Allergy Friendly Paleo Pie Crust

Another Paleo pie crust? I know, it seems like there are already plenty of awesome crusts out there. The problem is that so many of them rely on either almond flour as a base or eggs to hold them all together. Often both. But what I really wanted to make was something that would be nut and egg free for people who are allergic to either or both of those things.

Paleo Pie Crust

This post contains affiliate links. Read what that means to you here.

What I came up with uses golden flax seeds ground and combined with water to stand in the place of eggs as a binder for the dough. I specify golden because they give that sunny color that every good pie crust has, whereas the black variety would look rather odd! Since I was avoiding nuts, I used coconut flour, but that on its own is especially dry. To combat that dryness, I used my mini food processor to grind up some unsweetened shredded coconut which would both increase the fat content and help hold it together, but also act to give more body to the crust, too.

The crust still needed extra fat. I wanted to make a traditional lard based crust, but I didn’t have any to hand while I was testing this paleo pie crust. So I substituted some rendered duck fat and it worked beautifully! Don’t worry, there is no trace of that flavor in the cooked crust. In fact, this crust tastes almost a little nutty as the flax seed flavor is present in the background.

Paleo Pie Crust

When the crust is ready, it will look almost like traditional dough. However, the easiest way to handle the dough is not to roll it, but to gently press it into your preprepared pie dish. Use your hands to work out evenly from the middle of the crust, pushing it gently outwards and up the sides of the pan. If you are making this in a 9 inch shallow pie pan (this paleo pie crust recipe makes enough for two), then please make sure you press the dough down enough so that it is not too thick on the bottom, or you will find that you have an extremely shallow pie!

Paleo Pie Crust

You will know when this pie crust is cooked enough as it will be beginning to turn golden brown at the edges and pull away slightly from the edge of the pie dish. Once it is cooled, top it with your favorite chilled pie fillings! Coming up later on this week, I will show you one of our favorites: here is a sneak peek! EDITED TO ADD: Here it is! Paleo “Peanut Butter” Pie!

Paleo Peanut Butter Pie Slice

Print

Allergy Friendly Paleo Pie Crust

This Paleo pie crust is allergy friendly because it is not only grain free, but also nut free AND egg free! Bake one up and top with your favorite filling.

  • Author: Rachael Bryant / Meatified
  • Prep Time: 20 mins
  • Cook Time: 25 mins
  • Total Time: 45 mins
  • Yield: 2 shallow 9 inch pie crusts OR 1 deep dish 10 inch pie crust 1x

Ingredients

Scale

Instructions

  1. In a spice grinder or food processor, grind the golden flax seeds to a powder.
  2. Add the 1/3 cup water to a small jug and whisk in the ground flax seeds with a fork. Set aside.
  3. Add the unsweetened shredded coconut to a mini food processor and process for a minute or so. When it is ready, the coconut flakes will look almost like breadcrumbs. Stop processing when you see coconut butter start to form on the sides of the bowl.
  4. Add the coconut flour and pulse until combined.
  5. Lastly, add the raw honey and COLD rendered duck fat. Pulse until combined.
  6. Transfer the mixture to a stand mixer and add the flax seed & water gel to the bowl.
  7. Run with the paddle attachment on 2, drizzling in the coconut oil and 6 tbl of water. As needed, continue to add up to another 4 tbl of water, until you can squeeze the dough together in your fist and it holds its shape without crumbling.
  8. Preheat the oven to 300F. Grease your pie pan with a little extra coconut oil and line the bottom with parchment paper.
  9. Pat the pie crust dough into the dish, pressing out from the middle evenly with your hands. Gently push the crust up the sides of the pie dish with your fingers.
  10. Use a fork to prick holes all over the pie crust dough.
  11. Bake until the edges are beginning to turn golden brown and beginning to pull away from the sides of the pie dish, about 25 minutes.
  12. Allow to cool before filling.

 

17 comments

    1. Someone reported back that they substituted palm shortening and it worked perfectly. I believe just using coconut oil should work, too; as long as it’s a saturated fat that is solid at room temperature you should be fine! Thanks for asking, I should amend the recipe to reflect that!

    1. I haven’t yet tested this out myself. Could you link me to the kind of custard recipe you’re thinking about using so that I could take a peek at ingredients / cook time?

  1. Thank you so much for this recipe! My son has a severe intolerance to dairy, eggs, almonds, and sunflower seeds, which makes even Paleo and GAPS baking virtually impossible at my house! Technically he shouldn’t have flax either, but this recipe was a 98% safe cheat for us, and he enjoyed having pie so much. Thank you!!

    1. Hi Sara, I’ve never tested it, but since flax is used as an egg replacer, I’m sure you could add them back!

  2. I’m so glad I found this recipe since I can’t eat eggs right now but I really wanted to make something with the coconut flour I had.This worked perfect for me! I’m just wondering if any one else has used this same recipe for other baked goods like turnovers,potpies,etc or would it not work like it would for the pie crust?

    1. I did try rolling the dough out before I settled on the method in this recipe – it just doesn’t roll very well, unfortunately 🙁

    1. I think that would work fine, as long as the goose fat is rendered in a way that means it doesn’t have a strong scent or flavor. I believe up in the comments that others have also tried substituting extra coconut oil, but I haven’t tested that myself — Rach 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe rating 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.