You only need 7 ingredients to make these lemon bars. The lemon curd filling is extra thick and creamy and sits on an irresistible buttery shortbread crust. Always bake lemon bars at a lower temperature to avoid over-baking. They’re simply the best lemon bars and are perfect for picnics, bake sales, spring brunches, baby showers, and bridal showers.
Today I’m teaching you how to make lemon bars. I love this lemon dessert recipe so much that I published it in my 1st cookbook, Sally’s Baking Addiction. These are the best lemon bars and I don’t use that statement lightly. After 1 taste, I’m confident you’ll agree. Everyone needs this recipe.
The process is pretty simple and I’m walking you through each step in the video tutorial below. Pick up some fresh citrus and let’s get baking. Spring is in the air!
Video Tutorial: Lemon Bars
These are classic lemon bars featuring a soft butter shortbread crust and a tangy sweet lemon curd filling that’s baked to the perfect consistency. The lemon layer is thick and substantial, not thin or flimsy like most other lemon bar recipes.
Only 7 Ingredients in these Lemon Bars
- Butter: Melted butter is the base of the shortbread crust.
- Sugar: Sugar sweetens the crust and lemon curd filling layers. Not only this, it works with the eggs to set up the lemon filling. If reduced, the filling will be too wet.
- Flour: Flour is also used in both layers. Like sugar, it gives structure to the lemon filling. These days, I add slightly more flour to the shortbread crust compared to my cookbook version. You can get away with 2 cups, but an extra 2 Tablespoons really helps solidify the foundation of the lemon bars.
- Vanilla Extract: I use 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract in the shortbread crust. Not many lemon bar recipes call for vanilla extract and I promise you it’s my best kept secret.
- Salt: Without salt, the crust would be too sweet.
- Eggs: Eggs are most of the structure. Without them, you have lemon soup!
- Lemon Juice: I highly recommend using lemon juice squeezed from fresh lemons. You can also use another citrus like blood orange, grapefruit, or lime juice. For extra flavor, add some fresh zest as well.
How to Make Lemon Bars in 5 Steps
- Prepare the crust: Mix all of the shortbread crust ingredients together, then press firmly into a 9×13-inch baking pan. Interested in a smaller batch? See my recipe note.
- Pre-bake: Pre-baking the crust guarantees it will hold up under the lemon layer.
- Prepare the filling: Whisk all of the filling ingredients together. No cooking on the stove!
- Bake: Pour the filling on the warm pre-baked crust, then bake for around 20 minutes or until the center is just about set. I slightly increased the baking temperature from my cookbook version. Either temperatures work, but 325°F is preferred.
- Cool: I usually cool the lemon bars for about 1 hour at room temperature, then stick the whole pan in the refrigerator for 1-2 more hours until relatively chilled. They’re wonderful cold and with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar on top!
Prepared in only 2 bowls and a baking pan, clean up is a breeze. These lemon bars win 1st place every time because they’re the perfect balance of tangy and sweet. In fact, I made them for my friend’s baby shower last weekend and they were the first dessert to disappear. And that’s saying a lot considering the competition: homemade chewy fudgy frosted brownies and adorable mini animal cracker cookies. 🙂
2 Guaranteed Tricks to Make the Best Lemon Bars
- Use a glass pan. Ceramic is fine, but glass is best. Do not use metal. I always detect a slight metallic flavor in the lemon bars when baked in metal pans.
- Use fresh juice. Store-bought bottles are convenient, but you miss out on a lot of flavor. You will definitely taste the difference! I have a super old citrus juicer, but I recently purchased this juicer for my mom and she loves it. Highly recommended.
White Air Bubbles on Top of Baked Lemon Bars
Do you notice air bubbles, perhaps even a white layer of air bubbles, on top of your baked lemon bars? That’s completely normal. It’s the air from the eggs rising to the surface. Some batches have it, some don’t. Regardless, the lemon bars taste the same and a dusting of confectioners’ sugar covers it right up!
Blood orange bars! See my recipe note about substituting flavors.
Want to kick it up a notch? Here are my lemon meringue pie and lemon cheesecake recipes.
Craving lots of texture with your bars? You’ll love my oatmeal lemon crumble bars.
Plenty of lemon recipes to love on my site including these lemon crinkle cookies and lemon thumbprint cookies! Regardless of what you choose, lemon desserts are always a great choice when looking for springtime or Easter dessert recipes.
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Lemon Bars
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 50 minutes
- Yield: 24 bars
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
You only need 7 ingredients to make these lemon bars. The lemon curd filling is extra thick and creamy and sits on an irresistible butter shortbread crust. Always bake lemon bars at a lower temperature to avoid over-baking. See recipe notes for important tips. They’re simply the best lemon bars and are perfect for picnics, bake sales, spring brunches, baby showers, and bridal showers.
Ingredients
Shortbread Crust
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons (265g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
Lemon Filling
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 6 Tablespoons (46g) all-purpose flour
- 6 large eggs
- 1 cup (240ml) fresh lemon juice (about 4 lemons)
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon zest, optional
- optional: confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F (163°C). Line the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch glass baking pan (do not use metal) with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the sides to lift the finished bars out (makes cutting easier!). Set aside.
- Make the crust: Mix the melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the flour and stir to completely combine. The dough will be thick. Press firmly into prepared pan, making sure the layer of crust is nice and even. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven. Using a fork, poke holes all over the top of the warm crust (not all the way through the crust). A new step I swear by, this helps the filling stick and holds the crust in place. Set aside until step 4.
- Make the filling: Sift the sugar and flour together in a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs, then the lemon juice and lemon zest (if using) until completely combined.
- Pour filling over warm crust. Bake the bars for 22-26 minutes or until the center is relatively set and no longer jiggles. (Give the pan a light tap with an oven mitt to test.) Remove bars from the oven and cool completely at room temperature. I usually cool them for about 2 hours at room temperature, then stick in the refrigerator for 1-2 more hours until pretty chilled. I recommend serving chilled.
- Once cool, lift the parchment paper out of the pan using the overhang on the sides. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and cut into squares before serving. For neat squares, wipe the knife clean between each cut. Cover and store leftover lemon bars in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
- Freezing Instructions: Lemon bars can be frozen for up to 3-4 months. Cut the cooled bars (without confectioners’ sugar topping) into squares, then place onto a baking sheet. Freeze for 1 hour. Individually wrap each bar in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and place into a large bag or freezer container to freeze. Thaw in the refrigerator, then dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 9×13-inch Glass Pan | Glass Mixing Bowls | Silicone Spatula | Silicone Whisk | Juicer | Fine Mesh Sieve
- Halve the Recipe: Halve each of the ingredients to yield around 12 squares in a 9-inch square baking pan. Same oven temperature. Bake the crust for 16-18 minutes and the bars for 20 minutes or until the center no longer jiggles.
- Sifting: More often than not, the flour doesn’t fully incorporate into the lemon filling unless it’s sifted with the sugar. As directed in the recipe, sift the two together before adding the eggs and lemon juice. I don’t always do this (and didn’t even do it in the video above!) but it’s preferred to avoid any flour lumps. If you have a sifter, it’s worth using. If you forget, it’s not a huge deal. Here is my favorite sifter. You use it again to dust the lemon bars with confectioners’ sugar.
- Lemon Juice: For exceptional taste, I highly recommend fresh lemon juice. Here is a wonderful inexpensive juicer if you don’t have one. Or use another fresh-squeezed citrus like grapefruit, blood orange, lime, or regular orange. You can slightly reduce the sugar if using a sweeter citrus. I recommend no less than 1 and 2/3 cup granulated sugar in the filling as it’s needed for structure.
- Room Temperature: Bringing the eggs and lemon juice to room temperature helps them mix easier into the flour and sugar. However, I never notice a taste or texture difference when using cold. Room temperature or cold, use whichever!
Reader Comments and Reviews
I’m confused as to how to put the filling together. The recipe says to whisk the eggs into the sugar mixture, then the juice. But I noticed in the video recipe the eggs are first whisked together before the rest is added. Can I just add the eggs and juice together into the sugar and whisk them in?
Hi Tony, sorry about that. We updated the instructions and have not refilmed the video yet (which is on schedule for next month). You can make them either way.
Are you supposed to dissolve the sugar while whisking the filling? If so, I’m not sure how to do that without whisking hard, which might incorporate too much air and ruin the lovely yellow colour.
Hi Tony, yes, you’ll want to make sure all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
It’s clear that many people love this recipe. And I’m sure the batch I just made (following the recipe exactly, using a scale and oven thermometers, plural) will be eaten in my house by those who crave all things sugar and butter. For me, the shortbread crust was not shortbread. Look at the picture and note that there is no crumble or snap in that bottom layer. Two teaspoons of vanilla was too much for me. And six eggs was just too much egg flavor also. Again, I’m sure this won’t go to waste, but I’m still on the hunt for my own personal favorite lemon bar recipe, with a crumbly, melt in your mouth shortbread crust, and a firm, not-too-eggy, lemon layer.
I find that lining a baking pan with parchment paper is much more difficult than just using foil. Perhaps I can just loosely put it on top at first, and then the weight of the shortbread should help it settle down into place.
Hi Tony, here is a helpful video tutorial on how we like to line pans with parchment paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvLUi7sKJFo (Note: parchment paper is key here, as foil can sometimes cause the bars to take on a metallic taste.)
I’m not sure that video helps me, as it uses a pan with perfect 90-degree angle corners. The corners in my pan are more rounded. I actually noticed in the video recipe that the pan used is a lot like mine, with rounded corners, and the parchment looked kind of shoved in there. So it looks like that’s what I need to do.
Can I use the butter immediately after melting, or should it be cooled first?
Hi Tony, let it cool 5 minutes or so, you don’t want it to be piping hot.
I have been using the recipe for years and I absolutely love it!! I was planning on making it into mini tarts for this valentines, do you have any suggestions for the baking time?
Hi Zeta, so glad this is a favorite for you! Exact bake time will really vary based on the exact size of your mini tarts, so keep a close eye on them or do a test run with just one or two of the mini tarts to help determine best bake time.
I’ll be making these lemon bars today. I found Sally’s page while searching a fix for a recipe about 6 months ago and have since become addicted. Yesterday I made her ciabatta loaves. My family loved them. I’m starting to experiment with sourdough. My starter is two weeks old. I’d love to see some sourdough recipes. Also, I’d love to know why the extra tangy sourdough bread I made last week (King Arthur recipe) came out with no color. Anyway, I lovelovelove Sally’s recipes.
Excited to try this. Could I substitute icing sugar for the granulated sugar in the crust? Wondering if it might make it smoother (like a shortbread cookie).
Hi Katie! We don’t recommend that swap here. Best to stick with the recipe as written for best results. Happy baking!
I love this recipe so so so much! Everything, from how easy it is to the texture and the amount of lemon flavor and sweetness, is perfect. It’s one of the few things I bake just for myself.
I have a glass pan that I fully intend to use to make this recipe, but I’m still not sure why a metal pan is a bad idea. Maybe if the bars are in direct contact with it, but it would be lined with parchment, so there should be no worry about a metal taste. That is unless the lemon and metal still interact through the parchment, which sounds far-fetched to me.
Hi Tony, we always detect a slight metallic flavor in the lemon bars when baked in metal pans. You can use metal if you prefer.
Delicious lemon bars. Came out perfect and easy to make.
I’m a little confused about the shortbread crust. My understanding is that you shouldn’t completely combine the ingredients, but just until the dough starts to come together, so you would get coarse crumbs. If you keep mixing into a more homogeneous dough, it would be too sticky to even work with, which happened to me with another recipe. But that understanding is based on shortbread made with softened butter. This uses melted butter, which may work differently. Or maybe there’s enough flour to avoid a sticky dough. I’m just really worried about ending up with another sticky mess.
Hi Tony, this recipe is different, since we’re using melted butter. It won’t be crumby!
I love this recipe , however my finished product has cracked in the middle , does that usually happen?
Hi Leah! Lemon bars are an egg-heavy dessert, like cheesecake, so they’re prone to cracking. They’re either cracking because the eggs are over-mixed (more air is whipped into the filling, then deflates causing the cracking) or they’re over-baked. One easy way to help guarantee no cracks, though, is to cool the lemon bars inside the oven. Turn the oven off 1-2 minutes before the lemon bars have finished cooking. Crack open the oven door and let the lemon bars cool inside the cooling oven for 1 hour. Then remove from the oven and cool at room temperature. The slow cooling will help prevent cracks. Hope this helps!
Why not use the zest of the lemon? It would add a ton of flavour.
Hi Tony, we prefer super smooth lemon bars here, but you definitely can add zest. We recommend 1-2 Tablespoons of lemon zest.
I’m sorry, I asked a question which was answered, but I may have misunderstood. The recipe can be halved for a 9-inch pan, but would that same 9-inch halving also work for an 8-inch, or is that too small? That’s what I was asking.
Hi Tony, yes, halving the recipe will also work for an 8 inch pan!
Okay, perfect. I just thought the previous answer meant I had to halve it myself to fit an 8-inch pan.
My family and I loved this recipe! I added a little lemon zest to the garnish and it was amazing!
Hi,
Would an 8-inch pan work for halving the recipe? I have a glass 8-inch pan.
Hi Tony, You should be able to halve the recipe for an 8×8 pan.
Wonderful! Thank you.
I want to make lavender lemon bars. I plan on blitzing the sugar and lavender together in the nutramix the lavender disappears. How much lavender do you recommend I use? Thanks!
Hi Charline, we haven’t tried it, but we’d recommend using 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of dried culinary lavender buds. Please let us know how it turns out!
This recipe is amazing. I make these all the time in my house, my husband loves them!
Question: could I substitute lemon for orange juice? Thanks!
Hi Autumn, yes, go for it!
If I’m making them the night before should I not remove them from the pan until time to serve. Then remove, dust with sugar and cut right before serving? I’m the button get soggy!!!
Hi Emma, we’ve never had issues with the bottoms of these bars getting soggy overnight. Hope they were a hit!
Can I race limes for the lemons
Hi Etta, yes you can swap limes for lemons. Enjoy!
Can I substitute gluten free flour? Would that change the taste/ consistency?
Hi Luc, we haven’t tested a gluten-free version of these bars, but some readers have reported success with using a 1:1 gluten-free flour blend.
I really loved this recipe! Massive hit with the family over the holidays. I had some issues with my previous lemon bar recipe, but I added a few key steps from it that I think really took yours over the top, especially if you LOVE lemon flavor like I do. My little meyer lemon tree gave birth to about 4-6 giganto lemony children too, so I actually had leftover enough to freeze and do an 8×8 later.
Basically, if you’re going to be using fresh lemons, use that zest! I mixed roughly 2 tbsp of zest into the 2 cups of sugar for the curd, also put a tiny bit into the crust dough. It marinated in the sugar while I was letting my shortbread crust chill in the fridge about an hour after mixing – a step that’s needed imo, keeps the dough from spreading. Anyway, after all that delicious oil seeps into the sugar, you can sift it out – if you’re a weenie. I keep it in. 😀
Followed the recipe exactly after that, with slight asterisk that I needed 10-ish more minutes of baking time for both the dough and the curd at a higher altitude and in the winter, so definitely jiggle and look for browning. These genuinely came out better than my old go-to and were swiftly devoured. Just the right amount of sour and sweet and wonderful. Hope you enjoy the edits, but thanks again for my new favorite lemon bars.
I love this recipe and get rave reviews every time I make them! I’m curious what your thoughts are on substituting brown butter for the melted butter in the crust.
Hi Becky, you certainly could, though we’re unsure of the flavor combination with the lemon. We would love to hear how it tastes if you give it a try.
Hi Sally!
I planned to make a double batch but forgot to check on my egg situation before putting the crust in the oven. Can I freeze the crust and thaw it in about a week or two, and continue with the recipe as is?
Can’t see why not, Ramona.
Twenty stars! I’m super picky about my lemon bars and this is truly the ultimate recipe, plus it’s so easy! Perfect taste, consistency and instructions.
I think I cooked the crust too long! After it was all done and I started to cut into squares it was very hard. I cooked the crust about 10 minutes too long
Hi, can I skip the vanilla extract, o would it cause too much of a change. I can’t use it at all due to ingredients in it.
You can leave it out, Lilac.
Hi! Can you use jarred lemon curd for this?
Hi Mag, Lemon curd won’t set up quite enough for these bars, we don’t recommend using it here. Best to stick with the recipe as written!
Is the oven temperature on this recipe still the same for a fan forced oven? Or are any adjustments needed?
Hi Liz, all of the recipes on this site are written for conventional settings. We always recommend conventional settings for baking (not convection/fan). The flow of air from convection heat can cause baked goods to rise and bake unevenly and it also pulls moisture out of the oven. If you do use convection settings for baking, lower your temperature by 25 degrees F and keep in mind that things may still take less time to bake.
I made this probably 20 times! Everyone loves them and specifically ask me for them!
But today I for got to check if I enough eggs and I’m one short! Should I run to the store?
Hi Carren! Yes, we would for best results!