This vegan pie dough recipe yields a tender and flaky crust! A great option for those who eat plant-based or have allergies.
With the first appearance of rhubarb in the spring, and strawberries just around the corner, is there anything better than a slice of homemade pie?
This vegan pie dough checks all of the pastry boxes. Though not as rich in flavour as a classic all-butter crust, it’s so light and flaky! This pie dough makes a wonderful backdrop to showcase your favourite fruit. It also works beautifully for savoury pies like quiche or pot pie.
Here’s What You Need To Make Vegan Pie Dough:
- all-purpose flour
- sea salt
- shortening or vegan butter
- vinegar (we like apple cider vinegar)
- ice water
Our Favourite Vegan-Friendly Products To Use In Vegan Pie Dough
- Crisco Shortening – A tried and true classic, Crisco is 100% vegetable shortening, with no animal fat.
- Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks – We find this vegan butter substitute a bit salty, so consider omitting the added salt from the recipe if you use this.
- Melt Butter Sticks – Melt Butter Sticks are made with fruit and plant-based oils.
- Miyoko’s European Style Cultured Vegan Butter – A plant-based butter made with cashew cream and fermented live cultures.
Do This Before You Make Your Pie Dough
Vegan pie dough can be more crumbly than dough made with dairy butter. That’s not a bad thing! A high proportion of fat to flour means the result is a crust kind of between a flaky pie dough and crisp shortbread.
To ensure maximum flakiness you absolutely must make sure everything is cold before you begin. We sometimes chill all of our ingredients AND our tools – bowls, measuring cups, and spoons go in the freezer before we begin.
Why It’s Important To Chill Pie Dough Before You Roll It
Before you roll it with a rolling pin, shape the vegan pie dough into a disc, wrap it up, and let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Chilling the dough helps in a few different ways:
- Letting your dough rest allows the liquid to fully hydrate the flour, resulting in a smoother, more pliable dough.
- Resting is also super important for gluten-development. Giving the gluten in the flour time to relax makes the dough easier to roll, and also reduces shrinkage in the oven.
- Chilling pie dough allows the fat to harden (as much as shortening or vegan butter can). Cold pockets of fat evaporating in the dough as it’s in the oven are what creates flakiness in pie crust.
How To Blind Bake Pie Crust
Blind baking means you bake the crust part way before you add filling to it. Examples of pies made in par-baked pie crusts are coconut cream, pumpkin, and quiche. To blind bake pie crust:
- Make the vegan pie dough recipe as written. Cut the dough in half. With a rolling pin, roll one half of the dough to a thickness of ¼-inch (6-mm). Lay a 9-inch (23-cm) round pie plate – upside down – on top of the rolled dough. Lift the pie plate off and continue to roll until there is about a 1-inch (2.5-cm) border around the outside edge of the plate.
- Trim the dough into a 10-inch (25-cm) circle and carefully transfer it to the inside of the pie plate.
- Arrange the dough so it sits evenly in the pie plate. Gently press the dough into the edges of the plate with your hands. Using a fork, gently poke 8 to 10 steam holes over the bottom of the crust.
- Crimp the edges of the dough.
- Place the dough in a preheated oven at 350ºF (180ºC) and bake it for about 20-22 minutes, or until lightly golden. While the dough is in the oven chec it periodically for puffing. You may need to poke a few extra holes with the fork in puffed up spots as it bakes.
- Cool the crust and proceed with filling it as per the recipe you have chosen.
For full step-by-step instructions – with photos – on how to blind bake a pie crust check out this buttermilk quiche post.
Tips & Suggestions For Making This Recipe
- If you don’t want to make dough by hand you can mix the ingredients in a stand mixer or food processor.
- Your dough may tear while rolling it out. If this happens do not stress! Pie dough is very forgiving. Just use extra bits of dough to patch the holes and keep going. Even ugly pie still tastes like pie!
- Use this recipe to make sweet or savory pies. It’s a great base for both Granny Smith Apple Pie and Homemade Turkey Pot Pie (if keeping things strictly vegan isn’t an issue).
If You Love All Things Pie Then Check Out:
5 Add-Ins To Take Your Pie Crust To The Next Level
Apple Rhubarb Pie
Pecan Pie With Maple Coconut Cream
Addictive Banana Cream Pie
Vegan Summer Fruit Galette
Recipe
Vegan Pie Dough
Description
Equipment
- Measuring cups and spoons or a digital kitchen scale
- 2 Mixing bowls
- Beeswax wrap or plastic wrap
Ingredients
- 2-½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup cold vegan shortening, or butter, cut into 1-inch (2-cm) cubes
- ½ cup water, cold
- 2 teaspoon vinegar, apple cider, distilled white, etc.
- Ice
Instructions
- Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. With your fingertips work in the vegan shortening or butter into small pieces the size of peas (this process will take longer for the butter and less time with the shortening).
- In a small bowl combine the cold water, vinegar, and ice.
- Add 1 tablespoon of the water mixture to the flour, gently stirring with a fork to combine. Add more, a tablespoon at a time, until the flour is just starting to come together in pastry form.
- Transfer the dough to the countertop and very gently knead just until it comes together, being sure not to handle it too much. (Overworked dough quickly leads to tough, flat pastry.)
- Form the pastry into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap (or reusable alternative such as bees wax wrap), and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Proceed with your chosen recipe.
- The dough will last in the fridge a week or in the freezer for several months (see notes).
Notes
- Nutrition amounts are provided by an automatic calculator and are based on one double crust pie cut into 8 servings.
- If you don’t want to make dough by hand you can mix the ingredients in a stand mixer or food processor.
- Your dough may tear while rolling it out. If this happens do not stress! Pie dough is very forgiving. Just use extra bits of dough to patch the holes and keep going. Even ugly pie still tastes like pie!
- Use this recipe to make sweet or savoury pies. It’s a great base for both Granny Smith Apple Pie and Homemade Turkey Pot Pie (if keeping things strictly vegan isn’t an issue).
- To store pie in the freezer, wrap it tightly with plastic freezer wrap or place it into a heavy-duty freezer bag. Thaw in the refrigerator, then roll out as you normally would.
Nutrition
If you make this recipe, let us know by tagging @baked_theblog + #bakedtheblog on Instagram! We love to feel like we’re in the kitchen with you.
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