Best apple for pies: Granny Smith wins

Want a hearty apple pie where the fruit stays tender but intact and doesn’t sog the crust? An American chef says the solution starts in the produce aisle — there’s one variety that beats the rest.

At first glance, baking an apple pie looks straightforward. Yet when you slice into it, disappointments often show up: slices that collapse into mush, shrinking pieces, runny filling, a crust that soaks through… Goodbye to the perfect caramelized fruit rosette you’d expect from a pastry chef. Maybe the issue isn’t only technique.

You also have to think about which apple variety you pick. Some are fantastic for eating raw but don’t stand up to long baking. Others keep their shape but get overwhelmed by butter and sugar. And the sweetest or juiciest apple isn’t automatically the one that will perform best on a pie crust.

Selection of different apple varieties on a kitchen counter — Different apple varieties vary in texture and juiciness—choose for baking purpose.

To nail a pie, you need a balance of firmness, acidity, and the ability to control juices. Asked by the magazine Southern Living, chef and sommelier Lauren Windham names a top choice: “If you can only pick one apple for baking, Granny Smith wins.”

With its bright green skin and crisp flesh, this apple brings two big advantages. First, it holds up very well to heat: chunks soften without turning into applesauce. Second, its strong tartness offsets the sweetness in the filling, producing a pie that tastes well balanced rather than cloying.

Bright green Granny Smith apples stacked in a bowl — Granny Smith apples offer firm flesh and high acidity ideal for baking.

Granny Smiths also offer a lesser-known benefit: they’re relatively high in pectin. Naturally present in apples, pectin helps thicken juices when combined with sugar and an acid like lemon juice. The outcome is a more cohesive filling that’s less likely to seep into the pastry base.

That said, Windham doesn’t dismiss other varieties. She also suggests Jonagold for its milder, almost buttery notes, and Braeburn for its complex flavor and tendency to release less liquid during baking. For more depth, she sometimes blends Granny Smith with Jonagold in the same pie. Conversely, steer clear of very soft apples such as Red Delicious or McIntosh — they tend to go mealy once baked.