No-Bake Cheesecake Filling Only Needs 3 Ingredients. Here's What They Are

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Cheesecake is arguably one of the best desserts out there — it's rich, creamy, sweet, and utterly delicious. Making a classic baked cheesecake requires a good amount of steps and ingredients, so you may not always be in the mood to make it at home when a craving hits. But that was before you knew about this easy, no-bake cheesecake filling that only requires three ingredients.

Here's what you need: 16 ounces of cream cheese, 1 ½ cups of heavy whipping cream, and 1 cup of powdered sugar. Additionally, you can add about 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, if you want just a little bit of extra flavor. To make the filling, simply use a hand mixer to beat the cream cheese until it's fluffy, then add the heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar and blend together until smooth. After you've poured the mixture into a pie crust — more on that later — let it hang out in the fridge for about three hours to set. The cheesecake should be firm before it's ready to serve.

When the time is up, the cheesecake is all ready to eat — with barely any effort on your part. Top it off with a dollop of whipped cream and some fruit, or an even sweeter addition like homemade aramel sauce or one of our top picks for store-bought chocolate syrup.

Since the three ingredients simply refer to the filling, you will technically need a fourth ingredient in order to complete the cheesecake — the crust. Cheesecakes are typically made with a graham cracker crust, but if you prefer otherwise, you can always opt for a flaky, buttery crust instead.

To make the process as easy as possible, you can simply use a store-bought crust. Before you choose which one, be sure to check out our ultimate ranking of store-bought pie crusts – for a graham cracker crust, we like the Keebler Graham Ready Crust available on Amazon, which earned a spot in the top five at number four. If you want to make your cheesecake a little differently, with a more traditional pie crust, we also loved Amazon Fresh Pie Crust (previously Happy Belly), which we found to have a rich buttery flavor and flaky texture.

While you're at the store buying your pre-made pie crust, you can use the opportunities to buy any toppings that you may want for the cheesecake. As mentioned above, whipped cream and caramel sauce are great options. There's also chocolate sauce, toasted nuts, lemon curd, fresh fruit or jam, or crumbled Oreos — all of which will take your cheesecake to the next level, if you want to make it just a bit sweeter and more exciting.