After Thanksgiving there’s always a bunch of turkey leftovers and finding delicious ways to use them up can be challenging. Believe me when I say you must make this homemade pot pie. You can use turkey or chicken, it’s divine either way. The flavor of this pot pie is the best I’ve had!
Homemade pot pie
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This recipe comes from The Best Chicken Recipes which is a fabulous hard bound book FULL of wonderful recipes. I originally checked it out from the library, but have since ordered my own copy.
This pot pie recipe has earned a permanent place in my recipe library. The fact that it makes 2 pies is great, you can freeze one to bake another night.
I’ve made several recipes from this book, it’s definitely keeper, and it’s full of helpful diagram and tips. Plenty of advice on different kitchen tools and gadgets as well.
One of the things mentioned in the book is that you can certainly make your own pie crust, and they do offer a savory pie dough recipe for you to use, but they also offer advice on store bought doughs. Since you will need crust to go on top of each pie, you don’t want to buy those preformed pie crusts, you want the rolled out doughs, like Pillsbury. This isn’t a product endorsement, I just happen to really like their dough and it’s easy to work with.
The only issue with using the store bought dough is that you cannot place round precut dough into a 13×9 pan, you must make two 9″ pies. One 9″ pie was plenty for our family, hence why I froze the other. If you prefer to make one 13×9, you will probably want to make your own crust.
Ingredients you will need:
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 celery ribs, sliced 1/4″ thick
- 2 medium onions, minced
- salt
- 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup dry vermouth (can substitute with chicken broth)
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 tsp dried
- 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed OR 8 cups cooked, cubed chicken or turkey
- 1 16-oz bag frozen peas and carrots
- 4 or 5 small red potatoes, peeled, cubed and boiled
- ground black pepper
- 1 double savory pie dough
Kitchen tools you’ll find helpful:
- Dutch oven
- Cutting board
- 9″ Pie plates
- Baking sheet
One more note: This recipe uses vermouth. I buy a bottle of dry Vermouth for $5.00 at the local wine shop here in town. It lasts me a long time and works great for cooking, you can use it as a substitute in any recipe calling for dry white wine. In fact, I bought it originally because Julia Child suggested it in her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Hint: If you prefer your pot pie to be a bit more soupy, serve it right after you take it out of the oven. if you like it a little thicker, let it set up for 15-20 minutes before cutting into it.
Either way it’s absolutely mouth watering. I promise you’ll add it to your regular rotation!
Maybe you have leftover ground beef or lamb to use? Check out my Shepherd’s Pie recipe, which is great for tossing leftovers together to make one delicious dinner.
Chicken or Turkey Pot Pie
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Print It Rate ItIngredients
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 celery ribs sliced 1/4" thick
- 2 medium onions minced
- salt
- ¾ cup unbleached all purpose flour
- ¾ cup dry vermouth
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 tsp dried
- 3 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed OR 8 cups cooked, cubed chicken or turkey
- 1 16- oz bag frozen peas and carrots
- 4 or 5 small red potatoes peeled, cubed and boiled
- ground black pepper
- 1 double savory pie dough
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Melt butter in Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add celery, onions and a teaspoon of salt, cook until softened and lightly browned, 5-7 minutes.
- Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until lightly browned, about one minute.
- Gradually whisk in the vermouth and cook until evaporated, about 30 seconds. Slowly whisk in the broth, cream and thyme.
- Add the chicken, partially cover, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover completely, and cook until the thickest part of the breast registers 160-165, about 10-15 minutes. If using leftover cooked meat, simmer 15 minutes and skip next step, jumping to adding peas and carrots.
- Transfer chicken to cutting board and set Dutch oven aside, covered. When chicken is cool enough to handle, cut into bite sized pieces.
- Return chicken to sauce with the peas and carrots. Add potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Pour mixture into 13×9 baking dish, or evenly split between two 9" deep dish pie plates.
- Roll out your pie dough and place it over the dish and crimp the edges tightly. Do not cut any slits in the crust. However, it may split on its own while cooking.
- At this point, the pie can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and then foil and refrigerated for up to two days or frozen for up to one month. If freezing, don’t thaw before baking. Increase baking time to 1 1/4 hours for refrigerated, and 1 3/4 hours for frozen.
- Place the pot pie(s) on a foil lined rimmed baking sheet. Bake until the filling is hot and the crust is golden, about 1 hour.
- Let cool ten minutes before serving.
This post was originally published on December 26. 2009
Amanda Davis
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Susie says
The instructions does not say when to add in the potatoes.
Amanda Formaro says
Thank you for pointing that out, I have corrected the recipe!
Michelle Shilts says
Could you also use ham in this recipe? Could someone use corn in place of the peas? Thank you for your time, have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and I hope to hear from you soon.
Amanda Formaro says
Hi Michelle! I don’t see why ham wouldn’t work, should be a perfectly acceptable substitute. And yes, you can change out the peas for corn!
lupe rodriguez says
That great ideas on freeze the pot pie because I make one for my older son he loves turkey pot pie and now I will make the chicken pot pie for him to put in his freeze and cook it later. Thanks for a great idea.
Melba Ann Williams says
This is an excellent recipe. The heavy cream as opposed to Condensed
soup gives it the old fashion taste..Perfect for a crisp chilly night.
Amanda says
Thanks everyone, this was a wonderful recipe!
Culinary Cory says
Great tips on how you freeze your pot pie. I like potatoes in mine as well.
Michelle says
So many good ideas! Excellent method for freezing the potpie and one I never would have thought of!
And you're right, for frozen Pie Dough, Pillsbury is the best!
Romaine says
Sounds like you and me have the same problem with the library and cookbooks. Check 'em out then have to have 'em. Do you have tons of cookbooks at your house?
Pot pie looks very good.
BTW, like how your TWD emblem goes to all your TWD posts. Great idea.
Cakelaw says
What a great recipe for using up Christmas leftovers. I have never used vermouth before, but if Julia uses it, heck, why not. I always think of Groundhog Day when Andie MacDowell's character's drink of choice was a dry vermouth with a twist.
Mags says
I'm casting my vote too for the brilliance of freezing the filling as you did. This looks delicious Amanda!
Jenn @ BentoForKidlet says
Freezing the innards is a wonderful idea! I will be trying that! thanks!
Barbara Bakes says
I don't know why I've never thought of freezing pot pie filling. It's such a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Tasty Eats At Home says
Oh yum, pot pie. I'm so glad to know that you successfully froze and baked the pie – that would be what I'd love to do.
Chow and Chatter says
oh this looks wonderful love Chicken or turkey pie and love that you made it from scratch Rebecca
MaryBeth says
Yumm-o. This looks like a wonderful pot pie, we would have also added the taters to ours.
natalia says
Amanda this is a very smart idea !! I wish you a great new year !
Karen says
Great idea for freezing the pie! Maybe spraying the plastic with some non-stick cooking spray would do the trick for releasing it.
Pam says
Oh my…lovely! We luv pot pie also, but don't have it very often! Scrumptious!
Enjoy!
Megan says
We love pot pie in our house, and I really like the way you froze the filling separately. I especially like the fact that it doesn't contain any "condensed cream of *** " soup, as I won't use it. Too bad I don't have any leftover chicken or turkey – but now I have an excuse to make one!
Katrina says
Yum! What a good idea to freeze just the filling like that. I was just thinking about doing pot pies for dinner yesterday, but went with something else. I have no idea what's for dinner tonight. We're snowed in here.