Easy Cheesecake Bars Recipe

Absolutely perfect cheesecake bars, made with a thick, buttery graham cracker crust and a simple, creamy filling. These are easier than traditional cheesecake, don’t require a water bath, are perfect for feeding a crowd, and taste incredible!

We like our cheesecake with a high crust-to-filling ratio. That’s how we shared our New York cheesecake recipe, and that’s exactly how we designed these incredible cheesecake bars.

We both love the balance of the buttery graham cracker crust against the creamy, not-too-sweet filling, made with just a bit of vanilla and lemon juice for that classic flavor.

Key Ingredients

• Graham Cracker Crust: Make our cheesecake crust with crushed graham crackers, sugar, salt, and melted unsalted butter. Non-US bakers can substitute digestive biscuits for graham crackers.
• Cream Cheese: Use full-fat block cream cheese for the filling. Make sure it is at room temperature.
• Sugar, Vanilla Extract, and Lemon Juice: Our cheesecake filling isn’t too sweet and has a hint of vanilla and lemon (we add a little bit of lemon juice, but it makes a big difference in flavor). For more of a lemon filling, try these blueberry cheesecake bars (with lemon zest added to the filling).
• Eggs: We use a lot of eggs in this recipe (5 whole + 1 egg yolk). We wanted this cheesecake bar recipe to have a similar filling as our favorite cheesecake, and the eggs help us with that! Thanks to so many eggs, the filling is incredibly creamy, a bit more sturdy, and rich.

Find the full recipe with measurements below.

How to Make Our Favorite Cheesecake Bars

First, make your graham cracker crumbs. We do this in our food processor, but you can also do it by hand using a zip-top bag and a rolling pin. Whichever method you choose, make sure the graham crackers break down into fine crumbs, which helps the crust hold together.

Make the crust and press into a large baking pan. In a bowl, stir the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, salt, and melted butter together until the crumbs look like wet sand. Line your baking dish with parchment paper so that the longer sides hang over the edges. This will make removing the bars so much easier later. Then, press the crumb mixture into an even layer in your dish. We push down firmly to help the crust to hold together.

Bake the crust. When you are happy with it, bake the crust for 10 minutes. This gives it a head start, melts the sugar, and adds a toasty aroma.

Mix the creamy filling. While the crust bakes, make the filling in a stand mixer or in a large bowl with an electric hand mixer. Add your room-temperature cream cheese to the bowl and beat with sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice until completely smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to beat in any lumps. Then, reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the eggs and single egg yolk, one at a time, just until combined.

Pour the filling into the crust and bake. Pour the filling over the crust and spread it into an even layer. Slide it into the oven and bake until the edges look set and the middle still has a little jiggle. You are not looking for much color or browning. Expect it to take 40 to 55 minutes, depending on your oven.

Cool, chill, and slice. Here’s the tricky thing with cheesecake: patience! The texture gets so much better if you let it cool to room temp on the counter for about an hour, then chill it in the fridge for at least 6 hours (we usually just leave it overnight). Once firmly chilled, you can lift the bars out, slice, and enjoy.

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