People with diagnosed autism or being high in autistic traits have been found to have difficulties with recognizing emotions from nonverbal expressions. In this study, we investigated whether speeded reasoning (reasoning performance under time pressure) moderates the inverse relationship between autistic traits and emotion recognition performance. We expected the negative correlation between autistic traits and emotion recognition to be less strong when speeded reasoning was high. The underlying assumption is that people high in autistic traits can compensate for their low intuition in recognizing emotions through quick analytical information processing. A paid online sample (N = 217) completed the 10-item version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient, two emotion recognition tests using videos with sound (Geneva Emotion Recognition Test) and pictures (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test), and Baddeley's Grammatical Reasoning Test to measure speeded reasoning. As expected, the inverse relationship between autistic traits and emotion recognition performance was less pronounced for individuals with high compared to low speeded reasoning ability. These results suggest that a high ability in making quick mental inferences may (partly) compensate for difficulties with intuitive emotion recognition related to autistic traits.