With buttery graham cracker crusts and silky key lime pie filling, these no bake key lime pie tartlets are the perfect dessert! 

Refreshing, tangy key lime flavor mixed with the buttery sweetness of a graham cracker crust — you’re not going to find a better summer dessert than this simple tart recipe.

These smaller versions of traditional key lime pie can be made without turning on the oven. These little mini pies also look so elegant with their dusting of lime zest and creamy white tone. They’ll be a equally at home at a family party or at a fancy afternoon tea!

Why you want this recipe

• won’t heat up the house
• refreshing summer flavor
• easy to make
• excellent mini-dessert for parties
• pretty and simple!

These gorgeous little tartlets are made from just a few simple ingredients!

• Graham Crackers: Part of why this recipe is so easy is because the tart shells are made from a graham cracker crust! Regular honey graham crackers are perfect for this recipe, although you can also experiment with other flavors.
• Sugar: This lends sweetness to the graham cracker crust. You are welcome to omit it, if you’d like.
• Butter: You can use either unsalted or salted butter for this recipe. Margarine also works — I typically prefer it!
• Cream Cheese: This forms the base of your no bake pie filling. You’ll need 2 boxes of cream cheese for this recipe. Feel free to use reduced fat cream cheese, but Neufchâtel and fat-free cream cheese do not work. They make a pie filling that is too soft and doesn’t set up.
• Sweetened Condensed Milk: This will add sweetness and a rich flavor to your pie filling. You can use fat-free or full-fat sweetened condensed milk in this recipe. I’ve tested both without noticing any difference in texture.
• Limes (Juice and Zest): While key lime pie should probably use key limes, I actually make this with regular limes. I find key limes difficult to zest and juice because of their size, and I do not notice enough of a taste difference to justify the extra work. You can use either key limes or regular limes in this recipe. I don’t recommend using bottled lime juice; fresh lime juice makes a huge difference in taste.

Step 1 | Graham Cracker Crust

Start by crushing your graham crackers into graham cracker crumbs. I use a food processor, but you can use a blender or even put your graham crackers into a ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin. 

Pour your graham cracker crumbs into a small bowl. Add melted butter and sugar, if you’re using it, and mix it until everything is combined. 

​Line each space in a muffin pan with cupcake liners. 

Spoon an even amount of graham cracker crust into each liner. You can also use a tart pan for this. Press the crust down firmly. I use the bottom of a drinking cup to press it down and compact it so that it forms a solid base for the mini tarts. 

Once you’ve got the crust ready, set it to the side. 

​Step 2 | Pie Filling

This works best if the ingredients for the pie filling are at room temperature, so set your cream cheese out to soften a good bit before you get started. 

You’ll need to zest and juice your limes. If you’re using key limes, you’ll need to juice 4-6 of them and zest 2. For regular limes, you’ll need to juice 2 and zest 1. 

In a large bowl, combine your filling ingredients:  cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice, and about 1/2 of the lime zest (the rest is for garnishing). You’ll want an electric mixer of some sort to get this mixture smooth; otherwise, you’ll need a ton of elbow grease. It takes some work to create that creamy filling!

Step 3 | Assemble

Spoon the filling over the graham cracker crusts. Don’t overfill — you want them to be a 1/4 inch below the top of the muffin liner. Smooth the top of each of the mini-pies.

Step 4 | Chill

Place your key lime tarts in the freezer for about an hour. You don’t want them to freeze hard, but you do want them to firm up. Remove your tarts from the freezer and use a knife to get them out of the muffin pan. 

Variations

​With just some small tweaks, you can make a few different variations on this base recipe.

• Mini Key Lime Pie Tartlets: If you simple use a mini muffin pan and liners for mini muffin cups instead of regular sized ones, you can make mini key lime tartlets!
• No Bake Key Lime Pie: This recipe will make one 9″ pie. You can make the recipe exactly as written, and simply press the graham cracker crust into a standard pie plate, then pour the filling in. Cover the whole pie with a piece of plastic wrap and chill for 3-4 hours in the fridge. 
• Chocolate Key Lime Pie: This decadent variation simply switches out the crust. You can use this Oreo crust recipe to make a chocolate crust, then follow the recipe for the filling and assemble the tarts as directed.
• Key Lime Pudding Cups: Drop the pie crusts entirely and just put your key lime pie filling into individual dessert cups. You can sprinkle them with crushed graham crackers and garnish with lime zest for a delicious (and extremely easy!) dessert!