Strawberry Lemon Cheesecake Dessert in a jar

This cheesecake recipe was one of the first recipes I learned in my 7th grade home ec class. It was so delicious I ran home and asked my mom to go buy the ingredients so I could make it for dessert that night. That’s when it quickly became one of my family’s favorites and is still one of my ultimate go-to recipes for all kinds of occasions. It is extremely versatile and can be used in so many different sizes/shapes of dessert cups and with a wide variety of toppings.

Of course in home ec, we did not make it fancy like this. It was simply made in a pie pan as a no-bake cheesecake. But here you can see how it can be made much fancier for a fancy occasion.

INGREDIENTS:

Cheesecake:

1- 8 oz pkg light cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup lemon juice

1tsp vanilla

1-14 oz can sweeten condensed milk

Crust:

18 squares of graham crackers

1/3 cup melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

***Easy edition of the crust just use crushed graham crackers

Filling/Toppings:

1-pint strawberries

Lemon Pie Filling/Topping (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Prep:

Beat all of the cheesecake ingredients together…Cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla, sweetened condensed milk. Put in the fridge to set while you prepare the crust.
Crush graham crackers into small pieces. You can put graham crackers in a plastic baggie and use a rolling pin to crush them, or if you don’t have a plastic baggie, you can simply keep the graham crackers in the package, unopened, and gently hit with a mallet until crushed. Be careful though, the sides may open, so do it slowly, a little at a time. If you want the graham crackers fine, you can put them into a food processor and pulse them for a few seconds. (Optional: you can add crackers as is or continue on and make a graham cracker crust. If you want to just use crushed graham crackers skip step 3)
Mix graham crackers, melted butter, and sugar.
Wash, dry and cut strawberries.
Open a can of lemon pie filling.

Putting it together:

Sprinkle in a layer of crushed graham crackers.
Add a few tablespoons of lemon pie filling. (optional) If you don’t want lemon pie filling you can put strawberries or more cheesecake filling instead of lemon pie filling.
Sprinkle more graham crackers.
Spoon in the cream cheese mixture and use the back of the spoon to spread.
Add strawberries.

Optional: top with whipped topping or whipped cream, some crushed graham crackers, and a strawberry.