Easy, Creamy Key Lime Pie Bars
These Key Lime Bars are so delicious—with a three-ingredient crust and the simplest key lime pie filling! Make these for a crowd; take these to a party, or treat yourself with a batch of your own. Easy peasy key lime squeezy! 😄
Key lime pie used to be the dessert everyone knew I’d bring to a family meal. It was one of my mom’s favorites, and my grandmother still gets excited if she hears I’m even contemplating the idea of making anything key lime. These desserts are the perfect combination of tartness, sweetness & creaminess, so I totally get why it’s a family favorite.
In the old days, I’d make my homemade key lime pie filling and pour it into a store-bought crust. I’m just going to go ahead and throw this out there and apologize in advance if you think it is sacrilege to combine store-bought with a food blog, but for all of you busy moms out there who feel me on this, I'm definitely not judging the store-bought crusts!! For this recipe, however, I wanted to try my key lime pie recipe for easy-to-handle dessert bars, so I made my own crust this time. It's divine!!
I promise you this recipe is so easy to make, and they're so easy to transport. Tailgating, potlucks, family events...the list is endless, and every crowd, no matter the event, will love these key lime pie bars.
The process:
The crust calls for three ingredients: graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter. You mix all three, press it down into the pan a little and bake it before filling with the sweet key lime pie mixture. That's it! After baking, the crust sets up nicely and creates the nicest crunch to the finished dessert bars.
The filling is so easy you'll likely have it memorized after making these. Sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, key lime juice and zest from either key limes or regular limes. I'm also a firm believer in doing whatever is easiest when cooking as long as the final result tastes the same. It makes no difference in the final results if you use store bought key lime juice or of you prefer the more labor intensive route and hand squeeze your key limes. I used store-bought, and my hands and fingers thanked me when I was finished!
With that being said, you definitely want to put in a little effort into zesting some key limes or regular limes. This recipe would not be the same without the zest, and I have the BEST zester recommendation there is! I bought this one off Amazon, and it is sharp! It zests in absolutely no time at all. They even included a piece of fabric to go over my thumb for protection as I'm zesting because truly, it is super sharp, which is exactly what you want your zester to be!
This zest is like a fine powder, y'all. You want this zester!
Okay, okay, I'll move on...
I cannot wait for you to try these, and I have a feeling the key lime pie days are in the past for me because these key lime pie bars are where it's at. For real.
