Lemon Curd is a delicious spread and topping made with lemons, butter, sugar, and eggs. It’s ideal for spreading on scones or biscuits, topping desserts, or adding to a stack of pancakes or crepes. While you can sometimes buy it from a store (near pie fillings or jams), there is truly nothing like making it yourself!
We’ll share all our tips and tricks for how to make the best Lemon Curd and our favorite ways to enjoy it!
Our Favorite Lemon Curd Recipe
Of all the hundreds of desserts shared on this website, this Lemon Curd recipe is the one made most frequently at my home.
It elevates simple breakfasts, biscuits, cakes, and desserts into restaurant-worthy dishes. It’s rare that I don’t have a batch of this curd in my fridge to spoon on some pancakes or waffles or use in desserts or treats. And this curd is always on the table when we do a brunch crepe bar for holidays or baby/wedding showers.
And, without fail, people always ask to get the recipe for Lemon Curd when they taste it!
There are practically endless ways to use this creamy lemon curd recipe. Below are our favorite ways to use this sweet topping.
What To Eat With Lemon Curd
- As a breakfast addition: Add a spoonful to homemade crepes, french toast, pancakes, waffles, etc.
- Served over: This incredible biscuit recipe or homemade scones are simply perfect with Lemon Curd.
- Drizzled over vanilla cheesecake: Buy or make cheesecake bars and spoon curd on top.
- Add to cookies: We love this curd so much we use it in these lemon curd cookies. OR you can make sugar cookie cups (directions in this fruit tart recipe). Once the cookie cups are completely cooled, add in the curd and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
- Make an irresistible lemon whipped cream: Fold a few spoonfuls of Lemon Curd into freshly made whipped cream for a delicious lemon whipped cream
- Make one of our favorite Lemon Curd desserts:
- Eton Mess: Prepare fresh whipped cream (how to make whipped cream tutorial) into a bowl, crumble up some meringue cookies, add a few spoonfuls of curd, and finish it off with some fresh berries.
- Scoop it on some ice cream or frozen yogurt: Spoon it over some vanilla frozen yogurt and add some crushed meringue cookies on top.
- Add to a cake. The restaurant I used to work at was famous for its lemon carrot cake. Make this carrot cake and add Lemon Curd in the center, right on top of the cream cheese frosting–delish!
In short, use Lemon Curd anywhere you’d use jam or frosting!
What’s in Lemon Curd?
This spread needs only five ingredients! Fresh lemons, eggs, sugar, butter, and salt.
- Butter. Use unsalted, room-temperature butter. Unsalted allows us to perfectly control the amount of salt in the curd. Room temperature lets us properly cream butter and sugar together.
- Lemons. Bottled lemon juice doesn’t pack the same flavor as fresh, so be sure to use real lemons. And we also need the zest of real lemons for flavoring. We love zesting the lemons with a microplane and then juicing them with this citrus juicer.
- Eggs. A lot of lemon curd recipes use just the yolks, but we use whole eggs in this recipe. The eggs are what thicken the curd.
- Salt. This helps intensify and balance all the flavors in the curd — a little goes a long way!
- Sugar. White granulated sugar is best for this Lemon Curd recipe.
Quick Tip
When zesting the lemon, avoid the white pith of the lemon — this is very bitter. Using a microplane zest only the very outside yellow part of the lemon.
The full recipe is below, but here’s a quick overview of the process.
How do you make Lemon Curd?
- Pulse in a food processor: Combine sugar and lemon zest in a food processor and pulse 15-20 times. This will get the sugar to a super-fine consistency and break down the zest nicely so you don’t have huge pieces of zest in your curd!
- Add butter: Beat the sugar and lemon zest mixture with butter until light and creamy.
- Add the rest of the ingredients: Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then the salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- Pour the mixture into a medium-sized saucepan and place over low heat. Stir constantly for about 10-15 minutes or until thickened.
- Transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge for at least an hour–preferably eight hours–before serving.
Quick Tip
When chilling the Lemon Curd, press the plastic wrap to touch the surface of the curd. This will help prevent a film from forming during the chilling.
Lemon Curd FAQs
What is the difference between lemon curd and lemon pie filling?
Lemon pie filling is thickened with flour or cornstarch. Lemon curd uses lemon pectin and egg yolks, making it smoother and more flavorful.
Where can you buy lemon curd?
You can generally find prepared lemon curd with jams/jellies or on a baking aisle alongside pie fillings. (Make sure you don’t grab lemon pie filling though!)
How long does lemon curd last in the refrigerator?
Lemon curd is best when used within 1-2 weeks, but it can last up to a month in the fridge.
Can you freeze lemon curd?
Lemon curd can be frozen up to 6 months in an airtight container in the freezer. Thaw in a container in the fridge for 24 hours before using.
How thick should lemon curd be?
When hot, lemon curd should coat the back of a spoon. To test, trace a line on the spoon with your fingertip—if it stays clear, it’s thick enough. When chilled, it should be as thick as snack pudding. Before removing from heat, it should be like pourable pudding.
Quick Tip
Remove all the guesswork from your Lemon Curd with a candy thermometer! Here is the candy thermometer I use and highly recommend adding it to your kitchen. And when you have one, you’ll love making this buttercrunch candy, toffee, and honeycomb candy!
More Tasty Lemon Treats:
- Lemon Bars with a shortbread crust
- Magnolia Lemon Pie with a graham cracker crust
- Lemon Cookies with a lemon glaze
- Peach Lemonade with real peaches and lemons
- Lemon Blueberry Sweet Rolls with a lemon glaze
Lemon Curd
Equipment
- Candy Thermometer (Note 1)
Ingredients
Lemon Curd
- 1½ cups white, granulated sugar
- 4 large lemons (3 tbsp zest and ½ cup juice)
- ½ cup (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature (Note 2)
- ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
Instructions
- PREP: Pull out eggs and butter to get to room temperature. Use a microplane to zest just the very outer yellow part of the lemon (avoid the white pith below -- this is very bitter!) and then juice lemons with a citrus juicer to get ½ cup juice.
- MAKE LEMON SUGAR: Combine the sugar and lemon zest in a food processor. Pulse 15-20 times or until zest is broken down and incorporated in sugar. Pour into a large bowl or a bowl attached to a stand mixer.
- MIX IN BUTTER: Add in the room temperature (NOT softened or melted!) butter and using a hand mixer, (or the whisk attachment for a stand mixer), beat until light and creamy about 2-4 minutes. Scrape sides of the bowl as needed.
- ADD EGGS and JUICE: Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing just briefly to incorporate each egg. Finally, add in the salt and ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice. Mix briefly just to combine.
- THICKEN: Pour the mixture into a medium-sized saucepan and place over low heat. Stir constantly with a rubber spatula for about 10-15 minutes or until nicely thickened. The curd should reach 170 degrees on a candy thermometer. (If it doesn't reach this heat, it won't properly set up -- See Note 3.) Pour curd through a fine mesh sieve and use a spatula to press through the sieve into an airtight container/bowl.
- CHILL: Cover container with plastic wrap so the plastic wrap is touching the top of the lemon curd and store in the fridge for at least an hour and preferably 8 hours before serving.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
And we did find out the hard way, it makes just over 1 pint of curd. Poured it in a pint jar & it overflowed a little!
Thanks so much Andrea! 🙂
Made this this morning. Put it on blueberry scones. YUM! Oh, so lemony. Fresh picked lemon’s from our tree. It was a little runner than I thought it should be but then I haven’t had lemon curd very much It was very good.
So, so happy you enjoyed this curd! 🙂
I’m pretty sure I could eat the entire batch of this!
YUM! I love light lemon and this looks divine 🙂 Perfect for Mother’s Day, {or any day at my house, really :)}
Insanely delicious and takes less than 30 minutes to make?! I’m in!
Oh my GOODNESS, girly… this is just utterly delicious!
This Lemon Curd is utterly delightful Chelsea!
I love lemon curd!
This is amazing. Really incredible!