The Easiest No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

This is a super easy no bake strawberry cheesecake recipe. I love cooked cheesecake, but don’t make them very often. They are complicated, even for me, and I have yet to bake one without at least a small crack in the top. Between the proper mixing, water bath, waterproofing the pan with special giant size aluminum foil, and slow cooling, they just wear on my patience. Every once in a while a homemade cheesecake is worth the effort, but sometimes I just want a fresh, simple cheesecake without all the work. That’s when I turn to no bake cheesecakes. I had a few strawberries left over from what I had purchased at the strawberry festival, so I chopped up most of what was left, and used them in this cheesecake. If you want a little more strawberry flavor in the filling, you could also add a tablespoon or two of strawberry preserves. I would have, but I had just run out. I added it as an optional ingredient in the list, it’s good either way.

Ingredients

2 packages, or blocks, 8 oz each, cream cheese, at room temperature
1 – 8 oz tub cool whip, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups fresh chopped strawberries
1 – 2 tablespoons strawberry preserves (optional)
1 graham cracker crust (recipe follows) or use pre-made

Graham cracker crust ingredients

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs or about 1 1/3 packages graham crackers
6 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar

Method

1. Place graham crackers in food processor and turn on until crumbs are very fine. Add butter and sugar and pulse until well combined. Press in a 8 inch spring form pan or 9 inch pie plate.

2. Combine all ingredients for cheesecake, except strawberries, in a large bowl and mix with hand mixer. Mix until well combined and smooth.

Tip: if anything was too cool and your batter is lumpy, continue to leave it out on the counter until it warms up, or transfer to a metal or glass bowl and put over a boiling pot of water, creating a double boiler. Mix until batter warms a little and lumps are gone.