Tasty Carrot Pie

Sweet, spiced, creamy–and similar to pumpkin or sweet potato pie, Carrot Pie is a fun winter pie that’s tasty, healthy and easy!

Carrot Pie

Isn’t it nice when practical considerations lead to an inspiration!  This healthy and tasty Carrot Pie came out of a year when my both of my CSAs had wildly bountiful carrot harvests.  Yes, well into the winter, I had carrots—everywhere! 

This year, it’s a different practicality.  For some reason, all of my squash is going bad early.  So instead of homemade “pumpkin” pie, it’s time for carrot pie again!  

Ah, the intricacies of eating local.  But with such tasty results, I’m excited by the challenge!  

Carrot Pie

Why You’ll Love This!

Flavorful.  The recipe is based on a delicious Sweet Potato Pie—yum!

Easy.  I used a premade frozen pie crust and blended up my filling in a food processor.  All that’s left to do is pour and bake!  Easy-peasy!

Healthy.  Carrots are maybe even slightly healthier than pumpkin (see Souper Sage for a comparison to squash).  Plus how good is getting a serving of vegetables in your dessert! 

Carrot Pie

What You’ll Need

Ingredients

  • Pie crust.  This holds the pie.  You can, however, go with a crustless “pie” if you prefer.
  • Carrots.  This provides the warm carrot flavor (and a lot of nutrition).
  • Cream.  With the eggs, this gives the creamy, custard-like character to the pie.
  • Sugar.  This sweetens the pie.  You can use all white sugar or half white and half brown or  even 1 1/4 cup allulose sweetener.
  • Eggs.  This thickens the pie.
  • Allspice, Cinnamon, Cloves, Vanilla. These provide warm flavor notes.
  • Salt (optional).  This is used to counter any bitterness in the carrots more than to enhance the flavors.  If you’re restricting salt it should be no problem to omit.
  • Lemon juice (optional).  In theory, this balances the warm spice flavors.

Special Tools

  • No special tools are required.

Step by Step Overview

Place cooked and slightly cooled carrots in the bowl of a food processor or blender, then add remaining ingredients.

put ingredients in food processor

Process until smooth.

process

Pour mixture into prepared pie crust. Transfer to oven and bake until center has set, approximately 40 to 55 minutes.

pour into crust

Variations

I was trying to achieve as bright an orange color as I could, so I used all granulated sugar.  But feel free to use half brown sugar for a more caramelly flavor.

If you are reducing the sugar in your diet like I am, you can use allulose sweetener.  I have successfully tested this using use 1 ¼ cups of allulose (which is 70% as sweet as sugar), instead of the 1 cup of granulated sugar.  You could also omit the crust to reduce the carbs even more. 

If you’d like to go dairy free, you could use a plant based cream instead of dairy cream, or use 1/2 cup of melted margarine instead (the latter will make the pureeing more challenging but it’s doable).

And if you’re looking for more Winter Root Vegetable Recipes, how about some Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup, Parmesan Crusted Carrots, Roasted Beet and Crispy Goat Cheese Salad or Roasted Beet Falafel.

Carrot Pie

Tips & FAQs

You can roast, boil or even microwave your carrots for this recipe.  Just make sure they are tender.

To get the creamiest filling, puree the filling just a little longer after you think it’s done. 

This fits a standard commercial frozen pie crust.  The filling will be scant if you are using a larger, homemade crust.  In that case you can use 1 ½ pounds of carrots and 1 ¼ cups of sugar, with the remaining ingredients the same (this was the volume in the original recipe, but I reduced it to fit the smaller crust). 

Why don’t you blind bake the crust first?  I know there is controversy about pre-baking your pie crust in custard pies such as pumpkin pie.  But since a commercial crust is only so flakey, and because both the original Sweet Potato Pie recipe as well as the classic Libbey Pumpkin Pie recipe don’t prebake, I decided to save myself the extra step.  Easy-peasy, remember?

Why did you add lemon juice? In theory, this balances the warm spices.  I used it but I’m not convinced it adds much.  Or that it’s worth the effort of halving apart a lemon, then figuring out what do with the leftovers.  But some people swear by it for sweet potato pie.

Carrot Pie

Carrot Pie

Carrot Pie

Sweet, creamy, spicy, and similar to pumpkin or sweet potato pie, Carrot Pie is a fun winter pie that’s tasty, healthy and easy!
Author: Inger
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 8
Calories 311 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 1 unbaked pie crust see notes
  • 1 pound carrots trimmed and pre-cooked
  • 3/4 cup cream
  • 1 cups granulated sugar or half brown sugar, or 1 1/4 cups allulose
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 Tablespoon lemon juice optional

Instructions
 

  • Place cooked and slightly cooled carrots in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Add remaining ingredients, then process until smooth.
  • Pour mixture into prepared pie crust. Transfer to oven and bake until center has set, approximately 40 to 55 minutes.

Notes

The filling is sized for a standard (not deep dish) commercial frozen pie crust.  If you use a homemade crust, increase the carrots to 1 1/2 pounds and the sugar to 1 1/4 cups to better fill it.

Nutrition

Calories: 311kcalCarbohydrates: 42gProtein: 4gFat: 15gSaturated Fat: 7gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0.004gCholesterol: 66mgSodium: 293mgPotassium: 244mgFiber: 2gSugar: 28gVitamin A: 9861IUVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 47mgIron: 1mg
I am not a health professional and nutrition data is calculated programatically. Accuracy may vary with product selection, calculator accuracy, etc. Consult a professional for the best information.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Updated from the original published Jan 28, 2016 (to add additional information and slight recipe improvements).

Carrot Pie served

18 thoughts on “Tasty Carrot Pie

  1. Elyssa

    I developed a potato intolerance, but I LOVE sweet potato pie! I’ve been searching for a great substitution and this may be it! Thanks so much!

    1. Inger Post author

      This has completely usurped pumpkin pie for me now Elyssa. I hope it works for you 🙂

  2. David

    What a wonderful idea! Although I rarely have any “extra” carrots. Maybe it’s time to buy some carrots and make this on purpose!

    1. Inger Post author

      I wish I could share some of my carrots with you David! But you know I am now putting in (extra) vegetables to roast every time I have the oven on!

  3. Juliana

    I have never even heard of carrot pie…this is such a clever way to use up carrots…I would love to try a slice of it.
    Again, thanks for the inspiration Inger.

    1. Inger Post author

      Yes, my one regret about long distance “blogging friends” is that we can’t (readily) share food!

  4. grace

    what a great idea! i’m not sure why i’ve never thought to do this, and i’m intrigued and enamored! love that color. 🙂

    1. Inger Post author

      Thanks Grace! You know you probably get a better supply of sweet potatoes than we do here and didn’t need to be inspired.

    1. Inger Post author

      I have decided that I need to roast vegetables any time the oven is on this winter!

5 from 1 vote (1 rating without comment)

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