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Easy Mini Cheesecakes are creamy, rich, and baked in a muffin pan and a simple graham cracker crust. This easy cheesecake recipe makes 12 individual cheesecakes without a water bath, and you can customize them with Oreo cookies, lemon, chocolate, peanut butter cups, fresh fruit or so many other flavors. They’re perfect for parties and holidays because you can make them ahead and freeze them!
I’ve been making different versions of these mini cheesecakes for years, and I think one of the best things about them is that you don’t have to commit to just one flavor. I’m a lemon girl, so naturally the lemon version with a Golden Oreo crust is one of my favorites, along side the classic plain topped with fruit.
The best part about these is you don’t have to be intimidated: they’re so much easier than a regular cheesecake. You don’t need a water bath and they’re much easier to make, bake, and serve. The most important part is to make sure and use room temperature ingredients to avoid lumps!
The sky is the limit with these: make marbled cheesecakes, pumpkin cheesecakes, even fruit tart cheesecakes! I love when I can make several different desserts from one basic recipe.
Mini Cheesecake Ingredients
- Graham Cracker Crust: The basic crust combines graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and brown sugar. or use my for a crushed chocolate cookie crust.
- Cookie Crust: Use my Oreo cookie crust recipe for a ground cookie crust OR use full size Oreos or similar sized cookies as the crust (shortbread rounds, vanilla wafers etc), no crushing needed! I’ve even used pecan sandies in my pecan pie cheesecakes.
- Cream Cheese and Sour Cream: Use full fat and make sure they’re room temperature to avoid lumps.
- Egg: You need a large egg and make sure it’s room temperature to avoid lumps.
- Flavoring – just add flavors listed below and in the recipe for different tastes.
- Toppings – Depending on what kind of cheesecake you’re making you can use lemon curd, caramel sauce, strawberry sauce, hot fudge sauce, chocolate ganache, candy, or fresh fruit!
Mini Cheesecake Bites Flavors Made EASY
- Mini Lemon Cheesecakes: Lemon is my absolute favorite, obviously. I love pairing lemon cheesecake with a Golden Oreo crust because the flavors compliment each other nicely. Feel free to use the plain cheesecake recipe and then just top with lemon curd, but you can also add some fresh lemon zest to the cheesecake batter. It amps up the flavor of the lemon!
- Mini Oreo Cheesecakes: These have an Oreo crust and the basic cheesecake filling full of chopped Oreos.
- Candy IN Cheesecake Bites: You can put a whole mini cup in the cheesecake, on top of the Oreo crust, or you can chop up some peanut butter cups to mix with the batter. I can’t wait to try Milky Way or Kit Kat cheesecakes!
- Top with cherry pie filling or blueberry pie filling.
Dorothy’s Expert Tips
- Make sure your cream cheese is room temperature before starting to avoid lumps. It’s also best if your eggs and sour cream are room temperature too.
- Don’t use low fat cream cheese! Only use block cream cheese.
- You can use digestive biscuits in place of the graham crackers.
- It’s best to use a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to ensure you’ll have no lumps.
- You must let these cool to room temperature and then chill for several hours in the fridge before eating.
Easy Mini Cheesecake Recipe
Video
Ingredients
Basic Graham Crust:
- 1 ¼ cups (129g) graham cracker crumbs
- 3 tablespoons (38g) brown sugar
- 5 tablespoons (70g) unsalted butter, melted
- *See Note for additional crust ideas*
Basic Cheesecake Filling:
- 8 ounces (226g) cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- ¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (62g) sour cream, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- *See Note for additional filling and topping ideas*
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- Make the graham cracker crust: Stir together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Press about 2-2 1/2 tablespoons of the mixture into the bottom of each muffin liner and press to compact.
- Beat room temperature cream cheese with a hand mixer until fluffy. Beat in room temperature sour cream. Beat in egg, sugar, and vanilla extract. (Room temperature ingredients are a must to avoid lumps!)
- Evenly divide (about 2-2 1/2 tablespoons each) cheesecake among crusts. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until they just begin to brown. Cool completely and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.
- Serve plain or topped with whipped cream and berries. See notes for additional serving suggestions.
Notes
- Crust: instead of a graham cracker crust you can use 12 Oreos (any flavor). Just place them (whole) into each cupcake liner and they will form the crust.
- Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecakes: use an Oreo cookie for the crust. Chop up 6 regular sized peanut butter cups and sprinkle them into the batter in step 3. Alternately, use 12 Reese’s Minis and place one on top of each Oreo before dividing filling. Top cooled cheesecakes with chocolate sauce and more peanut butter cups.
- Oreo Cheesecakes: use an Oreo cookie for the crust. Chop 4 additional Oreos finely and stir into the cheesecake batter before step 4. Continue as directed.
- Lemon Cheesecakes: use either a graham cracker crust or a Golden Oreo cookie for the crust. Optional: add 1 teaspoon lemon zest to the batter in step 3. Top cooled cheesecakes with lemon curd and fruit.
- Plain: Top plain cheesecakes with hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, or pie filling.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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How to make Mini Cheesecakes
- If using a crushed cookie or graham cracker crust, make sure it’s a fine crumb and mix it until it looks like sand.
- Your cheesecake mixture should be free of lumps and smooth if you start with room temp ingredients.
- Use muffin liners for easy removal.
- Bake until lightly puffed and no longer wet looking.
FAQs
Be sure not to overmix, don’t overfill the muffin liners, and don’t over bake the cheesecakes.
They’ll be slightly puffed and no longer wet-looking.
No, cheesecake bites will bake just fine without a water bath because the amount of batter is so small.
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How do I prevent cracks?
In this sort of cheesecake there shouldn’t be cracks – if there are that might mean that they’re over baked.
I tried using the mini golden Oreos in mini muffin pans and they were perfect! I admit to being skeptical about using cream-filled cookies as a crust, but it works 🙂 and makes the prep time so much easier and quicker. The filling made the perfect amount for my 24-mini muffin pan. Made 4 dozen for a baby shower, and will definitely make these again! Thank you for a great recipe.
Hi Betty, sounds like it was a great recipe for the baby shower! Thanks for giving it a try, and so glad you like it 🙂
This recipe is terrible. I wanted to do something special for my friend’s birthday, but I’m on a budget, so I decided to try this recipe.
The mixture is extremely runny, even with precisely measured ingredients and after 20 minutes baking, they are not set up at all.
I prepared to make four dozen and the first two dozen are in the oven now and I’m pretty sure I just wasted a ton of money and effort to only end up having to go back to the store to buy something premade because I have no time to spare.
Can you let me know if you made any substitutes? What kind of cream cheese did you use? They should have baked up just fine – I’ve made this recipe hundreds of times with success so I’d love to troubleshoot with you.
Zero substitutes.
Philadelphia cream cheeese. All name brand ingredients. My store didn’t even have their store brand available, so I wasn’t even able to use those.
i made these for Christmas dessert – i loved the ease of making them. i have done a full sized cheesecake for years, but they take SO long to bake (around 1 1/2 hours). this was so quick and easy. they were a nice size when i served them alongside a cookie platter. i loved the flavor of the graham cracker crust (never made one with brown sugar before – always white sugar), but i thought it was too thick in proportion to the cheesecake filling. next time i will make 1 1/2 times the recipe for the filling and they should be about perfect!
I first made these for a holiday party years ago. I’m so glad someone asked for the recipe, because I was able to find it in my email the next time I wanted to make them! I have come back to these several times over the last two years, and they’re a go-to favorite. I typically top with a fresh strawberry reduction, but the canned stuff has worked well in a pinch too!! I started learning to bake two years ago at 22, and this recipe made learning easy.
I’m so glad you like them! Great tip too
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