Why make a skillet apple pie on the grill when they’re easy to make in the oven? One good reason is if the weather is hot and you don’t want to heat up the kitchen, then cooking everything outside on the grill—including dessert—makes a lot of sense.
This skillet apple pie recipe comes from Trisha Yearwood (yes, the country music Trisha Yearwood with a cooking program on Food Network). It’s easily made using store-bought pie filling and pie crust, and I will warn you it’s a bit on the sweet side. But we like it and I there’s a good chance you will, too.
You’ll need a 9″- or 10″ cast iron skillet to make this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 2 refrigerated rolled pie crusts, e.g. Pillsbury
- One 21-ounce can apple pie filling
- 5 teaspoons cinnamon sugar
Cinnamon sugar is typically four parts granulated white sugar to 1 part ground cinnamon. For this recipe, combine 4 teaspoons of sugar with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
Directions
Preheat your Weber gas grill and the cast iron skillet to 400°F. Use an accurate probe thermometer to monitor the grill temp.
Melt the butter in the skillet, reserving 1 Tablespoon of melted button for the top crust.
Add brown sugar to the melted butter and melt together for 2-4 minutes. You may need to temporarily turn up the heat under the pan so the butter/sugar mixture begins to melt and bubble. In my experience, it doesn’t get smooth and caramel-like, but it does start to bubble and starts giving off a hint of caramel smell.
If your gas grill has a side burner, you can put it to good use for this melting process. I don’t have a side burner, so I did it directly on the grilling surface.
Remove the skillet from the heat. Place one pie crust in the bottom of skillet, carefully pressing over the butter/sugar mixture.
Spread the apple pie filling evenly over the bottom crust, then sprinkle with 1 Tablespoon cinnamon sugar.
Place the second pie crust on top of the filling. Gently press the edge of the crust down around the perimeter of the pan; you can make a fancier edge if you want.
Brush top crust with the reserved melted butter and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar to your liking. Cut four vent slits around the center of crust.
Return the skillet to the 400°F grill. Bake the pie for 30 minutes.
I ran my Weber 450 using indirect heat—the #1 and #4 burners on MEDIUM, the #2 and #3 burners OFF.
I monitored the grill temp using both probe thermometer and lid thermometer. Both were surprisingly in-sync with each another.
When the pie is finished baking, remove from the grill and let rest five minutes before serving warm.
The melted butter/sugar mixture under the bottom crust is very hot, so be careful when eating! And make sure to remove any leftover pie from the skillet while the pie is still warm. If you let it get completely cold, you’ll need a jack hammer to extract it from the pan!