I’ve already established my love for chicken pot pie in soup form. What I love about that is how simple it is to throw together. When I think about making real pot pie, well, that just seems really complicated what with the, you know, pie part. So because of that I’ve never actually attempted to make real chicken pot pie. But lately I’ve been feeling more and more adventurous about cooking. These days I usually look forward to making dinner every night, most especially when I’m making something I’ve never made before.
Last week I got it in my head that I wanted to make a real pot pie and despite being almost 8pm I decided to go for it. I’d seen a bunch of pot pie recipes around on blogs I read, but all of them seemed too complicated or took too long (I didn’t have time for dough to chill) and none of them were my definition of chicken pot pie: an actual pie. You know, with a top and a bottom to it…
Well, Betty Crocker to the rescue. I don’t know what I would do without that cookbook. It’s my mom’s copy and it’s from 1969 and it has some really heinous dated recipes in there. But it also has ALL the basics; the kind of stuff that never goes out of style and this recipe is great example of that.
What really surprised me about this chicken dinner pie recipe is how simple it was. From reading over the instructions, I was expecting it to take a lot longer than it did. Even making the pie crust only took about 10 minutes. I went in expecting that to be a total bitch, but it really wasn’t. Then you just mix up the filling, pour it in and cook.
Another thing that stuck me was how great this would be for leftovers. In other words, this is the perfect dish for your Thanksgiving leftovers next week. Throw in turkey and whatever vegetables you want and you have a great dinner. Maybe you have an extra pie crust in the freezer to make it even faster to prepare. Since it’s just Brandon and me, there’s always tons of leftovers after Thanksgiving, so I’ll definitely be making this recipe with them.
Chicken Dinner Pie
adapted from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook
Dinner | Yield: 1 9″ pie (8 servings)
Prep time: 35 min | Cook time: 35 min | Total time: 1 hour 10 min
Ingredients
Pie crust
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter
- 4 to 5 tsp. ice water
Filling
- 2 tbsp. butter
- 2 tbsp. flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1/4 tsp. thyme
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 2 cups cubed cooked chicken or turkey*
- 1 small onion, diced
- 8 oz. can carrots or corn, drained**
- 8 oz. can peas or green beans, drained**
*For a shortcut, use pre-cooked chicken or turkey.
**I used canned just because that’s less stuff I have to cook, but frozen is fine as long as you cook according to package directions beforehand.
Process
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees (F). Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter with a dough blender
until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle in water, 1 tbsp. at a time, mixing until all flour is moistened and dough forms.
- Separate 2/3 of the dough and gather it into a ball. Roll it out on a floured surface so that it’s about an inch larger than a 9 inch pie pan. Fit into pan. You can trim the extra off the edge now or you can just wait until later and fold the extra over the top layer. Set aside.
- Roll out the remaining dough into a rectangle about 10×6 inches and cut into about twelve strips.
- Saute diced onions in a few teaspoons oil or butter until transparent, about 5 minutes.
- Melt butter in large saucepan over low heat. Blend in flour, salt, pepper, and thyme. Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in chicken broth, milk and cream. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in chicken and vegetables.
- Pour into pastry-lined pie pan. Place half the strips across filling, then the remaining half in the other direction to make a lattice top. Trim the edges and turn the bottom crust edges over the top if you haven’t already trimmed it off.
-
Use a pie crust protector if you have one. I don’t, so I wrapped the dish with two pieces of foil tented over the edges of crust. Place dish on a baking sheet. Bake 25 minutes and remove the foil, then bake 10-15 minutes more until golden brown.
Wow, that looks absolutly fabulous!
Loves a pot pie! Perfect for winter. Double yum factor.