How to Prep and Freeze Pie Crust
To reduce holiday baking stress, follow my quick guide on how to prep and freeze pie crusts in advance. It’s so convenient to have pre-made crusts and doughs ready to use!
Overview
With the holidays coming up, you may already be thinking about what dessert you want to bring to the big holiday get-together. And that usually includes… pie! To combat the stress of the holidays, I thought I would share with you ways you can prepare for the big event in advance.
The wonderful thing about a traditional pie crust is the versatility. You can use my Perfect All-Purpose Pie Crust recipe and fill it with so many things! You can make a Pumpkin Pie, Berry Apple Pie, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pie, Chocolate French Silk Pie, or even a savory filling like Chicken Pot Pie. You can even go ahead and freeze a few pie crusts and decide on a filling later.
How to Prep
First thing is first and you have to make your dough. Follow my pie crust recipe here. Think about how many pies you may want to make this holiday season and multiple the recipe by that much. Remember to account for any double pie crusts you may need, like for a traditional Apple Pie.
After you have made your dough in bulk, divide it by the number of crusts you plan to make. You can use a kitchen scale to ensure accuracy. Next, you need to let your dough rest. Wrap each dough ball in a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a flat disc. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Even if you want to bake your pie the same day, you still need to let the dough rest. You can not skip this step.
You can keep the dough in your fridge for up to 3 days.
How to Freeze
If you plan to save your pie dough for later use, there are 2 ways you can do it. The first, and my favorite method, is to freeze the dough. Freeze the dough discs wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and place them into a zipper bag into the freezer. You can keep them frozen for up to 3 months! It’s so convenient to have homemade pie crust ready to go.
The second option is to freeze the shaped pie crusts. After resting, roll out your dough and gently place over a pie plate. Shape the edges and place directly into a plastic zipper bag. Freeze up to 3 months. The only reason why this isn’t my favorite method is that it takes up more freezer space than simply storing the dough discs. It also ties up one of your pie plates until you use it. A good tip is to use disposable pie plates so you don’t have that issue. They also stack pretty well in your freezer.
How to Thaw and Bake
When you are ready to use your dough, you can move the frozen dough discs into the fridge overnight to defrost. It will have thawed enough to roll out the next day.
If you are ready to use one of your pre-shaped pie crusts, you can thaw it in the fridge overnight however, you can also bake directly from frozen. In fact, it’s a good idea to bake your pie crust from frozen as it will help combat shrinkage from the oven. You can blind bake it and then fill it with a non-baked filling like a custard or you can fill it before baking with a filling that needs to be baked like pumpkin. Here is my method for blind baking pie crusts!
Some of my Favorite Holiday Pie Recipes
Berry Apple Pie 
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pie 
Creamy Pumpkin Pie
6 Comments on “How to Prep and Freeze Pie Crust”
Wow baker bettie, that was fun making the pie, i’ve been wondering how to keep my pies for future use. Thanks for the tip!
You’re welcome!
I make a lot of pies, and find that “food storage bags”, the non-zip lock, twist tie variety, and very inexpensive and so useful for putting a pie dough ball into. Once in, you can smash it into disk easily, pat up the sides as needed, twist close and toss in the fridge to rest. So easy.
Great tip!
I was wondering if you bake a pie in advance for freezing or do you not bake it until serving day.
It depends on the type of pie. A cold custard pie can be baked in advance as it needs to setup in the fridge anyways (you can also freeze). A fruit pie although can be baked in advance, I would suggest waiting to bake until serving day.