After the burgers have been flipped and the final scorching canine polished off, there’s actually just one technique to cap off Memorial Day weekend: dessert. However not simply any dessert—assume unfussy sweets that you may whip up forward of time, tackle the go, or throw collectively in the course of a yard hold. These treats are easy, summer-ready, and a bit of nostalgic in one of the best ways. From basic icebox desserts to home made popsicles, these are the recipes you may crave after good barbecue. We have additionally chosen a number of festive choices with pink, white, and blue designs (actually something that includes berries will do the job).
Listed below are 26 straightforward Memorial Day desserts that’ll carry you from the primary seaside journey to the final chew of pie. And should you’re looking for extra menu inspiration, we have rounded up our greatest Memorial Day aspect dishes as nicely.
1. Maialino’s Olive Oil Cake
You already know that previous saying, “When there is a will—plus a nine-inch cake pan, a whisk, and two rental home mixing bowls—there is a method?” Yeah, that is about this olive oil cake. True story: I as soon as made it in a very sparse rental kitchen with out any cup measurers, and it was nonetheless gone in quarter-hour.
2. Berries With Rosé
Simply whenever you wanted one other excuse to open extra rosé, this refined—but wildly easy—dessert blows into city, and steals the present. It is wonderful topped with whipped cream, or you possibly can swap in your favourite ice cream flavors. Oh, and save any leftover rosé syrup for cocktails.
3. One-Step, No-Churn Espresso Ice Cream
This good Nigella Lawson recipe is principally magic: It yields creamy, ethereal ice cream with zero cooking, zero churning, and nil fussing. Your wand to wave? A whisk. Serve the ice cream as-is, straight from the freezer, or make like a three-day weekender and crumble cookies excessive.
4. Berry Summer time Pudding
For a juicy, berry-filled bread pudding that tastes prefer it took all day to make, look no additional than a loaf of sandwich bread. On this recipe from Food52’s Merrill Stubbs, you may use it to line a bowl, which you may then layer with barely cooked recent berries, and extra bread. Weigh the entire thing down to relax in a single day, and as Merrill writes, “The result’s the essence of summer season: The bread absorbs the juices and melts right into a candy, aromatic sponge, and whenever you reduce into the pudding, the berries tumble out like so many rubies and sapphires.”
5. Chocolate Chip Cookies With Maple & Olive Oil
These caramel-ly, wealthy cookies are studded with swimming pools of chocolate, and simply so occur to require little greater than a whisk, bowls, and a few baking sheets to whip up. Oh, and did we point out they’re vegan? They’re vegan.
6. Basic Icebox Cake
Whipped cream and chocolate wafer cookies to the rescue! Should you can stack, you may make this festive chocolate icebox cake. It is equal elements summery and easy.
7. Swedish Gooey Chocolate Cake
This deeply decadent, fudgy chocolate cake takes simply 5 elements and 20 minutes; no sifter, stand mixer, or double boiler in sight.
8. Selfmade Vanilla Pudding
If there is a extra simple vanilla pudding recipe round, we’ve not met it! This one—which asks just for a whisk, a saucepan, light warmth, and one thing to stir—is the right clean canvas for toppings.
9. Completely Selfmade, Ridiculously Straightforward Sizzling Fudge Sundae
These gorgeous ice cream sundaes with scorching fudge require merely a whisk, plus a pan and spoon for the fudge. Psst: Do not skip the cherry on high.
10. Blueberry Pecan Oat Thumbprint Cookies
Barely fruity, barely nutty, all easy-as-heck. Sohla reveals us how one can make nut butter from scratch to trend these cookies with, however no stress—use your favourite store-bought model (might we advocate the alternatives from Huge Spoon Roasters?).
11. Salty-Tangy Preserved Lemon Bars
Improve your basic lemon bars through the use of funky, pleasantly salty preserved lemons. Although the ingredient is often used as a savory condiment, it performs very properly with the buttery-sweet shortbread crust that acts as the bottom of this dessert.
12. Chocolate Cake With Peanut Butter Frosting & Salty Peanuts
The definition of “appears onerous; truly is not.” Desire a layer cake, however do not need to anticipate baking and cooling and slicing of a thicker round cake? Use two sheet pans to create them as a substitute.
13. No-Churn Chocolate Smooth-Serve
And if you have not gotten your chocolate repair but (us both!), strive your hand at this no-churn soft-serve. It is obtained sufficient of a boozy kick to get up your style buds, so select a liqueur whose taste you’re keen on (we’re keen on Kahlua or amaretto).
14. Miso Peanut Butter Cookies With Sesame & Chocolate
Full of what seems like all issues savory and candy, these cookies have a ton happening, however that is why we love ’em. The recipe makes an enormous batch, so freeze half the dough for a wet day and thank your self later.
15. Sohla’s Go-To Vanilla Pound Cake
And for the epitome of straightforward, streamlined, and so-good, look no additional than Sohla’s A+ pound cake. Her recipe additionally occurs to be chock-full of secrets and techniques for pound-cake success, so go on, take a peek, will not you?
16. Erin McDowell’s Strawberry Not-So-Quick Cake
As a substitute of creating a bunch of little strawberry shortcakes, make one large one! A complete pound of butter and a pint of buttermilk are used to make the biscuit dough, so it’s flaky and moist (in contrast to the dried-out dough of your nightmares). It’s the last word crowd-friendly dessert for a Memorial Day picnic.
17. Valencia Orange & Aperol Ice Pops
The zest and juice of California Valencia oranges, plus a bit of little bit of orange flower honey, deliver a vivid, citrusy taste to those refreshing ice pops.
18. Saltine Cracker Brownie Ice Cream Sandwich
This icebox deal with lands someplace in between brownie a la mode and conventional ice cream sandwiches. The recipe serves 25, which ought to be greater than sufficient to go round at your Memorial Day fête.
19. Strawberry Coconut Ice Pops
These completely vegan ice pops require solely 4 elements—recent sliced strawberries, full-fat coconut milk, sugar, and vanilla extract.
20. Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Contemporary Open-Confronted Blueberry Pie
Hear us out—we all know it’s a bit of controversial to serve a blueberry pie and not using a double crust, however this recipe means that you can respect the complete bounty of juicy summer season blueberries ready for you on the within…err, exterior, I assume.
21. Chocolate Espresso Ice Cream Cake
There’s no query that this caffeinated ice cream cake is destined to be served for dessert on Memorial Day. It’ll hold everybody awake (even after they’ve eaten a number of too many burgers or sticky barbecue ribs) and funky off because the summer season rays kick in.
22. Easy Angel’s Meals Cake
Bake this light-as-the-air angel’s meals cake and gown it up any which method. May I counsel a berry compote with freshly whipped cream and a teeny-tiny little bit of lemon zest?
23. Strawberry Rhubarb Icebox Cake
Even when the ice cream truck makes the rounds on Memorial Day, this icebox cake, with its Biscoff cookie crust and extra-creamy mascarpone filling swirled with a rhubarb-strawberry jam will deliver much more retro enjoyable. The candy berries are a scrumptious distinction to the slight tang of the rhubarb—and the presentation is festive as might be for the vacation.
24. Lemon Raspberry Tart
This lemon raspberry tart is the precisely sort of show-stopping dessert you may need to deliver to the desk. The layer of recent raspberries make this look much more difficult than it truly is. Plus, the pink is completely on theme with Memorial Day.
25. Mini Coconut Carrot Muffins With Candied Ginger
We will not get appear to get sufficient of those. Mini carrot desserts are the right potluck dessert as a result of they’re smaller, shareable, and an amazing post-BBQ chew.
26. Pavlova Wreath
One other nice Memorial Day choice as a result of the berries create a festive pink, white, and blue look. The meringue additionally creates a light-weight and ethereal chew which is nice should you stuffed up on sides and steak.
What’s your go-to dessert for lengthy weekends? Tell us within the feedback!
This roundup was up to date in Might 2025 by our editors with new, scrumptious Memorial Day recipes.
