No-Bake Frozen Margarita Pie
No-Bake Frozen Margarita Pie is cool and creamy, with a salty-sweet pretzel crust and a frosty filling flavored with fresh lime juice, tequila, and triple sec! Or substitute extra-lime juice for an alcohol-free version!
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For more sweet summer desserts, you'll also love Classic Strawberry Shortcake, Easy Blackberry Cobbler, and Summer Peach Cake!
The heat this summer has been a doozy, and while relief is on the horizon, we're not quite there yet. So before it's time to move onto pumpkin, it seems like an appropriate time to reshare a recipe that I make each summer (right around the time I get my annual urge to move to Colorado)...Frozen Margarita Pie! Because who needs a cocktail when you can enjoy a frosty piece of spiked pie instead? 😉
The first time I ever made dinner for my then-boyfriend/now-husband back in '01, I cooked my famous King Ranch Chicken Casserole with a side of Slow Cooker Charro Beans and culminated the meal with this pie for dessert. It was a huge hit that night... and every time I've made it since, it continues to get rave reviews. In fact, the pretzel crust component is so yummy that I've lent it to other pie recipes on several occasions.
Alcohol-Free Version
I used to always make this Frozen Margarita Pie with the tequila and triple sec included, while whipping up a second dessert option for my kids. But a few years ago, I decided to increase the lime juice a bit and leave out the liquor to see if a family-friendly version of this recipe would work.
Sure enough, it did...and the kids loved it! In fact, my eldest enjoyed it so much that he requested it for his big birthday bash that year. Margarita Pie to celebrate turning 9? Why not! Just tell your friends your mom made you Frozen *Lime* Pie, m'kay?
Ingredients
For the Crust:
- Salted pretzels. Finely crush 'em in a food processor or in a sealed bag, using a rolling pin or the flat side of a meat mallet. You can use any shape of pretzels so long as they weigh a total of 5 ounces.
- Granulated sugar.
- Butter. Melted. I typcially use unsalted butter, since the pretzels are already salty, but salted would work as well.
For the Margarita Pie Filling:
- Heavy cream.
- Sweetened condensed milk.
- Fresh-squeezed lime juice. An all-natural bottled lime juice is also fine, but try to make sure the only ingredient is 100% lime juice.
- Lime zest. I love using my trusty Microplane grater for this.
- Tequila + triple sec. To put the "margarita" in your Frozen Margarita Pie! 😉 Or make your pie alcohol-free, as mentioned in the previous section, by increasing the lime juice in place of the liquor.
How to Make Frozen Margarita Pie
Aside from its cooling effects and obvious deliciousness, the other thing you'll love about this Frozen Margarita Pie is how easy it is to make. No need to roll out a pie crust! No need to turn on the oven and further stress the A/C on a hot summer day!
- Combine the pretzel crumbs, sugar, and melted butter until well-combined (I actually like to use a food processor to make this step totally effortless). Press mixture into a glass pie plate.
- Whip some heavy cream until soft peaks form.
- In a separate bowl, stir together the remaining filling ingredients until well combined.
- Gently fold the whipped cream into the filling mixture until just incorporated.
- Pour the filling into the prepared crust, spread to the edges, and sprinkle with additional lime zest, if desired.
- Freeze, uncovered, for at least six hours. Cover with plastic wrap and re-freeze until ready to serve.
And then prepare yourself for frozen dessert bliss!
Slicing Your Pie
I feel the need to warn you that you may as well consider the first slice of this pie to be sacrificial. In other words, there's no easy way to remove it from the dish without the pretzel crust breaking into frozen fractals all around.
But that's okay...simply remove the ugly slice (and take one for the team by quickly eating it before anyone realizes that it even existed). The next slice will come out much more cleanly since you'll have the empty space from the now-missing first slice in which to maneuver your knife and/or pie server.
Just be sure to let your pie thaw at room temperature for about ten minutes before carefully slicing with a sharp knife, ensuring that you press through all the way to the bottom of the dish.
Frozen Margarita Pie would be the perfect dessert to cap off your favorite Mexican or Tex-Mex meal.
But honestly, it would be good after just about any meal...or, you know, in the middle of a sweltering summer day when your stir-crazy offspring are driving you crazy.
Your call... 😉
More Frosty, Boozy Treats
No-Bake Frozen Margarita Pie
Video
Ingredients
FOR THE CRUST:
- 5 ounces salted pretzels, finely crushed in a blender or food processor
- ½ cup sugar
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
FOR THE FILLING:
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup fresh-squeezed lime juice
- 1 tablespoon lime zest, plus additional for garnish (optional)
- 1 ½ tablespoons tequila
- 1 tablespoon triple sec
Instructions
- Mix together the pretzel crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch glass (or Pyrex) pie plate. Set aside.
- Use an electric mixer to whip heavy cream to soft peaks. In a large separate bowl, stir together the sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, lime zest, tequila, and triple sec until well combined. Gently fold the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture until just incorporated.
- Pour the filling into the prepared crust and sprinkle with additional lime zest, if desired. Freeze for 6 hours up to overnight, then cover with plastic wrap and re-freeze until ready to serve.
- Allow pie to sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before slicing with a sharp knife and serving.
Notes
- I ground my pretzels in the food processor, then added the sugar and the melted butter and pulsed until the ingredients were combined.
- Feel free to tweak the amount of tequila & triple sec to your taste, but keep in mind that the flavor from the liquor tends to intensify with time.
- Or, for a booze-free, family-friendly pie, you may omit the tequila and triple sec and increase the lime juice to ⅔ cup.
- You may require more or less thawing time before slicing, depending on how cold your freezer is and how frozen your pie is.
Nutrition
Post originally published July 28, 2016, and updated on July 24, 20202, and August 12, 2022.
Could this be doubled and made in a 9x13 Pyrex dish?
Hi Christine! I haven't tried it, but by this chart, it sounds like this recipe may actually need to be tripled to go from a 9" pie plate (a 4-cup capacity) to a 9x13" dish (closer to a 14-cup capacity). Hope that helps!
This pie is so easy to make & so delicious! My only recommendation is that you take it out 30-40 minutes before serving - the crust was still frozen when I tried to cut it! Loved the pretzel crust!
Amazing recipe! I made it for a swim party last weekend and everyone just loved it!
This pie was incredibly creamy! We omitted the liquor, but it was still so delicious with just lime juice!
The perfect summer dessert! I love that it was no bake, and we all loved the fresh citrus flavor.
This is the recipe I have been looking for. I can't wait to make it this week, ingredients are all here. I sound so delicious and I'm sure it will be. The other recipes sound great as well, but I live alone and some recipes are just too big for me. But certainly I know how to chop a recipe into smaller portions and I'm sure I will do that. Thank you so much, I will post again soon.
Nothing short of delicious!!!
And I love that it is kept in the freezer so any leftovers, if there are any, are forgotten about except for ME!!!!!
Ha ha, that's my kind of bonus! 😉
Love this recipe! I use a mini muffin pan and pipe the filling in. Turns out perfect every time.
What a fun serving idea! 🙂
Do you use cupcake liners?
I made this many years ago, but remember making it in a springform pan. Would certainly solve the ‘first slice’ problem.
That's a great idea, Carolyn...thanks for sharing! 🙂
Thanks for the great recipe! This pie was excellent. Excellent tasting and very easy to make.
OMG this may be my new favourite pie. The crust is amazing and the filling is to die for!
This is the best dessert I have ever had!!!!!! Easy, fast and sooo delicious!!
Thank you so much for the recipe! I made your pie with a tad bit more tequila and triple sec and it was still perfect, actually
AMAZING!!
Sadly, yet with no regrets, I ate it all by myself!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣 I literally hid it so it wouldn’t be found. But after a long busy week, I deserved a guilty pleasure....#momlife. 😉😁
I am curious however if this recipe can be converted to into popsicles.... using the same recipe???!!!!
Hi Jess! So happy you enjoyed this! I've not tried converting this recipe to popsicles so, unfortunately, I'm not sure how it would work out. But please let us know if you decide to give it a try! 🙂
So goooooood!! I made them into pie single serve cups. That way I could split the recipe for boozy and non-booxy dessert cups. I substituted the alcohol with a lime tequila. I made candied lime slices to finish the top. Thanks for the recipe this one is a keeper!!!! 😍
I have made this pie & every one absolutely loves it! Just curious if anyone has ever tried making it in the mini muffin tins? Would like to try it as a bite size treat
I have 2 questions. First one is do you have what kind of cups did you use and second do you have to spray the cups with cooking spray?
Thanks
Delicious! I could taste a little booze and it was nice. The pretzel crust is very buttery and delicious. I baked my pretzel crust before filling it. I will definitely make this again!
What is 5 oz in cups? Is this measurement after the pretzels are ground?
Hi Sandra! I either use a small kitchen scale, or I just eyeball approximately 5 ounces based on the total number of ounces of the bag of pretzels. Hope that helps! 🙂
Thank you for sharing, this looks delicious!
I turn this into mini pies and make them for work several times a year. They are so popular & my coworkers are always begging me to make them, one especially, who requests them every year for her birthday and refers to it a "little slice of heaven." So delicious!
Ooooo, I love the idea of mini pies, Tracy! And it sounds like your coworkers love you! 😉
Would you mind telling me how many mini pies you get out of this recipe?
Just made this and I felt I was eating frozen whipped cream with little flavor. I would increase lime, tequila and triple sec. Wish I had tasted it before freezing it. The crust was good.
Oh Sam - your photos are always SO gorgeous. Just awesome. This pie sounds delightful too. Thanks a million for sharing with us at Weekend Potluck. Always so happy when you share with us. XO
I've been dying to make a cool and refreshing pie this summer! This one looks perfect and that pretzel crust is just genius - yum!
Thanks so much, Megan! This pie definitely checks off the boxes for "cool" and "refreshing." 😉 Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a great weekend!