With fewer calories and a little less fat, this healthy lemon curd has all the rich, lemony taste of conventional lemon curd. Use it as a filling for layer cakes, atop pancakes, or for lemon tarts.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 25 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 1 1/2 cups |
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ⅔ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 ½ tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature – cut into 1-tablespoon chunks
Instructions
- Fill a saucepan with water several inches deep and place over medium heat; bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
- Place eggs into a metal mixing bowl; add sugar and lemon juice. Place the bowl over the saucepan with simmering water and whisk continuously until mixture foams and becomes thick, hot, and smooth, 8 to 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat; whisk in lemon zest and unsalted butter. Continue whisking until butter melts and incorporates into lemon curd.
- Press plastic wrap onto the curd’s surface to prevent skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled and set, about 1 hour. Stir before serving.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 225 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 28 g |
| Cholesterol | 118 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Saturated Fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 37 mg |
| Sugars | 26 g |
| Fat | 12 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Wonderful recipe. Have made many times. Freezes beautifully. However – like others have noted, use a Pyrex bowl and silicone whisk in order to prevent a metallic taste. Then it’s fool-proof.
This is a great recipe ingredient-wise, but I had a real problem with a metallic taste. I had to search the internet for a way to salvage it (moved to plastic bowl, added baking soda and raw sugar), which helped, but next time I will use raw sugar, and my Pyrex double boiler and plastic whisk instead of white sugar, my stainless steel bowl and whisk like Chef John shows in the video.
It looked wonderful and then I tasted it. Metal. With as many recipes of Chef John’s I have made with success, I guess I can’t complain about 1 failure. As another review said, I will try again with a pyrex bowl or just not use an actual double boiler pan. Wish me luck!
Very easy to make, my family and friends loved it. I would definitely make this again. Yummy good.
Simply delicious!
This was an easy recipe to make and turned out so good! I would recommend this recipe to everyone.
12.24.20 In a word EXCELLENT, the best lemon curd I’ve ever made, and I’ve made a few. It did take about 18 minutes to really thicken, but that could be that I had the heat way too low. I cut the sugar back from 3/4 cup to 2/3 cup, and although still sweet, it still had that traditional tartness. This will be my “go-to” for the future.
This was the easiest, tastiest lemon curd I’ve ever had. I’ve made it several times now (always doubling or tripling the recipe). I’ve used Meyer lemons when they were in season and they’re my favourite. I use a metal bowl/whisk and have never had any metallic aftertaste as I read in one review. I’ve frozen the extra zest from the lemons, and while I can get the Meyer lemons now, I’ll be juicing them and freezing the juice.
As usual, a perfect recipe from Chef John. I do cut the sugar a bit, just a matter of taste. I also sometimes press the lemon mixture through a fine sieve to make smooth, not a necessity. My son loved lemon tarts from La Madeleine, until he tasted this. Makes great tarts, cake filling; and spread for fresh scones.
Delicious! Did not and would not change a thing. Thanks Chef John!
I followed directions exactly and it came out perfect! the curd is a little sweet for me, but I’m used to lower sugar diet since my husband is diabetic. I’ll reduce the sugar to half a cup next time. everything else was spot on. oh and it took 3 large lemons to get the 2/3 cup of lemon juice. delicious and much lower in calories than many of the other recipes I have seen.
Love this recipe!! So easy and delicious.
Followed the recipe as is. Nice and smooth and tart! Used as cake filling.
I always wanted to make a lemon curd. This was easy and tastes great. Most of the time I make something “lemon” and can’t taste much lemon. This is perfect. Trying to decide if it’s going on cheesecake, cookies, danish or just a spoon!!
I LOVE IT! It was so delicious on my dessert. It was too watery for me, next time I would add less liquids but other than that I would love to make it again!
Fabulous. My mouth is watering thinking about putting more in my mouth. Yum.
EXCELLENT
I made half the recipe since I only had 2 lemons. while the conversions were tricky it did work and is very tasty.
Delicious! Fresh eggs made it more yellow than Chef John’s.
Perfect as is. Chef John never disappoints!!
Normally, I LOVE Chef John’s recipe. This one, however, tanked. The metal bowl is a huge NO NO. Use a pyrex bowl and a silicone whisk for the recipe to turn out fine. If you use any metal while making lemon curd, it gives a horrible metallic flavor that you commonly find in commercially available lemon curd.