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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Oh, Jell-O, we love how you bring bright flavor to everything from Strawberry Pie and Lemon Poke Cake to creamy Orange Fluff Salad. And this Lemon Jello pie with Cool Whip.
It's such a delicious pie -- light as air, fluffy as a cloud, and one of the easiest pies you'll ever make. It's just 4 ingredients!
And you can make it with any flavor of Jell-O you like. I made it for Easter with strawberry Jell-O, and it was the first dessert to go!
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
Step 1: Place the pudding mix and gelatin mix in a medium saucepan with 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.
Step 2: 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.
Step 3: Fold the Cool Whip into the lemon Jello mixture until it is completely combined. Chill for 30 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough to mound into the pie crust.
Step 4: 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.
Step 5: 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.
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, bake it for 8-10 minutes at 350 and let it cool completely before adding the lemon pie filling. You can even brush it with an egg wash before baking to keep it from softening.
- Swap out lemon Jello for your favorite Jello flavor. No bake strawberry pie and orange Jello pie are two of our faves!
- Dress up the foil pie tin by serving the pie in a pretty pie plate. This is the one you see in the photos.
FAQs
Store leftover lemon Jello pie covered in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.
No, that's the beauty of no-bake dessert recipes! You can spoon the filling into a store-bought graham cracker crust or use your own graham cracker crust recipe.
For a crispier or sturdier crust, 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 key lime pie would all be absolutely delicious and refreshing summer dessert recipes.
More Easy Pie Recipes
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📖 Recipe
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 it although I used 2 cups of milk on the stovetop instead of water. The 1 cup just wasn't enough to completely dissolve the mixes. Also, I used lime gelatin, added in finely chopped pecans, pineapple tidbits, mini marshmallows and topped it off with whipped cream flowerets and maraschino cherries. It was absolutely superb!
Sounds delicious! Thank you for sharing your yummy adaptation :). Cara
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!