Chicken pot pie must be such a great way to use up leftover chicken and vegetables. How often do you have leftover chicken and vegetables though? It’s not a common occurrence around here. If I waited until I was stuck on how to use all this leftover chicken to make chicken pot pie, I would be waiting a long time. And my family is not that patient.
So I make chicken pot pie from the ground up, and I am not going to lie to you: it’s time-consuming. But worth it. Oh so worth it. On a cold winter’s night — and there are certainly plenty of those around here — nothing beats the combination of tender chicken and vegetables nestled in a creamy velouté and topped with a flaky crust. No wonder chicken pot pie is one the most requested dinners from my family.
Again, this is a production. You have to cook the chicken, sauté the vegetables and make a white sauce, i.e., the velouté, which starts out as a roux and becomes velouté with the addition of chicken stock. Then the whole thing has to bake in the oven. The only saving grace is that you can spread out the work over the course of a day, or two days. And, if you do happen to have leftover cooked chicken, then you are one step closer to pot pie perfection.
I have tinkered with this recipe a lot and I finally feel like I have it just where I want it, especially the white sauce: it envelopes the other ingredients in creamy richness, providing moisture but never sogginess.
My one shortcut with this recipe is to use frozen puff pastry for the crust. I love how it looks when it puffs up and turns golden and I like how the flaky layers provide contrast to the soft filling. I have sung the virtues of frozen puff pastry here before. To recap, I like the DuFour brand for being all-butter but the price tag even gives me sticker-shock, and I am used to paying a lot for ingredients. Feel free to use any variety you like, including the ubiquitous Pepperidge Farm.
So when winter has gotten you down and all you want to do is hibernate in your kitchen, lovingly craft this chicken pot pie with a puff pastry crust for your family and everyone will feel restored.
- 2 TB olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 carrots peeled and diced
- 2 ribs celery, diced
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 3 cups waxy potatoes cut into bite-size pieces
- 3 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded
- 1 cup peas (frozen is fine)
- ¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 3 TB flour
- 3 TB butter
- 3 cups chicken stock, warm or at least at room temperature
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 1 egg
- If not starting with cooked chicken, roast two bone-in chicken breasts at 375 for 45 minutes. Allow to cool and shred meat off the bone and set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots and celery and sauté over medium-low heat until softened but not browned, about ten minutes. Add the potatoes and season with dried thyme and salt and pepper. Continue to saute the vegetables until the potatoes are tender.
- Add the chicken and peas and toss to combine. Remove from heat and add parsley. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, melt butter over low heat. When butter stops foaming, whisk in flour and cook for three minutes, whisking constantly, over low heat to get rid of raw flour taste.
- Gradually whisk in the stock, and cook over low heat until slightly thickened. (This is the veloute.)
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Place filling in a 3 quart baking dish and pour veloute over the top. Toss gently to combine.
- Place puff pastry over the filling leaving gaps on the ends, and cut three slashes across the top to vent.
- Beat the egg with 1 TB water. Brush egg wash over the puff pastry.
- Bake for 30 minutes until pastry is puffed and golden.
- Serve hot.
