Chocolate Meringue Pie

One of my favorite things about my journey with baking has been learning treasured family recipes from my mother. Over the years she has passed on recipes and baking dishes that are family favorites and full of meaning. Now that I live in another state, I often reach for the family recipes to bring me a bit of home when I’m feeling homesick.

So, I thought I would share one of my mother’s favorite recipes that brings me so much joy to make. Between this chocolate meringue pie and her cheesy hashbrown casserole, she typically has the fan favorite dishes at most family events and holiday meals. When she saw that I loved baking, this recipe was one of the first that she passed on to me. As a teenager, anytime I wanted to do something special for my momma, I would make this pie for her. It was a big inspiration for my Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Pie recipe too!

It’s a super simple recipe consisting of a pre-made crust, a silky chocolate filling, and fluffy meringue on top. While it may look like a complicated and “fancy” dessert, it’s actually one of the easier recipes you’ll find out there.

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Chocolate Meringue Pie Recipe Walkthrough

I am going to walk you through all of the easy steps on how to make my mother’s favorite pie. I’ll include a visual walkthrough with ingredient notes and tips to help you along the way of your bake. After making this pie many times, I have some advice on avoiding something like a curdled filling or a flat meringue.

To get started grab an unbaked pie shell, a large sauce pan, and a stand mixer to achieve this bake.

Making the Filling

The filling for this pie happens entirely in a saucepan. No need for a giant stack of mixing bowls here! So, grab a whisk and get ready to bake. All you have to do is add the ingredients into the saucepan and stir over the heat to melt the butter. It’s seriously that simple!

Step 1: Add sugar, cocoa powder, and flour to a medium to large sized saucepan and mix together.

Adding these ingredients first, allows all of the dry ingredients the best chance of evenly distributing and makes it easier for a silky smooth filling to come together.

Step 2: Add evaporated milk and vanilla and stir together.

Gently whisk in the liquid ingredients to get that silky chocolate filling started. I have found that using a whisk helps the wet and dry ingredients incorporate easier.

Step 3: Add egg yolks and mix until combined.

It helps to beat the egg yolks before adding to the chocolate mixture. Doing so will make it easier to mix the two together in the saucepan.

Step 4: Add butter before placing the saucepan over low heat and stirring until the butter melts.

Melting the butter over low heat allows the butter to fully incorporate into the chocolate mixture before baking. After all, we don’t want the center of the pie to be straight butter!

Step 5: Pour the chocolate mixture into an unbaked pie shell and bake for 35-40 minutes at 350ºF.

Be careful when pouring the pie filling. Make sure that the unbaked pie shell has been pressed to all of the edges of the baking pan. This prevents the chocolate mixture from seeping down the sides and getting under the crust.

Making the Meringue

Meringue isn’t all that tricky to make. All you need is egg whites and some sugar! The hard part is knowing how much to whip the egg whites. When I was younger, I often made the mistake of under whipping the egg whites which resulted in a flat meringue.

Lucky for you I have developed a tried and true method that always results in a wonderfully shiny and fluffy meringue.

Step 1: Add egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer and whip on high speed until soft peaks begin to form. Slowly add the sugar until stiff peaks begin to form, about 5 minutes.

The key is getting the egg whites to form a soft peak before you add any sugar. It’s also just as important to gradually add the sugar, while still beating, so that the egg whites continue to have time to stiffen up without the weight of the sugar all at once.

Step 2: Spread the meringue over the chocolate pie and bake until golden brown.

If you’ve whipped your meringue enough, it will be stiff but spreadable for the top of the pie. Adding the pie back to the oven, allows the meringue to dry out a bit and turns a sticky meringue into the perfect fluffy texture.

And there you have it it! As you can see my mother’s chocolate meringue pie recipe isn’t all that difficult to make. Add it to the menu for your next family gathering and I can promise that you’ll have some very happy faces around the table.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and it brings your family as much joys as it does ours. If you have any questions that weren’t addressed in the visual walkthrough or the recipe card down below, be sure to drop a comment here and let us know!

By the way, if you are planning for a holiday gathering, be sure to check out recipes like our best pecan pie, brown butter chocolate chip cookies, and Lindor truffle stuffed cupcakes.