Vegan Pie Crust

Here’s how to make vegan pie crust! This flaky pastry can be made using coconut oil or vegan butter, and no one would guess it’s plant-based.

Want to make your favorite pie…but plant based? Here’s the baking trick you need: this Flaky Vegan Pie Crust! This pastry crust is flaky, tender and perfectly seasoned: no one would guess there’s no butter. You can make it with coconut oil or vegan butter, and we’ve tested it on friends and family: no one will know the difference! We love using this crust for our apple pie or pumpkin pie: but you can use it as a plant-based stand-in for any of your favorite pie recipes. Let’s get baking!

Ingredients for vegan pie crust

This vegan pie crust is essentially like a standard crust, but it replaces the butter or lard! We’ve tested this recipe with coconut oil and vegan butter, and either one works. This makes it a super versatile recipe for whatever plant-based butter substitute you have on hand. Here’s the short list of ingredients you need for this recipe:

• All purpose flour
• Kosher salt
• Baking powder
• Coconut oil (refined) or vegan butter

Notes on vegan butter

With the interest in plant based coking these days, it’s becoming easier to find a vegan butter that’s minimally processed to use in recipes like vegan pie crust and vegan biscuits. When you’re shopping for vegan butter, check the ingredient lists and find one that is minimally processed with real food ingredients. Another plus is using organic! We used Miyoko’s Vegan Butter, which is made with mostly cashews and coconut (and happens to be organic).

Whatever the case, do not buy anything marked margarine! Margarine is much too soft to make a pie crust.

Coconut oil vs vegan butter in vegan pie crust

You can go either the coconut oil or the vegan butter route for this vegan pie crust, and they both result in perfectly tasty crust! Here’s what we learned while testing these plant based butter substitutes:

• Coconut oil vegan pie crust: The pastry comes out beautifully crisp and crunchy! We recommend using refined coconut oil, as you can’t detect much of a coconut flavor.
• Vegan butter pie crust: The pastry comes out flaky with a little more of a savory, buttery flavor than coconut oil. The exact texture and flavor depends on the brand of vegan butter and what it’s made of.

Helpful tools for vegan pie crust!

It’s helpful to have a few things on hand to make vegan pie crust: though of these items, only the pie plate is required!

• 1 9-inch pie plate: Use a standard pie plate, not a deep dish!
• Pastry cloth and rolling pin cover (recommended but not required)
• Pizza cutter or pastry wheel

What’s a pastry cloth? Why use it? A pastry cloth is a piece of canvas used for rolling out dough, cookies, biscuits and other baked goods. It helps to keep the dough from sticking, and provides helpful lines for cutting out the circle of dough. A rolling pin cover also helps to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin. These tools are fairly inexpensive and are very helpful to make the most perfect vegan pie crust. But they’re not required if you don’t have them on hand!

Make ahead and storage instructions: refrigerate or freeze

Once nice thing about a vegan pie crust is that you can make it in advance! You can refrigerate it until baking, or freeze it for later. Here are the storage instructions:

• Refrigerate for 1 day: You can make this vegan pie crust in advance: wrap it in plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate until baking. Do this if you are planning to bake within 1 day.
• Freeze for 1 month: Want to make it further in advance? Wrap it in plastic wrap and pop it in the freezer. It stays good for at least 1 month, and likely longer.

Pie recipes for vegan pie crust!

There are lots of ways to use this vegan pie crust recipe! There are pie fillings that are naturally vegan (like apple pie!), or we have a few recipes for vegan pies below.

• Best Apple Pie Recipe This apple pie is naturally vegan on the inside! It’s easy to convert it to a plant-based apple pie.
• Mini Apple Pies Substitute coconut oil for the butter in the filling to make these tasty mini apple pies flavored with bourbon!
• Chocolate Cherry Galette This tasty cherry rustic pie is full of flavor and drizzled with chocolate.
• Rustic Apple Galette Substitute coconut oil for the butter in the filling to make this rustic apple pie.

This vegan pie crust recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, and plant-based.

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More vegan baked goods

Love vegan baking? Us too. Here are a few more vegan baked goods to try:

• Pop in a tray of vegan apple muffins or vegan banana muffins
• Satisfy your sweet tooth with vegan chocolate chip cookies or vegan peanut butter cookies
• Bake a batch of vegan sandwich bread or go fancy with vegan artisan bread
• Go cozy with a pan of vegan cornbread
• Whip up flaky vegan biscuits
• Mix up a loaf of moist and delicious vegan banana bread
• Satisfy the chocoholics with Fudgy Vegan Brownies