Cranberry Cream Pie (Vegan, Gluten-Free)

This Vegan Cranberry Cream Pie is bright, festive and ready for your holiday dessert table! It's wonderfully sweet, tart, and creamy, with flavor reminiscent of cheesecake but lighter in texture. The pie can also be frozen for a few hours before serving for a consistency more like ice cream! Pair it with our popular vegan pie crust for an entirely vegan and gluten-free holiday dessert.

You could say I fell in love with cranberries last year. It was my first holiday season creating recipes for the blog, and after a couple of batches of Vegan Cranberry Sauce and this Cranberry and Citrus Tart, I was hooked!

First of all, their color is stunning! They're also rock stars at thickening thanks to their natural pectin content and are both nutritious and delicious. 

Jump to:

• What does Cranberry Cream Pie taste like?
• Ingredient Notes
• How to Make the Pie
• Serving Tips
• More Vegan Cranberry Recipes
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What does Cranberry Cream Pie taste like?

If you're a fan of tart and tangy foods like yogurt, cheesecake, and citrus, this cranberry cream pie has your name all over it!

Even though it doesn't contain cream cheese, the addition of cranberry sauce to the rich filling made from cashews and non-dairy milk instantly gives this pie the classic tang of cheesecake. 

But consistency-wise, this filling isn't as firm as cheesecake. You can probably tell from the photos that it's much lighter and creamier. But here's a really cool thing....

You can pop the pie into the freezer for a few hours (or even longer), and you'll end up with a firmer, ice cream-like, super dense and creamy frozen pie.

Since this is a fairly decadent dessert with plenty of fat from cashews, it won't freeze solid as a rock.

So in essence, this pie is sort of like two-desserts-in-one! Depending on what you're in the mood for, you can serve it light, soft, and cool... or firm and cold. It's truly delicious either way.

Ingredient Notes

First, a note about keeping it gluten-free: for a vegan gluten-free cranberry pie, I highly recommend using my favorite Healthy Vegan Pie Crust.

You really can't go wrong with this recipe. Made from almond flour, the texture and flavor are lovely, but there's no butter, oil, or shortening involved. There's also no pre-chilling ingredients and equipment. It really is the most delicious, easiest pie crust I've ever tried. 

There are 3 components to vegan cranberry cream pie: 

1. baked pie crust
2. a creamy filling made from:
   • cashews,
   • non-dairy milk
   • sugar
   • vanilla
   • and corn starch or arrowroot starch
3. and homemade cranberry sauce or store-bought. Just make sure it's vegan and NOT the jellied kind; you want whole-berry cranberry sauce. But since it's seriously easy to make your own, I think that's the way to go. The color is more vibrant, too!

For the cranberry sauce you can use fresh OR frozen cranberries. Follow my recipe using a combination of maple syrup and cane sugar to sweeten the cranberry sauce or use just one or the other. It's totally up to you.

For my final test batch of this pie I decided to sweeten the cranberry sauce with organic cane sugar only, just so that the cranberry cream flavor would be more pure without the hint of maple. 

How to Make the Pie

Since this is a no-bake pie filling, you'll need to fully bake your pie crust first.

Another thing you can do in advance is make a batch of cranberry sauce. If you've never made cranberry sauce from scratch, let me assure you, it's incredibly simple. It's SO easy, in fact, you may find yourself making it multiple times throughout the holiday season just because you can!

Once you've baked the crust and made the cranberry sauce, chill both in the refrigerator. The next step is to blend the filling ingredients until smooth, then heat it in a large sauce pan until thickened. Be sure to whisk frequently (you'll get a bit of an arm workout here). 

Next, there's an optional step of whisking 1 cup of So Delicious Coco Whip into the pudding/filling. This whipped topping is easier to find than ever (check their website to locate a store), and it lives up to the brand name because it is SO delicious.

The whipped topping gives the pie a bit more volume and adds an extra bit of sweet cream flavor. But if you prefer, simply omit the Coco Whip. 

Finally, we whisk cranberry sauce into the filling! Start with about half of the cranberry sauce (photo above), and give it a taste.

For more color and tartness add about half of the remaining cranberry sauce.

NOTE: I like to reserve ¼ of the cranberry sauce for decorating the top of the pie with a swirl pattern (see photo below), but this is totally optional.

Once you've poured the filling into the crust and created an eye-catching swirl on top, just pop this baby into the fridge for 3 to 4 hours (uncovered). Once it's completely chilled, you can cover it with plastic wrap.

Serving Tips

Depending on when you plan to serve your cranberry pie, leave it in the refrigerator, OR transfer it to the freezer for a while to achieve the firmer texture I mentioned above.

Once removed from the freezer it will soften fairly quickly. So don't set it out on the dessert table hours in advance. Keep this beautiful pie chilled in the fridge or freezer, okay?

More Vegan Cranberry Recipes

• Vegan Cranberry Cheesecake
• Apple-Cranberry Hand Pies
• Cranberry and Citrus Tart
• Low-Fat Cranberry Oat Gelato
• Vegan Cranberry Cornbread Muffins
• Apple-Cranberry Baked Oatmeal

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