This easy lemon bars recipe is made with 5 ingredients, including lots of freshly-squeezed lemon juice to make these lemon squares nice and tangy and not overly sweet.
Prep time: PT15M
Cook time: PT40M
Total time: PT55M
Rating
4.58 stars (26 reviews)
Keywords
4th of july, 5 ingredient, budget friendly, vegetarian
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cold butter (diced)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
zest of 1 lemon
4 large eggs
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Categories
Dessert
Cuisine
American
Steps
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with parchment paper; set aside.
Combine all of the crust ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture reaches a fine crumble consistency. You want the butter to be well combined, but to stop before the mixture turns into a ball. (Alternately, you can combine the crust ingredients together in a mixing bowl with a pastry cutter or a fork.)
Sprinkle the crust mixture evenly into the prepared pan. Then press the mixture down firmly to form an even layer.
Bake the crust for 20 minutes, or until it is lightly golden on top.
Meanwhile, whisk the lemon filling ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl until combined. If your powdered sugar or flour are too chunky or there are lots of bubbles whisked into the filling, feel free to just pour the filling through a fine-mesh strainer to get it nice and smooth before adding it to the crust. (But if there are a few little clumps, that's ok too!)
Once the crust is done baking, remove the pan from the oven and immediately pour the lemon filling on top of the hot crust. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 18-20 more minutes*, or until the lemon filling has set.
Remove the pan from the oven and transfer to a wire baking rack to cool until the bars reach room temperature. Then transfer to the refrigerator and let the bars chill for at least 2 hours.
Sprinkle the tops of the bars with extra powdered sugar*, if you would like, then slice and serve!
Reviews
Avalon on 2025-06-23 (5 stars): As long as you use a whisk and beat the lemon filling enough, you shouldn’t need a strainer or have egg cooked on top. These turned out perfect! Can’t wait to make again for my next BBQ party.
Ashley on 2025-05-28 (5 stars): I have never been a giant fan of lemon bars , as I'd only ever had the store bought or chemically sweet type that tastes like poison.
I wanted something with just a HINT of sweetness as a snickity snack for my racoon hands tonight and all I really had for fruits is a bag of lemons...so we ended up here and decided to give it a try. Husband likes all lemon bars, so there wasn't mush risk.
Onto my review - these are amazing. Not too sweet, perfectly tart. My crust- filling ratio was great so idk what happened to other people's? I thought it was perfect.
You have changed my mind on lemon bars. Perfect summer dessert. Thanks so much!
Blair on 2025-05-27 (5 stars): These were SO good!!! Going to be making them again for my son’s birthday party this weekend
Constance on 2025-03-28 (5 stars): easy and delicious! We used a little less sugar that the required amount but followed the rest of the steps in the recipe. This is now our go-to recipe whenever we have enough lemons for half a cup of lemon juice! Thank you!
Brigitte Messina on 2024-12-23 (5 stars): Easy to make, yes a tad bit more time involved but well worth it!! 5+ star rating!
Taylor on 2021-03-12 (4 stars): When I made these they turned out so different than what I thought! The crust was so thick (I think crust to lemon curd was almost 2:1, which is backwards of what I have always had and was expecting), and I had pieces of cooked egg that had ended up on the surface!
I didn't use a food processor so maybe that contributed? And my oven may have been too hot and cooked the egg in the lemon mixture a little too quickly and baked a little past the perfect texture. The lemon mixture without egg was great!
Maybe I'll try these again in the future, but I was disappointed this go around.
Allie Lindly on 2020-06-11 (4 stars): Recipe is coming out great, but wish the cooling time had been included in the total time!
Cate on 2020-05-28 (4 stars): Super simple and my new go-to lemon bar recipe! The first time I made the recipe as is and the filling turned out really good but I did find the shortbread too thick. For baking the filling I started checking mine regularly at the 15min mark until they were just set because I didn't want to overbake them. They took a little less than 18 min (can't remember exactly). The lemon filling came out super smooth and fudgy. Really delicious!
The second time I made them I made the following changes:
I reduced the sugar in the lemon to a little more than 1/2 cup because I like tangy.
The first time I used salted butter for the the shortbread crust but found it too thick and also bland. So I reduced the amount of shortbread (1c flour, 1/2c butter) and since I was using unsalted butter the second time I added 1 tsp of salt to the shortbread mixture to give it some more flavour.
Cam on 2020-05-09 (5 stars): Came out absolutely delicious ! Thanks for the recipe ?
Zoey on 2020-05-06 (5 stars): I'm also Asian so I've never had these.