21 No-Bake Cheesecake Recipes To Satisfy Every Craving

Here’s the technique for classic cheesecake: Bake, preferably in a water bath, to prevent a cracked top. Then cool, oven open. Then chill, for hours and hours — and hope that it all comes out okay. When it works, it’s wonderful, but it’s not always what we want to sign up for. Enter the no-bake cheesecake, when you get that craveable creamy tang with a fraction of the work (and if the heat is on, it’s fab to leave the oven off). Here are so many ways to go, whether you’re craving a dessert that's fruity, chocolatey or something else. Just assemble and let your fridge do all the work until it’s ready to eat.

There's no better place to start than with our test kitchen's best recipe. Whis is this one the best? The recipe has been thoughtfully engineered to have just the right lightness but slow melt-on-the-tongue, plus a delicate flavor of vanilla with a complex tang, thanks to the cream cheese and lemon. Many of our readers simply threw away their baked cheesecake recipes after trying this one.

Finish any meal with a bang, or at least with a cheesecake that proves that you don’t have to bake it to make a real showstopper. This one uses Oreos for a cookies-and-cream profile, including a layer of chocolate crunchies in between two layers of cake (quite frankly, sign us up for anything involving chocolate crunchies). Finally, a rich ganache coats the cake, and some mini Oreos provide an adorable wink at what’s inside.

What sweet little individual treats, which taste like the summer and the Italian coast all in one. These crusts get their flair from amaretti cookies, and the cream tastes just a little more intriguing with the inclusion of mascarpone. Some delicate diced peaches and fresh basil on top gives these an air of sophistication, and we promise that everyone will eat them all the way down to the last crumbs.

There’s got to be something for the peanut butter lover on every list, and we love how this flavor carries in a rich cheesecake. Let’s be clear: Though there is a cocoa whipped cream and some chocolate chips, this is a decidedly peanut butter-forward cake, rather than a peanut butter and chocolate one. The result is truly an ode to the peanut in a creamy, sweet-and-salty package.

If you’re looking for a super-chocolatey cheesecake, this is it, as decadent as any baked version you’ve had in a restaurant. Even the crust is chocolatey, made from chocolate sandwich cookies. The filling is a chocolate cream cheese mixture, topped with a ganache to bring it all home.

This is a no-brainer for a barbecue or potluck, whether there will be a mess of kids or just the grown-ups. These bars taste like fresh summer strawberries turned into a treat (which is what it is). Feel free to serve on plates with forks, or cut them into tiny squares for some low-key petits fours.

Here’s a mashup we’re not mad at. Another icebox classic, banana pudding, crashes into no-bake cheesecake, making the dessert a little more substantial and sliceable, to boot. It’s still as light and fluffy to eat as the original.

Here’s one for the PSL crowd, and we like it enough to serve it now, but also as part of a Thanksgiving spread in the fall. Just fold together the pumpkin puree and spices with the cheese filling and spread in a gingersnap crust. It’s ideally light for serving after a big meal, no matter what time of year.

This Italian-inspired confection gets its flavor and texture from a blend of ricotta and cream cheese (the former a common inclusion in Italian cheesecakes). You’ll find that it suits its chocolate base quite well. Some super-fancy cherries will bring new meaning to “cherry on top.”

Let’s just say that red velvet cheesecake is a vibe. This one gets so much swagger from its stunning looks—which are simple to replicate! Easy enough to infuse the base with that classic red velvet cake flavor; simply buy red velvet cookies!

We love what a little almond does in the graham cracker crust here. We also love how diced mangos make any dessert more special. Here, they top a very creamy filling that itself is laced with mango flavor.

This is what happens when you give a no-bake cheesecake the Baked Alaska treatment. Despite the freshly toasted, warm marshmallows crowning the top of this chocolate cheesecake, its interior will remain cold and creamy. A graham cracker crust completes the s’more profile for a sliceable dessert that will have everyone asking for s’more.

These nod to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, in more ways than one. To start, the slices are sandwiched between two layers of peanut butter cookie crumbs. There’s a rich, creamy peanut butter layer, but then an adorable strawberry gelatin layer, that of course both tastes like jelly and creates a real visual delight.

Wow, a lower-sugar dessert that eaters can be greedy about, since everyone gets their own jar! The natural sweetness in mango and kiwi, plus lime juice, is what really comes through. A little toasted coconut and slivered almonds complement the sweet with their nuttiness.

WHAT is happening here, you may be asking? Or maybe you’re asking, does this taste like avocado? The simple answer is no. However, that would be selling this cheesecake short, since, though it does taste light and leans in on the lime and coconut, you might, looking for it, detect the faintest flavor of avocado. But if that’s a deterrent for an eater, we say it’s faint enough to not even mention it — until people smile and ask for the recipe.

Sunny Anderson goes mix-and-match. Yes, this cheesecake uses various formulations of chocolate hazelnut, but she mentions that you could switch it up and hammer it with speculoo, too. With assembling this easy, try one today and another next week!

We’ll take anything yuzu, that east Asian citrus that tastes like what lemon wishes it was when it wasn’t feeling so shy. This cheesecake goes hard on the yuzu with its own yuzu-curd layer, but no worries if you can’t find it fresh; store-bought bottled juice works just fine. We promise: This one is for winning the book club.

Who doesn’t love a pretty fruit swirl on their cheesecake? Ree Drummond’s uses a mixture of fresh raspberries and raspberry preserves to layer on varying dimensions. Using a whipped topping in place of whipped cream makes this one so light, it might float away!

A quick shortbready crust provides the base for this very simple cheesecake. Sweetened condensed milk and orange juice come together in the filling, and the whole is topped with slivered almonds for a nice crunch. It’s sweet and refreshing and plays to the citrus, with some lime zest underlining the orange.

Katie Lee Biegel uses everyone’s favorite shortcut to flavor (chocolate hazelnut spread) as the jumping-off point in this no-bake. It’s got subtle flavor, but the chocolate cookie crust and the chopped fresh hazelnut topping very much help make the point. A slice is so incredibly light even as it nods to rich flavors, which in our book, is the best kind of summer dessert.