Chocolate Meringue Pie
This Chocolate Meringue Pie recipe is a perfect pie for a special occasion because it’s beautiful and delicious! This silky smooth chocolate cream pie with meringue on top is a real show stopper for the holidays too!
If you love meringue pies, try this Vegan Coconut Meringue Pie or everyone’s favorite, Vegan Lemon Meringue Pie.
The holidays are upon us and all I can think about is pie. That’s because I really love making pies for the holidays. One of my favorites is my Vegan Pecan Pie recipe. People just go nuts for that one (pardon the pun! I love the reaction when I tell them it’s vegan.
And now I’m really throwing them for a loop by bringing this vegan chocolate meringue pie too!
How to Make Chocolate Meringue Pie
If you’re wondering how to make a chocolate meringue pie, I’m happy to be here with the answers. If you’re worried this is going to be a difficult process, I get you. Recipes for chocolate meringue pie can be difficult. However, worry no more. I’ll break it down to keep things as simple as possible.
Step One: Make the Pie Crust
I highly recommend going with the traditional flaky pie crust for this vegan take on an old fashioned chocolate pie with meringue recipe. And there’s no better than my flaky Vegan Pie Crust recipe.
Prepare the pie crust as directed and roll it out to about 1/8″ thickness and place in a 9″ pie pan. Crimp the edges of the pie and use a fork to prick the bottom of the crust several times. Bake the crust for 10 to 12 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
Step Two: Prepare the Chocolate Pie Filling
In a saucepan combine the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, and salt. Stir with a whisk to combine.
Turn on the heat to medium-high and add the plant-based milk. Stir occasionally, to make sure the custard doesn’t burn. Bring this to a boil and then reduce heat to medium and simmer for a minute or two until you have a thick mixture in the pan. Remove from heat.
Place the tofu in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Add the chocolate mixture from the saucepan and pulse it all together until a smooth consistency is reached.
Step Three: Prepare the Meringue
The next step is to make the Vegan Meringue recipe. I give three options for making an egg-free meringue with my recipe, however, I highly recommend the version using both chickpeas and xanthan gum. That’s because using the liquid from a can of chickpeas, referred to as aquafaba, makes a light and fluffy meringue, and added just a tad of xanthan gum helps it hold its shape.
I use a stand mixer to make meringue because it requires a lot of whipping, but you can also do it with a hand mixer.
I like to add heaps of meringue for chocolate pie because it adds some dramatic flair! So, once the meringue is done, spoon the chocolate filling into the prepared pie crust. Top with meringue, being sure to spread the meringue evenly across the pie. Also, be sure to create a seal with the meringue pushing right up against all sides of the crust. Then create wispy dollops of meringue across the top of the pie. These wispy parts will brown more quickly and create a beautiful, artistic look to your meringue.
Step Five: Bake Your Pie
Place the unbaked chocolate meringue pie in the preheated oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the meringue just begins to brown. Turn your heat to 375°F and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until the meringue has golden edges.
Remove from the oven and cool for about an hour. Refrigerate for one to two hours before serving.
Marly’s Tips
Use these tips to make this chocolate meringue pie perfect every time:
- The pie crust recipe calls for vegan butter to add flavor. I used Earth Balance.
- This chocolate custard uses cornstarch. Some people don’t like using cornstarch. If that’s you, feel free to substitute arrowroot starch. I love these tips on substituting cornstarch.
- I call for using plant-based milk in this recipe. I used almond milk, but you could also use soy milk, cashew milk, or whatever plant-based milk works best for you.
- Silken tofu can be found in the produce section of many grocery stores. Here’s more on Cooking with Tofu, including where to find it in the store.
- Chocolate pie with meringue is delicious, but you can substitute this Vegan Whipped Cream if you prefer.
- You may be surprised to learn this, but you don’t have to make this chocolate pudding from scratch to keep it dairy-free. I’ve written about Accidentally Vegan Products a lot, and many Jello Pudding flavors are in that group, including chocolate pudding. So you can make your chocolate meringue pie with Jello pudding and still keep it dairy-free!
Storage Tips
To store this chocolate meringue pie, simply allow it to come to cool after baking and then refrigerate. If the pie will be in the fridge sometime before serving, insert toothpicks into the meringue, and lightly drape plastic wrap over the toothpicks and around the bottom of the pie. The toothpicks prevent the plastic wrap from sticking to the meringue.
More Vegan Chocolate Recipes
Chocolate pie recipes are amazing! And there’s no doubt we love our chocolate here, including this homemade chocolate pie. But there’s more to the story than that!
In fact, you’ll find so many delicious chocolate recipes here. For example there’s these Black Bean Chocolate Brownies. So good! And don’t forget these super easy Vegan Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Of course, everyone loves this Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. Mmm, chocolate. It makes me happy!
So, you can see there’s a lot of chocolate love going on here. That’s another reason I’m sharing one of the best Vegan Chocolate Meringue Pies ever.
I made the pie shell the night before and then prepared the chocolate custard and meringue in the morning to allow the finished pie to chill out in the fridge before serving.
Easy peasy!
Vegan Chocolate Meringue Pie. Where have you been all my life?
Vegan Chocolate Meringue Pie
Ingredients
- Foolproof Vegan Pie Crust
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1½ cup vanilla flavored plant-based milk
- 1 cup silken tofu or one small package
- Vegan Meringue I used option #1 with #3
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 350°F.
- Prepare the pie crust as directed in the link above and roll it out to about 1/8" thickness and place in a 9" pie pan. Crimp the edges of the pie and use a fork to prick the bottom of the crust several times. Bake the crust for 10 to 12 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
- In a saucepan combine the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, and salt. Stir with a whisk to combine.
- Turn on the heat to medium-high and add the plant-based milk. Stir occasionally, to make sure the custard doesn't burn. Bring this to a boil and then reduce heat to medium and simmer for a minute or two until you have a thick mixture in the pan. Remove from heat.
- Place the tofu in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Add the chocolate mixture from the saucepan and pulse it all together until a smooth consistency is reached.
- Prepare the meringue according to the link above.
- Spoon the chocolate custard into your prepared pie crust. Top with meringue, ensuring that you create a seal with the crust and create wispy dollops of meringue across the top of the pie (these wispy parts will brown more quickly and create a beautiful, artistic look to your meringue).
- Place in your heated oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the meringue just begins to brown. Turn your heat to 375°F and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until the meringue has golden edges.
- Remove from the oven and cool for about an hour. Refrigerate for one to two hours before serving.
Recommended Equipment
(The products above contain sponsored links to products we use and recommend)
Notes
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Enjoy!
Totally 100% with you, pie on the brain, like crazy! This looks amazing, I can’t believe it’s vegan! I’m not vegan, but I completely want to make this! 😀
I think you are missing the chocolate in the ingredients list/instructions!
Looks great except for one little detail. Would you please add the chocolate to the ingredient list? What kind and how much? Thanks!
Thanks, Shelly! The cocoa powder has been added to the list of ingredients!
I have to try it! Maybe this weekend I’ll cook it.
Cooking on the weekend is my FAVORITE!!! xoxo
This looks spectacular! I didn’t know that there was such a thing like Vegan Meringue but I will try it now!
I just made this for my grandson who has all kinds of food allergies and it is cooling now. This is my first time to cook with tofu. As I was making all the steps, each one was DELICIOUS (because I have to “test!”). And it is BEAUTIFUL! I have made the Chickpea meringue before and it really good. I had extra meringue so I piped little star cookies onto parchment paper and I am cooking them now. Thank so you much for this awesome recipe.
Hi Charlene! So great to hear you (and your grandson) enjoyed the pie! I was working on some chickpea meringue recently and so I feel you — it’s SO good! Also, star meringue cookies? YAS! 🙂
If I’m topping with vegan cool whip instead of meringue, do I need to bake it at all after following the directions up until topping with meringue?
Hi Laura. Yes, you’re right. If you’re using vegan cool whip (love that stuff!), then you could simply bake the crust and then pour the chocolate pudding into the baked crust and refrigerate. Then when you’re ready to serve, add the whipped topping. FYI, I have not always had good look with spreading it across something like a pie. I would probably serve a dollop on each slice. That said, do it however you prefer. I hope it’s lovely!!! ❤️
Really nice pie, I made a larger pie in an 8″ cake tin and a teeny pie. The meringue recipe makes *a lot* so next time I’d try and half it as the large pie stayed weird and foamy but the smaller pie, which I didn’t overload and did a thin layer, cooked great, it was a marshmallow texture. Me and my husband have finished the lot over the weekend so I’ll defo make this recipe again in the future.