9 Sara Lee Frozen Pie Flavors, Ranked

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Sara Lee pies are easy to find in supermarket freezers, and they've saved my skin on more than one occasion. While I have a lot of pie-savvy people in my family, that's not something that got passed along to me. Even though I make amazing beef stew, when I try to roll out a crust, things go terribly wrong. So, if I'm in charge of dessert for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I usually purchase a frozen take-and-bake pie or the kind you thaw and serve.

I'm on a mission to up my frozen pie game for the holiday season, so I decided to do extra research into which pies I'd be putting on the family table. To that end, I bought several frozen Sara Lee pies, taste-tested them, and ranked them from worst to best. The ones that I would be most likely to serve for dessert at a family gathering, as well as those with the most authentic-tasting fillings, got the highest rankings. Pies got lower places if their fillings were missing an ingredient, had the wrong flavor or type of crust, or veered too far from the classic recipe. 

Prices are as of the date of publication and may vary based on region.

Sara Lee's Mince Pie, which I purchased for $9.69, is flavorful, spiced, and packed with fruit, but I didn't think it tasted like traditional mince pie. This product features a normal-sized pastry shell stuffed with apple chunks and raisins. Orange zest and ground clove are the main flavors. While delicious, mince pie recipes usually taste more like nutmeg and allspice, too, and contain a wider variety of dried fruits — golden raisins, dried cherries, figs, and currants, for example – and fewer apples. A spirit, like brandy, is another typical ingredient missing from Sara Lee's version. Finally, mince pies are often palm-sized, while this large pie has eight portions. Anyone expecting a traditional mince pie might feel disappointed by this product, and that put it in the lowest spot.

If you're planning to serve this pie at a holiday family gathering, keep in mind the hour bake time and two-hour cool-down time. This is not a product you can pick up five minutes before from the grocery store on the way to your event. It takes some planning and effort.

Finally, I ran into some trouble with Sara Lee's traditional pastry crust on this pie and others. It was too thick and overwhelmed the taste of the fruit near the crimped edge. I had a hard time baking it evenly and added foil around the outside to keep the edges from burning. Also, the bottom turned out undercooked.

Sara Lee Key Lime Crème Pie, available for $8.89, consists of a graham cracker crust filled with subtly citrus-flavored cream. It lacked the bitter, tangy key lime taste I expect and love. The light color of this product was as understated as the flavor. The picture on the box looked much greener than this pie actually was. The creamy texture was also disappointing, since the classic recipe usually comes closer to custard or pudding. 

Granted, this pie is intentionally creamy and is not traditional key lime pie, and it would still disappoint me if I bought it expecting the authentic Floridian dessert. That, along with its soft flavor profile, gave it a low ranking. I'd recommend trying one of the other store-bought frozen key lime pies I tried for a separate ranking. On the other hand, if I just wanted a creamy, tangy pie with a whipped texture, I would enjoy this one.

I appreciated that this pie, like the others in Sara Lee's Crème line, required little work to prepare — far less than the mince pie or any of the others with traditional crust. All I had to do was pull it out of the freezer and let it thaw for about five minutes. It was easy to cut and serve in neat slices.

The filling of Sara Lee's Lemon Meringue Crème Pie, which I bought for $8.89, is much more intensely citrusy than the key lime pie filling, which has earned it a higher place on this list. On the other hand, the problem is that it has a crème filling in a graham cracker crust. That's nothing like classic lemon meringue pie, which has a lemon curd filling set in a traditional flaky pastry crust. So, this pie would be a disappointment to anyone who's hoping for a traditional lemon meringue pie.

On the other hand, I truly appreciated several aspects of this dessert. For one, I liked how easy it was to serve. I pulled it out of the freezer, sliced it, and served it. Its creaminess kept it from freezing hard. I also liked that the lemon filling was just as thick as the meringue, and the latter was light and fluffy. The filling was reminiscent of lemon drop candy and didn't taste like the way lemon dish detergent smells or how so many citrus desserts and candies do. 

Every part of Sara Lee's Banana Crème Pie, which I bought for $8.89, seems to be infused with banana flavor. It seems to be in the graham cracker crust, the pudding-like filling, all the way up to the whipped topping that's garnished with cookie crumbs. For the most part, the banana flavor seems realistic, but it has a slight banana taffy undertone. The only thing missing to make this pie just like the ones my mom used to whip up for my uncle's birthday every year. The ingredients in Sara Lee's version do include bananas, but they must be in puree form since there are no chunks of fruit. This pie was definitely much closer to the original recipe than the Lemon Meringue Crème Pie.

This pie is another from Sara Lee's Crème line. Unlike the key lime and lemon meringue versions, though, this one requires slightly more time to thaw, since the pudding appears to freeze harder than the creamier citrus fillings. I would recommend slicing this pie into individual portions and letting them sit in the fridge for between 20 and 30 minutes to soften the filling. Buying this product is still much easier than trying to make a homemade banana cream pie, though. 

Sara Lee's Cherry Pie, which I paid $7.49 for, embodies the essence of this dessert. I enjoyed the abundant, plump cherries packed into the flaky pastry crust. The filling is syrupy and sweet while the cherries are sour. It's even naturally bright red — the ingredient list doesn't include food coloring.

The authenticity of this pie earned it a firm place in the middle of this ranking, and the real cherries in it made it preferable to the Banana Crème Pie, which lacked chunks of fruit. The cherry pie didn't make it higher on the list for two reasons, though. First, it was hard to slice neatly. The crust broke into pieces and the filling spilled out of the sides even after I let it cool for two hours. This is typical for cherry pie, but slightly thicker filling could improve it. 

The second problem was the same one that affects all of Sara Lee's fruit pies: the thick, hard-to-bake crust. It takes time and attention to get just right so the edges don't burn and the bottom isn't gummy. Making a cherry pie with flaky homemade crust wouldn't be any easier, though, and it would take a lot longer.

Sara Lee's Apple Pie, which I bought for $9.69, is very close to what I expect from an apple pie: The filling is goopy, thick, and full of sweet and tart apple chunks. Cinnamon brings out the flavor of the fruit beautifully. This pie held together much better than the cherry pie. I especially appreciated that the first ingredient listed on the nutrition label was apples.

The crust was the only thing that held this pie back. All of the pies that placed higher than this one either had only a bottom crust or a cookie crumb crust. Sara Lee's crust is simply too thick to have both on the top and bottom of a pie. Its saltiness also competed too much with the mild flavor of the apples. 

I also struggled to bake the crust evenly. The edges browned too much while the center of the bottom stayed gummy. Next time I bake one, I'll try using the box's suggestion to preheat a cookie sheet in the oven and bake the pie on it to help the bottom bake more evenly.

Sara Lee's Chocolate Crème Pie, which I bought for $6.99, made it to one of the top three on this list because it's exactly what I expected from a chocolate crème pie. This dessert starts with a chocolate cookie crumb crust and chocolate filling, the texture of which is somewhere between pudding and mousse. It tastes rich and sweet, lacking the bitter hint that I expected. The pie is topped off with whipped topping and flakes of chocolate. In addition to being tasty, this is one of the loveliest-looking pies in this ranking.

This pie's crust was preferable to the one on the Apple Pie. The richness and sweetness of the filling held this pie back from first or second place. I would have liked it more if the filling had tended more toward bitter chocolate than sweet milk chocolate.

This pie required no prep work or baking — it didn't need to thaw like the Banana Crème Pie. I just took it out of the freezer, sliced it, and served it.

Sara Lee's Dutch Apple Pie, which I paid $7.49 for, has streusel topping instead of pastry covering the thick, goopy apple filling — exactly what I expect from this kind of pie. The filling in this dessert was sweeter than Sara Lee's traditional Apple Pie. Since there was less pastry, it was easier to enjoy the apples. The crunchy streusel topping also added a texture to this pie that was present in any of the others. The flavor of the crust and the filling went together well, and the taste was not as rich and overwhelming as the Chocolate Crème Pie. I loved how easy it was to slice and serve this pie. It would taste amazing warmed with a scoop of ice cream on the side.  

This pie was not as beautiful as some of the others sold by Sara Lee. The edges of the crust browned even more easily than some of the others, and the streusel topping bubbled, wrinkled, and cracked. The instructions said to break the topping apart with a fork before baking. Next time I bake this pie, I will do that more carefully and see if that improves the presentation.

Sara Lee Pumpkin Pie, available for $7.49, is exactly what anyone would expect pumpkin pie to taste like. It seemed homemade and not at all like a frozen, store-bought pie. It's extremely pumpkin-y, which makes sense considering it was first on the ingredient list. The filling was creamy, smooth, and sweet, but also spicy with hints of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. The crust wasn't overwhelming because it was only used for the bottom of this pie.

This take-and-bake pie had the longest bake time of all the pies. It took 70 minutes to bake before it had to set and cool for two hours. The bottom crust, like on the others, ended up a bit gummy, but I think that could be resolved by baking it on a preheated cookie sheet.

This pie got the highest ranking for several reasons. First, it met all the requirements of what a traditional pumpkin pie is; it had pastry crust and a traditional pumpkin filling with all the flavors normally found in this type of pie. It also seemed far more homemade than any of the crème pies. If you set this out on your Thanksgiving table and said that you'd made it from scratch, it would be a believable lie.

Before I tried each kind of pie, I did some research on traditional pie recipes and thought carefully about what I was expecting from each style. I wanted to know whether the particular pie I was tasting usually had a graham cracker crust or traditional pastry crust. If the Sara Lee followed the traditional recipe and used the typical pie crust I expected, I ranked it higher. The filling needed to taste like the fruit or flavor advertised for the pie. I preferred an authentic taste over an artificial one. Pies with ingredient lists where the first ingredient was the advertised fruit got higher rankings. I also paid attention to the spices.

The crust was a big factor in deciding the rank of many of these pies. Sara Lee's crust was so thick and overwhelming, which is why the Apple and Cherry Pies ranked toward the middle. Pies with less crust got higher rankings because they tasted better. Finally, pies that looked better tended to rank higher. Overall, I had a hard time ranking these pies. I liked them all and think they are all worth buying, even the mince pie, which got the lowest ranking.