or white rice flour to the meringue to keep it from weeping.
Add the meringue while the filling is still hot.
More Gluten Free Pie Recipes
When you make a batch of my Gluten Free Pie Crust, you'll have enough left over to freeze and later make a couple more pies! Here are some suggestions:
If you love lemons as much as I do, you'll want to try...
Recipe
Lemon Meringue Pie
Equipment
- 9-inch pie plate
- Rolling Pin
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 gluten free dough for single pie crust
- extra white rice flour for rolling
Filling
- 3 eggs separated
- 1 cup raw cane sugar
- ½ cup tapioca flour
- 1 ½ cup water
- 3 tablespoons butter or ghee
- ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 or 3 lemons)
Meringue
- 1 tablespoon raw sugar
- 1 teaspoon tapioca flour
Instructions
Crust
- Roll out the pie crust in a generous amount of rice flour, turning it often, adding flour as you do. There should be enough flour that there is still an excess remaining on the rolling surface after the dough has absorbed as much as possible. (The dough needs to be dryer than usual to withstand blind baking.)
- Place the pie crust into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate so that it extends beyond the upper edges. Turn under the excess, pinching to hook it over the edge of the plate so that it hangs onto it rather than falling down during baking.
- Prick the bottom and sides liberally with a fork.
- Wet and crumple a sheet of parchment paper. Flatten it out again and gently place it over the bottom and sides of the pie crust. Line with pie weights to hold it in place.
- For best results, chill the crust in the refrigerator for a while just before baking.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
- Bake the chilled crust for 15 minutes. Allow it to cool before removing the pie weights and parchment paper.
- As you prepare the filling, returning the empty pie crust to the preheated oven for up to 5 minutes will ensure that it's not soggy.
Filling
- Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C).
- Separate the three eggs, putting the whites into a large mixing bowl and the yolks into a medium one.
- Whisk the cup of sugar and the tapioca flour together in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the water until smooth. Over medium heat, bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute.
- Whisk egg yolks in the mixing bowl. Whisk half of the hot sugar-flour mixture into the yolks. Then whisk the yolk mixture back into the sugar-flour mixture on the stove. Cook for one more minute.
- Remove from heat. Stir in butter and lemon juice.
Meringue
- Beat egg whites at high speed. As they begin to thicken and whiten, sprinkle in the tablespoon of sugar. Beat until soft peaks form. Add the teaspoon of tapioca starch, and beat another 30 seconds.
- Pour the hot lemon filling into the baked pie crust. Smooth or pipe the meringue over the top.
- Bake in 325°F (163°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the meringue is starting to brown up nicely.
- Allow to cool before serving.
Christa says
I followed the directions exactly, and it's just a soupy mess that never set at all.
Cathy says
I'm sorry to hear this, Christa. I just can't imagine why this would have happened when you followed the directions exactly. If any ingredient was substituted, the filling wasn't cooked enough, or if the pie was not cooled completely, it might be too soft. Were the eggs extra small?
Ron Moss says
I found that using the beans with the parchment, the bottom of the crust was still raw when crust cooled and beans removed. I put it back in the oven with no beans until 3/4 cooked then cooled and added filling and meringe. This was my first attempt at lemon pie. My wife said it’s good enough to serve to company. That is her ultimate complement.
Cathy says
That was a great solution! I'm so glad that your wife liked it!
Barbara says
There's too much tapioca flour/starch in this recipe! Filling is chewy. Perhaps GF cornstarch would be a better choice. I added 2 tsp of lemon zest; flavor was good with this adjustment.
Cathy says
Thank you for trying my recipe, Barbara, and for sharing your input. I'm sorry that you found the tapioca flour to be too much. This recipe was created for people who can't eat cornstarch, but if you can tolerate it, go ahead and use it. You will probably need less cornstarch than tapioca starch. The addition of lemon zest seems like a nice idea.