Anyone make chicken pot pie at home?

Cafe Society
1

I really like chicken pot pie. I keep several Marie Callender’s in the freezer. I always bake them and top with sharp cheddar cheese for the last couple minutes in the oven.

I tried a Boston Market chicken pot pie one time (on sale). It was ok but I prefer MC.

How about making them at home?

Is it a lot of work? Is a homemade pot pie any better than store bought? I’m wondering if the results are worth the extra work?

Do you make them and freeze. Or make fresh to bake the same day?

Any recipes?

The Take Home Chef did an episode making pot pies for a group of kids. I didn’t record it and it’s never come out on dvd.

2

I don’t make them (or any pies) from scratch, but I pick up a couple at KFC and keep them in the freezer. KFC does a respectable job, IMHO.

3

I’ve been meaning to try KFC’s pot pie. I guess they’re frozen and they just heat them? The franchise can’t screw that up. :smiley: Around here KFC is hit and miss. There’s a good one in my hometown. I take my mom to eat when I visit.

I’d be a bit concerned about refreezing them at home.

4

My wife does it on occasion – fresh to bake, the same day – and says she gets the best results by marinating the chicken in Italian salad dressing before baking.

5

I make them periodically. I don’t find it a lot of work, but I make a lot of stuff from scratch and it’s second nature. They are much better than the ones you can purchase, in my opinion.

I don’t want a bottom crust so mine are made with a top crust only, but that’s just a personal preference and easily remedied. If you don’t make pie crust from scratch, no biggie.

I usually make these when I have leftover breast meat from a whole roasted chicken, and the rest of the ingredients are things I generally have around the place. It’s the perfect recipe for when the milk or cream is about to expire.

Here’s my recipe. The filling recipe will probably make enough for 2 whole pies, one of which you can freeze before baking with no problem, if you use both top and bottom crusts and bake in a regular 9 inch pie plate. Otherwise, you can use one deep dish casserole and top with one crust only.

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked chicken, chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup butter
8 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 cup milk or half-and-half
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 purchased or homemade pie crust (or two, if you want bottom crusts)
1 egg, beaten

Preparation:

Lay 2 bottom crusts into regular pie pans if you want bottom crusts on your pies.

In a large saucepan, melt butter or margarine. Add mushrooms, onion, celery and red bell pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Stir in flour, poultry seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon salt (less if using salty broth) and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Saute until flour is cooked, about 3 minutes.

Add the broth and milk. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbling. Stir in chicken and peas.

Pour into 2 prepared pie plates or one deep, round casserole dish. Brush the edges of the pie crusts or casserole with beaten egg to help the top pie crust adhere. Place top pie crust over the mixture. Cut to fit and crimp edges all around. Cut steam vents in top. If desired, re-roll and cut excess pastry into strips or decorative shapes and lay over the crust. Or not.

If you want to freeze one for later, now is the time. Wrap well in plastic wrap after pie filling has cooled and freeze.

Brush chicken pot pie with remaining beaten egg. Bake at 400° for 30 to 40 minutes, or until crust is browned.

6

I don’t know how KFC does it, but the fear about refreezing is an old wives tale, no matter what Una says under Cecil’s name. My KFC chicken pot pies from the freezer are delicious.

And compared to Aspenglow’s detailed and complicated recipe, getting a couple of pies from KFC is easy-peasy, and probably cheaper.

7

LOL, except I actually answered his questions, and you didn’t.

I guess if you don’t cook much, the recipe may seem complicated. If you cook, it’s about 15 minutes’ worth of work and 40 minutes of baking.

aceplace57 asked for some instructions on freezing for future use, so my “complicated” instructions included that information, too.

As for cheaper, well… that’s a matter of priorities, I reckon. I don’t know what KFC charges for their pies, but most of the vegetables in any homemade chicken pot pie are inexpensive. Even if you buy the pie crusts, my recipe makes 2 ea. 9" pies. That’ll feed someone for probably 6 meals, assuming they take double helpings. I don’t think “cheaper” is a consideration here.

8

I’m not a regular pie maker. I enjoy pie, but I am not a fanatic. Maybe twice a year we make a fruit pie, and the Ukulele Lady is the crust maker.

When my kids were still at home, I occasionally made a Canadian-style tourtiere with a store-bought crust. I browned ground or diced pork in butter with a little potato, onion, celery, carrot, and garlic, then cooked it in gravy (or a little stock with a pinch of flour) with a bay leaf. Loaded it into the bottom crust, covered it with the top, brushed with a little egg wash, then baked.

It was delicious cold and sliced, like a Cornish pasty. I recently made a trip up to Cape Breton and tried a real tourtiere, which was made from basically ALL meat inside the crust…beef or pork mixed with chicken. It was good…but I like my more vegetabley pie better.

9

Yeah, buzz off, Musicat.. COOKS are talkin’ here.

10

Hey, I do more cookin’ that you can shake a spatula at, but I know when to stop cookin’ and let someone else do the work. More time for beach walkin’, beer drinkin’ and uke playin’.

11

I was thinking about getting a roasted chicken and using the white meat for the pot pie. I have most of the other items except the pie crusts.

I should be able to make a pot pie for a small group.

Thank you Aspenglow.

12

I make a thick white sauce and add meat and veggies. The veggies should be cooked first, al dente, as one would with pasta. Not hard, but not mushy. I roll a slightly thicker than fruit pie crust for lining the pie dish, fill it with the sauce mix, top with a crust, pinch the edges, and bake. I like to brush the top crust with an egg wash to give it a golden color. Bake at 350 degrees until the top crust is an overall golden brown.

It does take more work, but I find it to be worth it, if one has the time.

13

I buy frozen pie crust and make them, but I usually use turkey (we live near a turkey farm). I do not use a recipe.

Interestingly, I sometimes dice up my own veggies and make my own sauce, but sometimes just use frozen veggies and cream of chicken soup. There’s not much difference in the finished product.

14

I prefer making chicken potato pie, aka poultryman’s pie; like shepherd’s pie or cottage pie, but with chunks of chicken in chicken gravy. :slight_smile:

15

When I’ve made them at home, I make a white sauce with the chicken and vegetables, then pour into 6 inch ramekins, cover with store-bought puff pastry dough, then bake.

When they’re done, I let them rest a bit, then invert them on the plate and remove the ramekin, and let everything just kind of ooze together (in a delicious manner).

16

That’s a nice, concise statement of how I do it, too. And when making the white sauce, I use a double-strength homemade chicken broth and cream for the liquid. Also, I make the white sauce a bit on the salty side with a generous amount of white pepper and grated nutmeg, since it will be providing the flavor kick for the meat and veggies it encases.

It does seem like a lot of work to me, because some of the vegetables take a while to prep - I always use frozen peas and canned corn (no work there), and cubed potatoes, carrots, and onion (rather labor intensive when you are chopping and steaming them all, plus making white sauce and pie crust).

I haven’t made chicken pot pie in a long time since I mostly made it as an easy way to get my son to eat veggies when he was little.

17

I did once. When I was done I had something better than the frozen crap I grew up with, but not good enough to make chicken pot pie any more desirable for me. I did make some turkey pot pies once from a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers, good flavor, not as bland as chicken, and beef pot pies and various French Canadian meat pies after moving here to Rhode Island where the remnants of French Canadian immigrant culture still survive.

18

I couldn’t in a million years make my own, but man, I am on board with the Marie Callender’s ones. No muss, no fuss, tasty and for some reason pairs great with Tostitos corn chips. Have you tried the new Parmesan cheese ones? Even better!

19

Just FYI, frozen pot pies are about the worst thing you can eat exclusively, loaded with salt and fat.

We used to make turkey pot pies after Thanksgiving as a family project, using bisquik for a crust, and all the veg, gravy, chopped turkey and maybe stuffing as the filling. It was just ok. I’ve never had a pot pie I really enjoyed - one time, long ago, at a ladies-lunch kind of thing, and that had a circle of puff pastry for a ‘crust’.

I owned an obscure, charming ‘farmhouse’ cookbook that I unfortunately can’t find now, with a recipe for chicken pot pie that advised ‘this recipe has resulted in marriage proposals. Seriously, it’s that good!’ All I can remember is the gravy was made with a bit of cream, there were lots of mushrooms, white meat chicken, and a dash of sherry or white wine. The crust may have been pie crust or puff pastry.

20

I’ve made this recipe a couple of times. https://www.cookscountry.com/recipes/3377-freezer-chicken-pot-pies it very good.