Last Updated on August 31, 2026 by Carrie Korem, FNTP
If you’re looking for the best pumpkin cheesecake recipe to serve this fall, this is it. This creamy, lightly sweetened cheesecake has a buttery graham crust and a no-bake pumpkin filling that’s rich, smooth, and full of cozy fall spices. It’s gluten-free, easy to make, and perfect for the holidays.
Unlike traditional cheesecake, this recipe doesn’t require baking the filling. Just whip it together, chill, and you’ll have a decadent dessert that tastes like fall in every bite!
Why You’ll Love This No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe
-
No baking required for the filling
-
Naturally gluten-free crust made with almond flour and real butter
-
Lightly sweetened with maple syrup for a balanced flavor
-
Can be made ahead—perfect for gatherings and holiday prep
Ingredients for Pumpkin Cheesecake
- Almonds or pecans
- Organic whole cane sugar
- Unsalted butter
- Sour cream
- Maple syrup
- Mascarpone cheese
- Cream cheese
- Goat cheese
- Pureed pumpkin (or canned organic pumpkin)
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Unflavored gelatin
- Vanilla bean or vanilla extract
- Heavy cream
How to Make Pumpkin Cheesecake
Step 1: Make the Crust
Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 9-inch springform pan with parchment. Place nuts, sugar, and butter in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Press the mixture into the pan and bake for 12 minutes, until lightly golden. Cool completely.
Step 2: Prepare the Filling
In a mixing bowl, combine sour cream, ½ cup maple syrup, mascarpone, cream cheese, goat cheese, pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice. Mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. Sprinkle in the gelatin and mix for 1 more minute. Pass the mixture through a fine mesh sieve for an extra-smooth texture.
Step 3: Whip the Cream
In a clean mixing bowl, whisk the heavy cream with the remaining 2 tablespoons maple syrup until medium peaks form. Gently fold the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture.
Step 4: Assemble and Chill
Pour the filling over the cooled crust and smooth the top. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight, until set and firm.
Serve with extra whipped cream and a drizzle of maple caramel sauce.
Tips for the Best Pumpkin Cheesecake
- Use room temperature ingredients to avoid lumps in the filling.
- Chill the cheesecake long enough to fully set
- For extra sweetness, add 2 more tablespoons of maple syrup to the filling.
- You can make this cheesecake 1–2 days in advance. It actually gets better as it sits!
How to Store Cheesecake
This cheesecake keeps well in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Store it in a covered container to prevent it from drying out.
More Fall Dessert Recipes You’ll Love
Pumpkin Cheesecake (Gluten-Free)
I chose to keep the sweetness on the lighter side, so make sure to serve this cheesecake with the caramel sauce. If you prefer, you can add an additional 2 tablespoons of maple syrup to the filling.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 27 minutes
- Yield: Serves 10
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Gluten-Free
Ingredients
- 2 cups soaked dehydrated almonds or pecans (you can also use roasted nuts)
- 1/4 cup organic whole cane sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup, divided
- 4 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
- 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 2 ounces soft goat cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 cup cooked and pureed pumpkin (you can also use organic canned pumpkin)
- 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
- 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 1/2 cups whipped cream (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place nuts, whole cane sugar and butter in the bowl of a food proessor. Pulse until finely ground. Press crust in the bottom of a buttered 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool.
- Place sour cream, 1/2 cup maple syrup, mascarpone, cream cheese, goat cheese, pumpkin and pumpkin spice into the bowl of a mixer. Mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. Sprinkle gelatin over cream cheese mixture and mix for an additional 1 minute. Pass mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl. Pour heavy cream into the now empty mixing bowl. Whisk on medium high, slowly adding the remaining 2 tablespoons maple syrup. Whisk until medium peaks form. Fold whipped cream into pumpkin mixture. Pour filling over cooled crust and smooth the top. Refrigerate for 4 hours until firm.
- Serve with whipped cream (optional) and maple caramel sauce)
Photo Credit: Becky WinklerÂ







I love weeks that like!
And I’d also love to slam my face into this cheesecake.
There would be no regrets.
At all.
Made this for Thanksgiving and was so dang good. I swapped cottage cheese (1 for one) for goat cheese and no regrets!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Hooray! I don’t like cheesecake, but my husband LOVES it. He will be SO excited when I make this for him…thanks for the recipe!! 🙂
I love cheesecake. I really love pumpkin cheesecake. I can’t wait to try it!!
Thanks! I thought I was going to have to give up yummy treats when I decided to try this whole grain free thing. Now I know there is grain free goodness around the holiday corner.
I’m fixin to put together ingredients…you have kabocha squash in the picture, my favorite.
Can I use that instead of pumpkin?
I haven’t tested this recipe with other ingredients, so I don’t know what would lend the exact same texture and flavor.
Loving your pumpkin dessert recipes! What an interesting crust; seems really complimentary with pumpkin, and it’ll impress guests! 🙂
All I can say to this is uh-oh. This one looks like it could be very, very dangerous at my house. No baking, easy on the sugar and gluten free? I think I really need to get going on making this one, asap.
This looks divine. I make pumpkin cheesecake every year for my boyfriend’s family!
Holy cow. This looks PERFECT.
Carries, it is great to see that you made the most of your time this weekend. This cheesecake looks really good & I love all the variations. The goat cheese is a fun twist too.
Weeks like that are a treasure – not only do you have time to yourself, but the time away from your children truly makes you appreciate them all the more!
Great adaptation of cheesecake – love the mix of cheese in this recipe!
This looks amazing!
It sounds as though you had an idyllic week. I’m not sure I would trust myself alone in the house…with this gorgeous cheesecake.
Playing with cheescake is my all time favorite way to spend time in the kitchen, so i can’t wait to try your recipe. It looks scrumptious!
That looks wondefully creamy, I like that it has goat cheese in it!
This is my dream come true! My favorite pie in cheesecake form!
Gorgeous cheesecake and perfect for Fall!
This is just beautiful! I was thinking a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving!
I LOVE cheesecake! Sounds like you had a nice week; glad you enjoyed it and glad you were able to bring us this fabulous recipe 🙂
Lovely! Your pictures are incredible and that cake looks delicious!
That looks mighty tasty, Carrie!
Last year I got married and we had pumpkin cheesecake as our wedding cake….so I will for sure be trying this recipe. Looks VERY good 🙂
Looks good!
Oh my this looks so fantastic! I love that you just refrigerate it!
That filling looks so light and fluffy. Now you have me craving cheesecake!
Are you trying to do me in? I am lactose intolerant and whole my husband loves to bake and I love cheese cake, we don’t make it much, because it’s do time consuming, but noooowwww.. I will be showing this to him tomorrow. Thanks again for your delicious and simple recipes!!
This looks awesome. I see that you used gelatin however I try not to use gelatin but agar powder when needing gelatin which is hardly ever 🙂 Have you ever used agar powder in place of gelatin for desserts? I have not experimented w/ it just yet but will do soon 🙂
I don’t have experience working with agar powder. Sorry!
I adore pumpkin cheesecake and love the nut crust! And no bake puts it over the top!
Oh my. This looks amazing. I love that there’s goat cheese in here and really may have to make this!
That cheesecake is divine! Wow. I would give anything for a slice right now!!
This looks delicious! I am going to try to make it for T’giving and wonder if I have to dehydrate the pecans for the crust or if that is just something you do for your own personal taste? Do you think I could sub more of the cream cheese or mascarpone for the goat cheese? Thanks and Happy Holidays!!
I soak and dehydrate the nuts to release the physic acid from the nuts. Also dehydrating them at a low temperature gets them nice and crispy, but doesn’t destroy the good oils in the nuts (like roasting does). It’s personal preference, so you can roast or toast the pecans if you’d like. I haven’t tested it, but substituting the goat cheese with extra cream cheese or mascarpone should work just fine. Happy Thanksgiving!
I actually made these in cupcake liners for our neighborhood holiday party! I had to chill them a little longer (I made them the night before, so they chilled all night and day) but they turned out fantastic!! And I’m giving your Almond Toffee as holiday treats to all of my guests. They never knew how baking without white flour and white sugar could taste so good. Thanks for helping make this a holiday to remember!
@ Nancy – when I made the cheesecake for Thanksgiving I followed the recipe, but when I made the cupcakes I added extra cream cheese because I didn’t have extra mascarpone. I also used organic can pumpkin pie pumpkin to give it added sweetness (in addition to the pumpkin pie spice). It turned out lovely.
I love the recipe and will try it. But the photo of the cheesecake looks as if there are three layers; the crust, the whipped filling, and a whipped topping. But the recipe only decribes making the filling and then topping with maple caramel sauce. Are you sure you didn’t add whipped cream to the top?
I added whipped cream to make the photo a bit more dramatic. If you’d like to top the cheesecake with whipped cream then take 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (or whipping cream) and whip until soft peaks form.
Have you tried to freeze this at all? I love to bake “treats” but always end up giving them away to keep from wasting anything.
I haven’t, but I don’t think this specific recipe would be suitable for freezing. I think the cream might weep too much when thawed.
Made a double batch for my husband’s birthday party and it tasted great. It was a great crust, but the filling itself did not get stiff; was more of a pudding. I made it as ordered, however, I had to use Knox gelatin, and it set up really quick into a rubbery lump. Maybe that’s how it works…I just haven’t used it before, but I was concerned it wouldn’t incorporate into the creamy mix, so I mixed another amount and put it in when it was still slightly soft. Anyways not sure what all went wrong…but flavor-wise it was great!
Hmm…I’ve never used Knox gelatin for this recipe, so I’m thinking that was the culprit. The Bernard Jensen gelatin I use doesn’t turn into a lump like you described. If you want to stick with Knox, you could sprinkle the gelatin over the cream cheese mixture and whisk in just before pouring the filling into the pan. I’m glad you enjoyed the flavor! 🙂
Hi Carrie, I’m not a fan of goat cheese, can I just add two more oz of cream cheese to get the same creamy goodness? Thanks!
This recipe looks great! I am totally making it for Thanksgiving this year, as I was trying to find a grain free pumpkin cheesecake recipe. So excited! Do you think it would hold up okay if I made this Tuesday night to serve on Thanksgiving? Will the crust get soggy if prepared too far in advance?
I think it will do just fine if you make it Tuesday night. Happy Thanksgiving! 🙂
This looks incredible and I’m making it for my Supper Club group this week! Regarding the vanilla that’s in the ingredient list, I don’t see it in the instructions so I’m guessing the vanilla is one of the filling ingredients when the pumpkin mixture/cream are folded together?
Yes! Sorry about that, I’ll make the edit. Just add the vanilla when you fold the pumpkin mixture/cream together.
Hey Carrie, I made this cheesecake the other day as a practice run for Thanksgiving. Some in my family don’t like pumpkin, so I left it out and did it as a maple cheesecake. The consistency wasn’t quite right. It was really close to being firm enough, just not quite. I’m wondering since I’m not including the pumpkin which might hold things together better, should I add a bit more gelatin or more cream cheese or goat cheese? What do you think would work better? Thanks so much for all your recipes! I love them and refer to your site often!!
Silly question, but if I leave out the maple syrup completely, do you think it would still work??
I only test the recipes on my site with the listed ingredients and measurements. If you would like to try a substitution, you are welcome to share what you used and how it turned out in the comments below. Thanks!
Hi,
Your blog is awesome. Thanks for this recipe. I just made the crust a few days ahead of Thanksgiving so I have time to buy a substitute should it fail. I’ll make the filling the day before. My concern is that the center of the crust feels pretty wet and was jiggly when it came out of the oven. The edges are pretty brown. Will it get better if I refrigerate it or should I cook it longer? Sorry to bug you with this minutae.
It will firm up in the fridge. 🙂
Has anyone tried replacing all the dairy ingredients with non dairy substitutes…and if so how did it turn out? Like dairy free sour cream, coconut milk for the heavy cream, dairy free cream cheese…..I want to make this for my GF, dairy free, grain free family at Thanksgiving…… I’m worried about the heavy cream replacement, as I made the traditional pumpkin pie last year with coconut milk instead of evaporated milk, and it did not really set up, it was runny. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!