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Homemade Pot Pie: Way Better Than Frozen

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April 5, 2013

Everyone has had frozen pot pies – especially during your first couple years of college!  After Christmas this past year, I was thinking of new ways to use the leftover turkey. So, I thought why not pot pies. But what to use for the crust on top, which I think is the best part as long as it is flaky.

My first try was a moderate success. The inside was delish and the crust was okay. I used Pillsbury crescent roll for the crust. The second time I made them was a bust. This time I used the Bisquit pancake mix recipe on the box. Way too doughy. The third time was the charm and I have made them 2 more times. The success was using Pepperidge Farm pastry sheets. They can be found in the frozen food section of your grocery store.

Homemade Pot Pie Recipe

Ingredients (makes 6 pot pies)

  • Chicken or turkey – cut in cubes (2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts makes about 6 pot pies)
  • 1 box Pepperidge Farm puff sheets
  • 1/2 bag frozen pearl onions
  • 2 potatoes cut into 3/4-1 inch cubes
  • 2 carrots cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 1/2 bag frozen peas
  • 2 stalks of celery cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  • Any other vegetable you would like to add

Boil the chicken cubes, potatoes, carrots and celery until almost cooked. Drain and distribute all the ingredients into your dishes. I have 2 individual ceramic dishes and then I bought small aluminum bread pans from the grocery store. The best thing here is that you can add more or leave out ingredients to personalize each pot pie.

Roux

Roux –Roux (“roo”) is used to thicken sauces and soups. Pre-cooking flour allows the starch granules to swell and absorb moisture, and lets you thicken a sauce base without the flour clumping or forming lumps. Rouxs are also used to deepen the flavor of a sauce: browning the flour gives it a nutty, toasted flavor.

Roux can be white, blond, brown, or dark. The color just depends on how long you cook the fat-flour mixture. While none are better or worse than the others, it does affect flavor and how much the roux can thicken.

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • (It is always an equal amount of fat and flour)
  • 2 cups chicken broth

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the flour mixing constantly until the flour is all mixed smoothly into the butter. Slowly add the chicken broth stirring constantly until you get the consistency you want. Add salt and pepper to taste. Our the roux into your dishes almost to the top.

Directions

  1. Roll the pastry out as much as needed (I found that the box with 2 pastry sheets in it was just enough to cover 6 pot pies) Use flour as needed for rolling it out.
  2. After rolling it out, cut your pieces so that the pastry dough will cover each pie with a little hanging over the edge.
  3. Put the sheet on the pie and seal the edges by pressing them over the edge of the dish. Before baking, take a fork and poke a few holes in the dough so that the steam can escape.
  4. Bake at 425 degrees for 30-35 minutes until crust is brown. (I covered the edges of the crust with aluminum foil for the first 20 minutes so that they would burn.)

Since there are only 2 of us in the house, I froze 4 of the pot pies and then when they were frozen I sealed them in bags using my FoodSaver (I love my FoodSaver).

Pot pies are a good way to get your children to eat vegetables and they take me back to my childhood.

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