Top 20 Pie Recipes: Savoury, Fruit, Cream and No-Bake

Savoury pies are weeknight and Sunday comfort in one dish, and they all hinge on a filling that is fully cooked and properly seasoned before it ever meets the pastry. Whether it is a creamy chicken pot pie, a shepherd or cottage pie under mashed potato, a quiche, or a portable hand pie, the filling should be thick enough to coat a spoon, never thin and watery, because a loose filling soaks straight into the crust and steams it soggy. Build the flavour as you would a stew: brown the meat or vegetables for depth, deglaze the pan, and thicken the sauce with a roux or a little flour stirred in. The single most important move is cooling that filling completely before topping it with pastry, since a hot filling melts the butter in the crust before the oven can set it, leaving you with a slumped, greasy lid instead of a crisp, risen one. Vent the top so steam escapes, brush with egg wash for a deep golden finish, and bake until the pastry is cooked through and the filling bubbles at the edges. Standouts here include Turkey and Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie and Chicken Pot Pie, plus Shepherd's Pie.

Fruit pies are the ones most people picture first, and getting them right is about balancing sweetness, controlling juice, and baking long enough for the filling to thicken. Toss the fruit with sugar to balance its tartness and a starch such as cornflour or tapioca to set the juices, leaning on more thickener for very wet fruit like cherries, berries and peaches and less for firmer apples. A pinch of salt, a squeeze of lemon and a little spice sharpen the flavour and stop the filling tasting flat or cloyingly sweet. The classic mistake is pulling the pie out as soon as the crust browns, before the filling has reached a proper bubble; the starch only thickens once it boils, so bake until the juices bubble thickly through the vents or lattice. Equally important is patience at the end: a fruit pie cut while still hot runs everywhere, so let it cool completely, ideally for a few hours, so the filling sets into clean, sliceable wedges. Bake low on a hot tray so the bottom crust crisps rather than steams under all that juice. Standouts here include Gluten Free McDonald’s Inspired Apple Pie and Apple Pie Bites, plus Mini Protein Pie - Strawberry & Cream.

Cream and custard pies trade the bubbling juices of fruit for a smooth, set, often chilled filling, and they reward precision over brute oven heat. Baked custards — pumpkin, pecan, classic egg custard — are thickened by eggs, so they are done the moment the edges are set but the centre still wobbles like a soft jelly; carryover heat finishes the middle as it cools, and overbaking is exactly what cracks the surface and turns the texture grainy or weepy. No-bake and cream pies built on a stovetop pastry cream rely on cornflour and egg yolks cooked together until properly thick, then chilled for hours until firm enough to slice cleanly. Most of these sit in a blind-baked or crumb crust, so pre-bake or set the base first to keep it crisp under the wet filling, and brush a baked shell with egg to seal it. Balance richness with a little salt and bright accents — a layer of fruit, a slick of caramel, a cloud of whipped cream — so a chocolate, banoffee, coconut or lemon meringue slice reads as luxurious rather than heavy. Chill thoroughly before serving so every wedge holds its shape. Standouts here include Mini Protein Pie - Cookie & Cream and Express Healthy Banoffee Pie, plus Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats.

A handful of pies never settle neatly into one category, and these are the ones worth keeping once the staples feel routine. They borrow the same techniques you already know — a cold, flaky crust, a properly thickened filling, a careful blind-bake — but lean toward different flavours, formats and occasions, so no two taste quite alike. Picking your next one is mostly about matching effort to the moment: reach for a quick crumb-crust no-bake pie or a rustic galette when time is short, and save the multi-stage custards, lattice fruit pies and double-crust savoury numbers for a weekend when you can let the pastry chill and the filling cook properly. Pay attention to the size you are baking, too, since mini and hand pies cook faster and need a hotter, shorter bake than a deep dish, while a slab pie feeding a crowd wants longer and lower so the centre sets. Think of this group as the natural next step after the classics — the pies that quietly earn a regular place in the rotation once you have tried them and found your own favourites. Standouts here include Lime Tart Pie and Tomato Pie, plus Protein Vanilla Pie.