Chess Pie

Ingredients

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

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 Chess Pie

Story updated September 19, 2026

Chess pie is Southern pantry cooking distilled into a single dish: sugar, butter, eggs, and a little cornmeal or flour, baked into a not-quite-custard filling that needs no seasonal fruit. It resembles old English curd-less cheesecakes and custard tarts, and the earliest printed recipes under the name chess pie turn up in the nineteenth century. The origin of its name is unresolved. Legends say a cook answered, It's jes' pie, that the pie was kept in a pie chest, or that chess is a corruption of cheese. None has been confirmed, and the name remains one of Southern cooking's small mysteries.