Learn how to make the best Concord Grape Pie with an easy-to-follow, family recipe. Grape pie with streusel topping has step-by-step instructions full of tips and tricks for making homemade grape pie filling.
What does grape pie taste like?
Most people have not tried grape pie before so they are curious what it tastes like.
Grape pie has the distinctive, amped up flavor of Welch’s grape juice or grape jelly, but with a buttery crust, thick jammy filling, and a little bit of creaminess from the streusel topping.
What are concord grapes?
Concord grapes are highly aromatic, seeded grapes named after Concord, Massachusetts, where the grape variety originated.
Deep purple, almost black, concord grapes have thicker skins. They are used primarily for juice, jelly, pie fillings, and sometimes wine making.
These grapes are slip skin, meaning if you squeeze the grape the pulp will slip out. Inside is a green pulp with large seeds. Even though the skin, pulp, and seeds are all edible, the seeds are strained out for cooking and baking.
How To Make Concord Grape Pie Recipe
First gently squeeze the grapes so the pulp slips out of the skin into a medium saucepan. Separate the skins into a small bowl and set aside to use in pie filling.
Bring the pulp to a boil over medium heat, cover, and simmer for five minutes. Pour hot pulp into a mesh sieve fitted over a bowl to collect pulp.
Stir and press the grape pulp to separate the seeds from the pulp. Keep stirring until only the seeds remain in the strainer.
Add butter to the hot pulp and stir until melted.
Whisk in lemon juice, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. Add grape skins and stir. Pour grape mixture into prepared pie shell and set aside.
With a fork mix together flour, sugar, and softened butter for the streusel topping. Sprinkle over the top of filled grape pie. Bake until crust is golden brown and grape filling is bubbly.
Where to buy concord grapes
These grapes come into season in late August through October, depending on your location.
Concord grape vines are commonly grown in backyards, but take several years to become established. If you aren’t lucky enough to have vines in your own yard, check with your neighbors. Often I find them being underutilized on vines because a lot of people don’t take advantage of them.
They can also be found at fruit orchards. Check with your local apple orchard to see if they carry them.
During the fall harvesting season, I have come across them at grocery stores as well.
Can I freeze grape pie filling?
Yes! In fact, grape pie filling freezes very well. Many people freeze the filling since concord grapes aren’t available year round.
- Make as many recipes of filling as your grapes allow. (About 2 1/2 pounds of concord grapes are needed per pie)
- Cool the pie filling completely.
- Place the amount needed for one pie in a glass jar or freezer ziplock bag and freeze up to 6 months.
- When ready to use thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- Pour into prepared pie crust and bake according to recipe.
How to Freeze Grape Pie
This grape pie recipe may also be frozen fully assembled. Growing up, my mom would always double the recipe making one to enjoy right away and one to freeze for later.
- Prepare the pie according to recipe directions, but do not bake.
- Place pie with streusel topping on a baking sheet and freeze until solid.
- Once the pie has frozen completely wrap securely with plastic wrap. Cover plastic wrap with a double layer of foil. Freeze up to 6 months.
- When ready to bake unwrap pie and bake from frozen. The pie will take up to twice as long to bake so make sure to protect the crust with a silicone pie shieldor aluminum foil.
making grape crisp
Forgo the pie crust and turn the filling into a jammy fruit crisp served warm with ice cream.
- Pour the pie filling into a 8X8 baking dish and preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Prepare streusel topping recipe, adding 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 cup old fashioned oats, and an extra 4 tablespoons of softened butter.
- Sprinkle topping over grape pie filling and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until fruit is bubbling all over.
- Let cool for 20 minutes and serve warm with ice cream.
Preventing Pie Crust from Burning
Since the edge of the pie is so exposed, it often browns before the pie is finished cooking. To avoid burned crusts, cover it as soon as it is firm and set. This guarantees golden, perfectly cooked crusts everytime.
An inexpensive silicone pie shield is easy to throw on a baking pie, plus the wider base covers various sized pie crusts.
If you don’t have a pie shield on hand, aluminum foil may also be used. This article shows how to cut a circular foil shield quickly and easily.
How to serve and store
Before cutting and serving the pie allow it to cool 1-2 hours for filling to set. It may be served warm with ice cream or at room temperature.
Do not refrigerator leftovers. It can sit on the counter up to 2 days. Leaving it uncovered keeps the crust crisp and prevents the pie from becoming soggy. If you need to cover it, turn a large bowl over the pie.
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More Favorite Pie Recipes!
- Fresh Blueberry Cream Pie is an easy blueberry pie recipe using fresh blueberries over a creamy layer of sweet buttermilk custard filling.
- No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake Pie is a creamy no bake cheesecake in graham cracker crust, topped with fresh strawberries, and a glossy gelatin glaze.
- Sugar Cream Pie has thick, creamy, vanilla custard, sprinkled with a dusting of cinnamon, and made with a handful of simple ingredients and easy steps.
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Concord Grape Pie
Ingredients
- 6 cups washed, de-stemmed concord grapes (about 2 1/2 lbs. with stems on)
- 1 cup sugar
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour or gluten free flour, (I recommend Cup 4 Cup gluten-free flour)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Streusel topping:
- ½ cup all-purpose flour or gluten free flour, (I recommend Cup 4 Cup gluten-free flour)
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 pie crust shell store bought or homemade
Instructions
- Preheat over to 400ºF.
- Gently squeeze the grapes so the pulp slips out of the skin into a medium saucepan. Separate the skins into a small bowl and set aside to use in pie filling.
- Bring pulp of grapes to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and immediately pour through mesh strainer fitted over a bowl to separate seeds from pulp. Press and stir so ALL the pulp is extracted into the bowl. Scrape the bottom of the mesh strainer occasionally to get the pulp from there too. When you are done you should be left with only the seeds, and you won't be able to get anymore pulp out. Discard seeds.
- Place butter into bowl of hot pulp and let it sit for a few minutes until it melts. When butter is melted, whisk in lemon juice, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. Stir the reserved skins into the pulp mixture.
- Pour grape mixture into the unbaked pie shell and prepare the streusel topping. (11/3/2019 NOTE: Some readers have said the filling was too much for their pie. Either split between 2 pie shells or freeze half the filling for future use to not risk pie overflowing.) With a fork mix all ingredients together until butter is well incorporated. Sprinkle topping over pie filling.
- Bake for 40-50 minutes or until crust is golden brown and grape filling is bubbly throughout. Cool for at least an hour before serving. Serve warm with ice cream or at room temperature. Store leftovers on counter, uncovered*.
- DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?? DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE FEEDBACK AND/OR CLICK A STAR RATING ON THE RECIPE CARD
Recipe Notes
serving and storing
Before cutting and serving allow it to cool 1-2 hours for filling to set. This pie may be served warm with ice cream or at room temperature. Do not refrigerator leftovers. Grape pie can sit on the counter up to 2 days. Leaving it uncovered keeps the crust crisp and prevents the pie from becoming soggy. If you need to cover it, turn a large bowl over the pie.How to Freeze
This pie may also be frozen fully assembled, unbaked. Growing up, my mom would always double the recipe making one to enjoy right away and one to freeze for later.- Prepare the pie according to recipe directions, but do not bake.
- Place pie with streusel topping on a baking sheet and freeze until solid.
- Once the pie has frozen completely wrap securely with plastic wrap. Cover plastic wrap with a double layer of foil. Freeze up to 6 months.
- When ready to bake unwrap pie and bake from frozen. The pie will take up to twice as long to bake so make sure to protect the crust with a silicone pie shieldor aluminum foil.
Making Grape Crisp
- Pour grape filling into a 8X8 baking dish and preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Prepare streusel topping recipe, adding 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 cup old fashioned oats, and an extra 4 tablespoons of softened butter.
- Sprinkle topping over grape pie filling and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until fruit is bubbling all over.
- Let cool for 20 minutes and serve warm with ice cream.
Suzanne says
Had purple grapes in the fridge, followed directions except instead of popping out the pulp I simply put all cleaned grapes in the pan over medium/high heat then used my immersion blender to pulverize them. Followed all directions after. Came out soooo good!!!
Melissa Erdelac says
Hi Suzanne,
I really appreciate you letting me know it works with table grapes as well! This is great to know!
Best,
Melissa
Cynthia Wright says
I always wondered if the concord grape skins cooked enough in the pie ?
Melissa Erdelac says
Yes, for sure! You can not tell the difference between the pulps and flesh once it’s cooked.
Best,
Melissa
Lorie says
Can I just freeze the filling then thaw and make pie later?
Melissa says
Hi Lorie,
Yes! This works very well!
Best,
Melissa
Blanche says
For extra fun, replace half the butter in the streusel with peanut butter.
Melissa says
Blanche – You are a genius! Thank you so much for writing and letting us know this amazing idea!
Best,
Melissa
Mindy says
This was so yummy!! We had almost 8 cups of grapes and it fit perfectly into two pies. So scrumptious! They got gobbled up quickly and were loved by all! This will be a grape season staple in our home. Thanks for sharing.
Melissa says
Hi Mindy,
I look forward to making these pies every fall. The best part is it makes two, so I can freeze one for later in the season. Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Best,
Melissa
Rhonda Tedrow says
This pie was simple to make. It was delicious!!
Melissa says
Hi Rhonda,
So glad you enjoyed it! I look forward to making this pie every fall!
Best,
Melissa
DS says
Wondering if I could use a different fruit because we dont have concord grapes where i live or any grapes for that matter. Could I use berries instead?
Melissa says
Hello,
Concord grapes are tart, so the amount of sugar would depend on the type of berry. For best results, I would follow a mixed berry pie filling recipe, pour it into the crust and use the streusel topping from this recipe. Hope this helps!
Best,
Melissa
Grace says
Great pie and fabulous way to use the bumper crop of grapes I had this year. I searched high and low for an easier way to separate the skins from the seeds but the manual one at a time way is really the only way. I agree with a previous post that this amount of filling is way too much for one 9”pie shell. I used the filling and streusel meant for one pie to make two and it still overflowed onto a sheet pan luckily. I used store bought 9” tenderflake brand pie shells and weighed the skin/pulp (before adding sugar, flour etc) at 2 lbs. Regardless, it’s still a great pie!
Melissa says
Hi Grace,
Thanks for writing. I will go ahead and add a note to the recipe card that the filling could be split between two pies.
I guess that is why grape pie tastes so good because of the extra work to separate the skins. Luckily after you get that part done the rest is pretty fast and easy!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write!
Melissa
Lisa says
I make this pie every year when the grapes are in season. I use 2 pie shells and split the filling between them. They turn out great. I however do not use any butter in the filling just the topping and it tastes delicious.
I can’t wait for it to cool.. I dig in 🍇😊
Melissa says
Hi Lisa,
I’m right there with you. I look forward to making this pie every year. Good to know you split it between two pie shells. If you have leftover filling, it can also be frozen for a future bonus pie when Concord grapes aren’t in season!
Best,
Melissa
Kristyn says
What size pie pan are you using? I had way too much filling and way too much crumble??? My pie overflowed quite a bit in the oven and I didn’t even use the entire filling.
Melissa says
Hi Kristyn! I’ve made it in all my pie dishes, 9″, 10″, and deep dish. The crumble does completely cover the pie, so if you don’t like as much you can halve the recipe. For the filling, I don’t find it to be too much, so perhaps too many grapes were used? Did the ratio of ingredients still taste okay? It does bubble over a little bit, which seems to be a common problem with fruit pies, but just a few drops. I’m sorry about the oven mess. That’s never a good time!
Best,
Melissa
Noreen says
I have some frozen Concorde grapes that I have already seeded. To make the pie, how many cups of these Concorde grapes should I use?
Melissa says
Hi Nooreen, It takes 5-6 cups of loose concord grapes. Do you still have the skins? Those go in the pie as well. You are smart freezing seeded grapes!
Best,
Melissa
Joan Roeters says
I have made this pie for years and when the grapes are in season I make several extra fillings and freeze them. All winter you can use them and they taste like a fresh pie. Our family’s favorite.
Melissa says
Hi Joan,
I wonder if you got the recipe the same place my mom did. This is the recipe she always used and the one we grew up on. I agree you can have concord grape pie all year. She always made one pie to eat now and one pie to freeze for later.
Best,
Melissa
Diana says
I just made this! It was my first time ever baking 😀 and the pie turned out great. My mom and I needed to do something with the abundance of grapes that we were left with, so this was a great solution. I had no idea if I was doing anything right though, especially when it came to the topping, I had no idea if it was supposed to look like the way it looked, and if the ingredients were mixing properly, I ended up adding a bit more butter than asked for, but it still turned out great and it was delicious in the end. Thanks for the recipe. I think I’m gonna make one and freeze one too, great idea!
Maybe next time I’ll tackle making my own pie crust 😉
Thanks for the recipe!
Melissa says
Diana, you just made my day! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know. I’m so happy this inspired you to bake. Keep it up and keep me posted 🙂