Buttermilk Pie

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade)
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Fit the crust into a 9-inch pie dish and crimp the edges.
2. Whisk the filling ingredients together in a large bowl until smooth.
3. Pour the filling into the crust.
4. Bake for 45–55 minutes, until the edges are set and the center jiggles only slightly when the pan is nudged.
5. Cool completely on a wire rack, then refrigerate at least 2 hours before slicing.

The Tale of Buttermilk Pie

Story updated September 18, 2026

Buttermilk pie traces its lineage back to English custard-pie traditions, carried to the American South by early settlers and adapted to whatever was on hand in a farmhouse pantry. It found its truest home in Texas and across the rural South, where buttermilk, a byproduct of butter-churning, was cheap, plentiful, and otherwise at risk of going to waste. The pie's popularity is often linked to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when eggs, sugar, and dairy were used sparingly and resourceful cooks leaned on buttermilk's tang to carry a simple, custardy filling. It's closely related to, and frequently confused with, chess pie, though buttermilk pie traditionally skips the cornmeal that gives chess pie its faint grit. Like many of the South's plainest pies, its exact origin was never carefully recorded; it was simply what a family had, baked into something worth serving.