No bake Jello pie with a graham cracker crust is a light and fluffy 4-ingredient pie recipe made with Jello, pudding, and Cool Whip. It's an incredibly easy recipe and the perfect dessert for Easter and spring and summer parties.
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Lemon Jello pie with Cool Whip is the most delicious pie.
It's light as air, fluffy as a cloud, and one of the easiest pies you'll ever make.
The easy filling recipe is made with lemon Jello mix, instant vanilla pudding mix, and Cool Whip, spooned into a graham cracker crust.
That's it.
Top it with whipped topping, lemon zest, and fresh strawberries and you have the coolest, creamiest, most delicious dessert ever -- perfect for a hot summer day.
More Easy Pie Recipes
- No Bake Strawberry Jell-o Pie. Impressive looking and delicious strawberry Jello pie.
- Banana Pudding Pie. Like traditional banana pudding, but in a pie!
- No Bake Peanut Butter Pie with Oreo Crust. Loaded with peanut butter cups!
- Chocolate Pudding Pie. Easy no bake pudding and Cool Whip pie.
Why You're Going to Love This Recipe
Lemon pie with graham cracker crust is light and refreshing -- perfect for spring and summer parties!
Quick and easy Jello pie recipe with just 4 ingredients (plus water and ice)
Fun to make with different flavors of Jello
No bake icebox lemon pie is an easy dessert the whole family will love
Ingredients
This easy Jello pie comes together with simple ingredients you can find in any grocery store.
Lemon Jell-o. Two 3 oz. boxes of lemon Jello (4-serving size) give this easy no bake lemon pie plenty of puckery lemon flavor.
You can also make this with any flavor of Jello you like. Orange Jello, cherry Jello, peach Jello, or strawberry Jell-o mix would all be delicious!
Instant vanilla pudding. One 3.4 ounce box of instant vanilla or French vanilla pudding. Even though the mixture is cooked, instant pudding gives this pie the perfect smooth consistency. Do not use cook-and-serve pudding - it'll come out clumpy and weird.
Cool Whip. One 8 oz. container of Cool Whip makes this pie super light and fluffy. If you're not into Cool Whip, I suggest giving Truwhip a try.
Graham cracker crust. You can use a premade graham cracker crust or make your own crust with this recipe.
How to Make No Bake Jello Pie
1. Make the Jello pie filling.
Place the pudding mix and both boxes of gelatin mix in a medium saucepan. Add 1 cup of water.
Bring to a boil. Simmer and whisk frequently for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
Add enough ice cubes to ½ cup of cold water to get 1 ¼ cups of ice water.
Add the ice water to the pudding and gelatin mix, stirring until the ice melts.
Pour the gelatin mixture into a heat-proof bowl.
Chill in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, until the mixture has cooled and slightly thickened.
Whisk the mixture to break up any clumps of Jello.
Fold the Cool Whip into the lemon Jello mixture until it is completely combined.
2. Chill the filling.
Chill for 30 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough to mound into the pie crust.
3. Assemble the Jello pie.
Spoon the lemon Cool Whip mixture into the prepared pie shell.
Cover and chill the pie for at least 4 hours or overnight to set.
4. Serve and enjoy.
Spread more whipped topping on top of the pie and, if desired, sprinkle with fresh lemon zest. Serve with fresh berries or fresh fruit.
This pie is best enjoyed within 24 hours.
Storage
Store leftover lemon Jello pie covered in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.
Success Tips
Be sure to use instant pudding (even though you're cooking it -- odd, I know). Because of the ratios of the liquid and whipped topping, cook-and-serve pudding will make the mixture clumpy and weird.
If you like a crispier graham cracker crust, go ahead and bake it. You can even brush it with an egg wash before baking to keep it from softening. Just be sure to let it cool before adding the lemon pie filling.
Swap out lemon Jello for your favorite Jello flavor. No bake strawberry pie and orange Jello pie are two of our faves!
FAQs
No, that's the beauty of no-bake dessert recipes like this one! You can spoon the filling into a store-bought graham cracker crust or use your own graham cracker crust recipe.
If you like a crispier or sturdier crust, however, you certainly can bake it for 8-10 minutes and let it cool completely before adding the filling.
Absolutely! This is a great recipe to swap out with different flavors of Jello.
A pretty pink strawberry pie, dreamy orange creamsicle pie, or zesty lime pie would all be absolutely delicious and refreshing summer dessert recipes.
Get the Stuff I Use
I've had this set of mixing bowls for well over 20 years and I use them for everything. The large bowl is perfect for making a quick Jello pie filling. The medium bowl is just the right size for mixing graham crackers and melted butter together for my homemade graham cracker crust.
Dress up that foil pie tin with a pretty pie plate.
More No Bake Pie Recipes
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No Bake Jello Pie
Ingredients
- 2 3 oz. boxes lemon Jello
- 1 3.4 oz. box instant vanilla pudding
- 1 ½ cups water, divided
- ¾ cup ice cubes
- 8 ounces Cool Whip or whipped cream
- 1 9" graham cracker crust store-bought or homemade
- Optional: more Cool Whip (or whipped cream) lemon zest, and fresh berries, for serving
Instructions
- Place the pudding mix and both boxes of gelatin mix in a saucepan. Add 1 cup of water. Whisk and bring to a boil. Simmer and whisk frequently for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Add enough ice cubes to ½ cup of cold water to get 1 ¼ cups of ice water. Add the ice water to the pudding and gelatin mix, stirring until the ice melts. Pour the mixture into a heat-proof bowl. Chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or until the mixture has cooled and slightly thickened.
- Fold 8 ounces of Cool Whip into the lemon pudding and gelatin mixture until it is completely combined. Chill for 30 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough to mound.
- Spoon the mixture into the graham cracker crust. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight to set.
- If desired, add more Cool Whip and lemon zest on top of the lemon Jello pie. Serve with fresh strawberries or fruit.
- This pie is best enjoyed within 24 hours.It's also delicious frozen and slightly thawed :).
I made this and it was great. Can you use sugar free jello?
Hi, Jennifer, thank you I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
As soon as I saw your note, I tried the recipe with the only change being sugar-free Jello, but the texture wasn’t as creamy. I tried many iterations and this is what worked the best — with either sugar-free instant pudding or regular instant pudding. It's still not exactly the same, but close.
•Bring 1 cup of water and Jello to a boil. Remove from heat and stir 2 minutes.
•Add the dry pudding mix and stir for 2 minutes.
•Add 1 ¼ cup ice water and stir until it melts.
•Pour the mixture into a bowl. Fold in the Cool Whip.
•Chill 30 minutes or until firm enough to mound. Spoon into pie shell and chill 4+ hrs.
Thanks for the great question! Let me know if you try it and how it works for you.
Thanks, Cara
I don’t know what I did wrong, but the consistency of the pudding and jello mixtures with 1 c of water, you couldn’t even stir much less bring to a boil. I measured out 3.4oz of pudding mix because I had small boxes. I ended up adding a second cup of water and went from there! Hopefully will be ok! Help, what did I do wrong??
Well, darnit, I'm so sorry you ran into trouble! And I really can't say where you veered off course because I haven't run into that before. The two boxes of Jello mix and one box of pudding mix are the 4-serving size boxes, if that helps. As long as the mixture thickens up, you should be just fine. I'll be putting a video up of exactly how I made this pie in the next day or so, so maybe that will shed some light on something helpful if you should choose to take another swing at this recipe.
Can you make this recipe without the Cool Whip? Thanks!
Hi Hope, Do you mean without any type of whipped cream or whipped topping at all? I would think so, though I haven't tried it. You might want to add a little more water, as the lemon flavor might be pretty intense without the Cool Whip. If you're looking for a substitute for Cool Whip, whipped cream should work just fine, it just might not stay firm for quite as long. I also like Truwhip, which is a "healthier" alternative to Cool Whip. I hope that helps!