These creamy lemon bars are a twist on the classic lemon bar, and it’s more of a little lemon cheesecake bar. With the addition of cream cheese, they’re creamier than a standard lemon bar, but also not quite as cheesy and rich as a traditional cheesecake. They are super easy to whip up and have bright lemon-y flavor. They make a great ending to a simple meal, or a perfect treat for a party or gathering- I’ve also made them with lime and they’re delicious!
Ingredient Notes
- Nilla wafers – The crust is made with Nilla wafer cookies. Name brand or store bought will both work. A lot of crusts are comprised of simply cookie crumbs and butter, but this one has some dry ingredients added to it, like flour and sugar. So you get the tender crumb from the flour, but the amazing cookie-ness from the Nilla wafers.
- Butter – This recipe was developed using real butter, so that is the best choice. Here’s a great tip for cutting in butter to create a flaky crust: use a cheese grater! If I’m making something like pie crust or biscuits I use a more traditional method, but for something like this, a cheese grater works perfectly. Popping your butter in the freezer for a few minutes before grating makes it even easier.
- Cream Cheese – Full fat or low fat will work. Avoid fat free.
- Lemon (or lime) juice – You will need both the juice and the zest of your lemons or limes. I don’t recommend bottled juice or dried zest. Fresh is best!
- Foil for easy cutting – Line your baking pan with foil or parchment and you will be able to lift the entire pan full of bars out for easy cutting after they are cooled.
How To Make Creamy Lemon Bars
- Prepare crust by either chopping or grating cold butter into dry ingredients and then combining until it looks like crumbly wet sand.
- Place mixture into a parchment-lined 8×8 pan and press down evenly. Pre-bake your crust while you prepare the filling.
- For the filling, beat up cream cheese and sugar. You’ll also add in some eggs and vanilla and a tiny bit of flour and then fresh lemon juice and zest
- Pour the batter into your partially baked crust and pop it back in the oven.
- After they are baked, cooled, and chilled you can pull the foil right out for easy cutting. Slice them into bars and sprinkle extra zest on top. You can also sprinkle them with powdered sugar, but just keep in mind the bars are moist so the sugar melts into them quickly. I do it right before serving just to make them look pretty.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make these creamy lemon bars ahead? You bet! These bars honestly get better with time. Feel free to make them a day ahead of time through the refrigeration step. When ready to serve, sprinkle with powdered sugar, garnish with zest, cut, and serve.
Can I freeze these? While I haven’t tested freezing them myself, other readers report that they do indeed freeze and thaw well. Make sure they are tightly wrapped before freezing!
Serving Suggestions and Related Recipes
These yummy bars are a great treat to go with summer barbecues, perfect for potlucks, and beautiful for receptions or brunches. Serve as a light dessert after a meal, or add to a sweet spread at celebrations.
Looking for other fun bar desserts? Check out these other Our Best Bites favorites:
Blueberry-Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake Bars
Banana Bars with Cream Cheese Icing
Texas Sheet Cake
Oatmeal M&M Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Did You Make This?
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Creamy Lemon {or Lime!} Bars
- Total Time: 1 hour
Description
Tart and creamy, these sweet lemon bars are almost a cross between traditional lemon bars and cheesecake bars. Delicious with lemon or lime!
Ingredients
CRUST
20 Nilla Wafers, finely crushed
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold real butter
FILLING
1 8-ounce package cream cheese (you can use 1/3-less fat cream cheese)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, at room temp (just place eggs in a bowl of warm water for about 10 mins)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons grated lemon peel, divided
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (don’t even think about opening a bottle!)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
powdered sugar
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Spray lightly with non-stick spray and set aside.
In a bowl, combine Nilla Wafer crumbs, 1/2 cup flour and the brown sugar. Chop butter into small pieces and then cut into crumb mixture with a pastry blender. If you don’t have a pastry blender, just use 2 knives, or even your fingers to break up the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Press crumb mixture firmly onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake 15 min.
While crust is cooking, beat cream cheese and granulated sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, vanilla, 2 tablespoons flour, and baking powder; mix well. Blend in 1 tablespoon lemon zest and lemon juice and then pour mixture over crust.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight. These bars improve with time. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and remaining 2 tablespoons grated lemon peel just before cutting into squares to serve. Store leftover squares in refrigerator. (As if you’ll have leftovers!)
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
Questions & Reviews
I made these tonight. I love anything lemon! I feel like these need more lemon, but not sure to add more lemon juice or more lemon peel? I felt like it was onl a hint of lemon!!! But they were delicious!!!
Wow that was delicious! Made these for a fund raiser/supper tonight and they were gone in a flash! 5 Stars from SC
I wanted to make these for a birthday party, and randomly enough, I had key limes and no lemons. These are the.best.bars.ever. I am actually afraid to make them lemon cause the key lime bars were SO GOOD! And the funny thing is, we had too many treats and hardly any were eaten. So, in answer to someone’s question, yes, they freeze well. Cause I threw them in the freezer, and over the course of a few weeks, proceeded to eat pretty much the whole pan myself. LOL.
And just to add, I am usually a big lemon person, I love them. So I am sure I will try them lemon, I just wanted to say how delicious they are key lime 🙂
Just put these in the oven! I cannot wait to taste them! I am the only one in my house who loves lemony things…..so this is my personal Mothers day present!
How do you cut these? Mine came out very delicious but also very ugly looking because I had lots of trouble getting them out of the pan gracefully… any tips??
Did you line the pan with foil like it instructs in the post? That’s what that step is for, to make cutting super easy!
I brought these for dessert to a friend’s dinner party (who happens to have quite a thing for lemon bars). She loved them! Using the foil liner did make it sooo easy to cut them – always a problem when I’ve made lemon bars in the past. It made 16 perfect triangles for us – cut my square into 4 and then each 1/4th into 4 triangles. So pretty too!
Tested this recipe out as we want lemon bars for a wedding reception. These are an absolute hit! I got 35 small bite-size squares of the pan.
Mine had to cook for about 33-34 minutes for it to set up in the center.
Super easy to make & the clean up is a cinch with the foil liner – so I'm giving a shout out & a hallelujah for that!!!
Directions: Cool completely and then refrigerate for two hours. What I did: Took out of oven and refrigerated immediately. Waited a little more than one hour. Could not wait any longer. Cut up lemon bars. Ate one. Went to lemon heaven. They get better the longer they sit? Probably won't be any left in the morning. YUMMY!
I needed something sweet to make for a friend's baby shower this weekend, and your blog is one of my go-to sites for recipe ideas. I chose these because my friend is a big fan of anything lemon.
They were a huge hit – they disappeared incredibly quickly. This is definitely something I'll make again – thanks!
I've tried a ton of your recipes, and every one is always spot – delicious, and easy to make, especially with your detailed instructions.
Made these last night and they were a huge hit at a potluck! 8×8 just didn't sound like enough, so I used a 9×13. I increased the crust by half (30 cookies), and doubled the filling. They took a little longer to cook but turned out great!
I don't know Aubrey- but try it out and let us know! 🙂
Do you suppose that these can be frozen??? I have 3 pans left over from an event I was catering…
Literally the best LIME bars ever!!! My family and guests were all totally IMPRESSED!! Thanks for all the FABULOUS recipes!!!
These are the best lemon bars ever! I'm tossing all my old recipes.
The creamy lemon bars were DELICIOUS! Seriously, they were awesome and I can't wait to make them again!
These were so yummy and I have a bag of lemons in my fridge so I can make more!!!
Melissa- so glad you liked them! Yes, you could totally add a drop or two of green extract if you wanted them to look more limey 🙂
Sara~I tried these with lime over the weekend~like the others said, they were divine!! The only thing was they were still a light yellow color from the eggs~would you have added a few drops of food coloring? One of our favorite desserts now as well~they will be perfect for the hot summer months! Thanks again for the recipe!
I did these with lime and they were SOOOO good. Like key lime pie. I baked them in a 7×11 pan though and I really liked how they came out. The crust was a little thinner than in the picture. We LOVED these. These are going to be a dessert staple from now on.
oooh Manda, I’m so glad you tried them with lime. I’ve been meaning to do that for so long. Totally trying that next time!
I made lime ones becuase I was out of lemons, and they were awesome. They tasted a bit like key lime pie. And Kate, I also ate them for breakfast. Sara, I think it’s an evil plan to have you refrigerate them overnight, then you eat them in the morning! 🙂
Made these last night. YUM! Do lemon bars count for breakfast? The best is when they’ve sat outside the fridge for a few minutes.
Hillary, if you don’t like a lot of lemon flavor, just reduce the lemon juice and zest that go into the batter.
How lemony are these? I like a hint of lemon in desserts, but I’m not a fan of it if it’s too strong…? Anything with cream cheese peaks my interest, though! 🙂
Yum, I am definitely going to make these. They look so good. I am going to have to start having “dessert of the day” parties or something.
Come on Morgan, they’re LEMON bars, and a lemon is a fruit, so you can totally consider them part of the fruit category and have them every day 😉
Holy crap, those look delicious. I am in love, and on Saturday, when I eat junk food, I’m going to make these.
These look great Sara! I love that you specified “20” vanilla wafers; I hate when I’m trying a new recipe and they generalize and just tell you to use enough to line the bottom of the pan. I don’t know how thickly to line it or what size of pan is okay to use… I’m not that great of a cook so I don’t have the common sense to know what they mean.
I am so going to try these, I love lemon!
YUM.