There are pies for every time of year, but most would probably agree that fall and early winter is truly Pie Season™. Come mid-November, home cooks everywhere start packing pie crusts with delicately fanned slices of apple or pear, maple-sweetened pecans, or spiced pumpkin custard.
Of course, along with the holidays comes the inevitable food storage dilemmas. In the months when your refrigerator is overflowing with turkeys, hams, and brussels sprouts, you may not have room to add your buttery, flaky-crusted friends. Fortunately, depending on the pie, you may not have to give up any fridge space at all, and if time is also a factor in your holiday cooking, you may even be able to make your pies way ahead of time and freeze them whole, depending on the type of pie.
I spoke with cookbook author Erin Jeanne McDowell (the pie queen herself), who tells me that when you’re trying to determine the best storage method, it helps to think of pies in terms of four main categories: fruit pies (like apple or cherry), custard pies (think pecan and pumpkin), cream and cold-set pies (chiffon, coconut cream, or anything with citrus curd), and savory pies. While there are different types of crust (cookie crusts, or butter/shortening pastry crusts), the fillings are the most important distinction when you’re making storage decisions.
Jill Remby, owner/operator of Petsi Pies, shared her Pie Care Card (which she hands out to customers with their pies) with me, which breaks pies down into the same categories. I talked to Remby, McDowell, and chef and cookbook author Cheryl Day to get expert advice on how best to store each type of pie. (Of course, the real answer for the best place to store pie is in your stomach.)
Which pies can be stored at room temperature?
While no pie should be stored on the counter indefinitely, McDowell tells me that she likes to store fruit and custard pies at room temperature. She also mentions that you don’t want to slice these two types of pie until they have cooled to room temperature, anyway, so they’re great options for making ahead of time. McDowell says that fruit and custard pies are best eaten within the first 24 hours after baking, but can be stored at room temperature for up to two days—any longer than that, and the crust will start to get soggy.
McDowell recommends wrapping the pie well with either plastic wrap or beeswax wrap, but also stands by her Pie Box. Day recommends aluminum foil, but is also a big fan of Nordicware’s covered pie tin, which helps cut down on waste.
Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Hi-Dome Covered Pie Pan
Which pies can be frozen?
Both Day and McDowell agree that fruit pies freeze well, but McDowell adds custard pies and savory pies to the list. With savory pies, there are more caveats since certain root vegetables (like potatoes and carrots) take on unpleasant textures when frozen after cooking, but custard and fruit pies are generally okay to freeze. McDowell recommends taking a bit more care with wrapping in this case. A well-wrapped pie, she says, will keep up to two months in the freezer.
