How to Make Lemon Meringue Pie from Scratch

There’s nothing quite like a fresh lemon meringue pie. While packaged pie mixes make it easy, using fresh lemons makes all the difference.

If you aren’t serving the pie right away, complete all the steps, except making and adding the meringue. Chill the lemon pie in your fridge until you are just about ready to serve. Then make the meringue and bake the pie for 10 minutes in a 350 F oven.

Ingredients for Filling:

• ½ cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups water
• 2 lemons
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 4 egg yolks

Ingredients for Meringue:

• 4 egg whites
• ½ cup sugar

Other Ingredients:

• 1 pre-baked 9-inch pie, cooled

Also have on hand a medium saucepan, whisk, measuring cups and spoons, pie pan, mixer with bowl and spatula.

Serves: Makes about 1 9-inch pie

Juice and Zest the Lemons

Squeeze the juice out of the lemons. You can get more juice out by heating the lemons a bit in the microwave. Zest the lemons by using the finest end of your cheese grater, just removing the yellow part of the skin. Set aside.

Separate the Eggs

Crack the eggs and gently pass the yolk back and forth between the shell halves until the whites have been removed. Set the yolks and whites aside until later.

Combine Your Filling Ingredients

Put the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt into a medium saucepan and whisk together. Slowly add the water, lemon juice and zest, whisking fully each time.

Cook Your Filling

Heat the saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. When mixture comes to a boil remove from heat and stir in the butter and egg yolks. Once they are fully combined with the main ingredients, bring to a boil once more and stir until the mixture is thick.

Add the Filing

Now you can pour your filling into the pre-baked pie shell. Set aside as you’re going to start working on the meringue now.

Preheat Oven

Preheat oven to 350 F

Make Your Meringue

Using a mixer on a high setting, beat the egg whites in a mixing bowl. Once they start to thicken, start adding the sugar. Use your spatula to scrap the sides down, constantly bringing all the egg mixture back to the middle of the bowl. When stiff peaks form, your meringue is ready.

Top Pie with Meringue

Spoon the meringue over the top of the pie. Commonly given advice is to make sure the meringue reaches the sides and completely covers the pie filling to prevent the meringue from weeping and running liquid into your pie, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Meringue should be served soon after it’s made, so that will prevent the problem.

Brown the Meringue

Place the pie in a 350 F oven for about 10 minutes to lightly brown the meringue.