Enjoy the wonderful flavor of summer stone fruit in this Fresh Nectarine Pie. With an easy graham cracker crust, cream cheese filling, and fresh sliced nectarines, it’s a delightfully refreshing summer dessert, one of those perfect Homemade Pies to put on repeat!
In fact, chilled and no-bake desserts are where it’s at come summer. This is summer baking at its easiest! If you’d like to serve more than one option, consider a Lemon Icebox Cake or an Ice Cream Pie.
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While a peach pie with crumb topping may tempt some, I find the ease of Nectarine Pie to be much more gratifying. No need for peeling or even rolling out a pie dough, this is different from other fruit pie recipes.
Why Make This
It’s very make-ahead. This Fresh Nectarine Pie recipe is the perfect dessert for summer. Making it ahead of time, baking the pie crust in the cool of night or in the morning before things heat up. Add the cream cheese filling and chill. Top with fresh fruit right before serving. Delicious!
It’s very versatile. This recipe is very forgiving, allowing you to swap out the crumbs in the pie shell with whatever cookies you have on hand. You can make your Nectarine Pie even more by adding berries, plums, or apricots instead.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make Fresh Nectarine Pie:
graham cracker crumbs – No all purpose flour needed here, the crust on this Nectarine Pie is made from graham crackers. You can use the food processor to make your own crumbs of other cookies such as Oreo or Biscoff. If you’re avoiding gluten, search out Schar Honeygrams. If you end up with leftover graham crackers, be sure to make a small batch of Smores – no fire required.
granulated sugar – This is needed to help the crumbs hold together. If you’d like a more caramelized crust, you can use brown sugar instead.
butter – Just a few tablespoons of melted butter aid in keeping the crust together.
cream cheese – You can use full fat or low fat cream cheese in the filling.
whipping cream – You only need ½ cup, so make sure to use the rest of the carton and remember you can freeze whipped cream.
powdered sugar – This dissolves better with the cream cheese and whipping cream, giving you a smoother textured filling.
lemon – Fresh lemon zest offsets the fruit beautifully. You won’t need the juice of the lemon, so be sure to freeze the lemon juice to use later. If you prefer a different flavor, you can add ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract instead of the zest.
ripe nectarines or peaches – I prefer the former because you don’t have to peel them. If you can choose slightly firm fruit. Very juicy fruit may make your pie soggy.
Variations: Other fresh fruit can be included with the nectarines, such as blueberries, blackberries, pitted and halved cherries, and sliced apricots.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Here’s how to make Fresh Nectarine Pie:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°. In a medium-size bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, granulated sugar, and melted butter. Pat this crumb mixture into an 8-inch pie or tart pan. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool on a rack.
2. In a large bowl, whip together the cream cheese, heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, and lemon zest.
3. Spoon this mixture into the prepared crust, cover, and chill for several hours, until firm. Thinly slice the nectarines. Top the cream filling with the sliced nectarines. Serve immediately.
MAKE IT AHEAD: Prepare the Fresh Nectarines Pie through the cream cheese filling step and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 days wrapped. When ready to serve, top with the fruit.
FAQs
Nectarines can be cooked, like peaches, but the texture and flavor are dramatically changed. If you like fresh nectarines, you will love this pie.
Nectarines should be fragrant, brightly colored, and give slightly under pressure.
Nectarines are one of several stone fruit, including peaches, plums, apricots, pluots, apriums, and cherries.
More Summer Dessert Recipes
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Fresh Nectarine Pie Recipe
Equipment
- quiche pan
- wire rack
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs (about 20 cracker squares if making your own crumbs)
- 2 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 6 tablespoon butter , melted
- 1 8-ounce package cream cheese softened
- ½ cup whipping cream
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 lemon, zested
- 3-4 nectarines or peaches
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°.
- In a medium-size bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, granulated sugar, and melted butter. Pat this crumb mixture into an 8-inch pie or tart pan. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool on a rack.
- In a large bowl, whip together the cream cheese, heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, and lemon zest. Whip until mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Spoon this mixture into the prepared crust, cover, and chill for several hours, until firm.
- Thinly slice the nectarines. Top the cream filling with the sliced nectarines. Serve immediately.
- MAKE IT AHEAD: Prepare the tart through step 3 and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. When ready to serve, proceed with step 4.
Notes
Nutrition
This post was originally published on June 26, 2014. It has been updated for content and clarity.
Cheri A.
This is my new favorite summer dessert! We served it with fresh peaches on top! Wow!!
I love that the filling was so easy to make and wasn’t Cool Whip! The lemon zest made it just delightful!
Kristi
I must try this recipe. We have a market close by that has had such yummy peaches recently. (We live in the top peach producing state!) I hear you on the cooked peaches, but I do have a blueberry/ peach pie recipe that is amazing. Also, my daughter loves homemade peach ice cream. It’s a special treat I sometimes make for her July birthday.
Jessica Fisher
I could handle peach ice cream. That’s not cooked, right? Recipe?
Kristi
It took me a few days to figure out which recipe I have used. I did not make any last summer, so it’s been a while. I use a recipe from my old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It is almost like your homemade vanilla ice cream recipe. (Discovered tonight that I have your recipe bookmarked–why didn’t I look there?!) The difference is that my recipe uses light cream and heavy whipping cream instead of milk and cream. To make peach ice cream add about 2 cups of peeled, pureed peaches to the mix. I did not puree mine. They were very ripe, so I just mashed them with my potato masher a little bit. The ice cream was a hit with the birthday cake today!
Jessica Fisher
That sounds great. Maybe that’s how I’ll use up the last of the apricots we have.