Chicken pot pie, with Mom’s homemade pie crust, is one of those special family meal memories I have from childhood. But, until recently, I never attempted to make it myself. For one, I don’t do pie crust — one of these days I’ll have Mom teach me. And for another thing, good pot pies are usually really fattening — this one is no exception.
This winter, I finally caved, and made individual chicken pot pies for the entire family, and individual turkey pot pies for just my husband and I a few weeks later. Instead of battling with pie crust, I oped to use frozen puff pastry sheets…these turned out great. For the pie filling, I picked my favorite parts of both a Neely’s and a Barefoot Contessa recipe. Ina’s recipe calls for pearl onions, so I tried those the first time (in the chicken pot pies), but all four of us agreed that those just didn’t taste right, so I omitted them the next time.
At 22 to 23 Weight Watchers PointsPlus per serving, these are far too fattening for me to cook on a regular basis (although Hubby and the kids would gladly eat them every week). But, I’m happy to splurge a couple times each fall or winter.
- 4 cups fat-free chicken or turkey stock, or broth
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
- 1 stick butter
- 1 sweet onion, diced
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 3 Tbsp dry sherry
- 4 cups diced chicken or turkey, cooked (we grill ours)
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 1 rib of celery, sliced
- 1 cup of frozen peas, thawed
- ½ cup minced fresh parsley leaves
- 2 sheets of puff pastry, thawed and layed flat
- 1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium sauce pan, heat chicken stock or broth, and dissolve bouillon cube, over medium heat.
- In a Dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. Saute the onions until translucent, 10-15 minutes. Add flour, cook over low heat, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add chicken stock, simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring until thick. Add salt, pepper, cream and sherry. Add cooked diced chicken or turkey, carrots, celery, peas and parsley. Mix well.
- Divide the filling among 4 large ramekin baking dishes.
- Cut each sheet of pastry in half, on the diagonal. Fit each diagonal over each large ramekin, trimming to to leave about ¼ inch hanging over the edge (pull and stretch to fit). Crimp the pastry around the edge of each ramekin, and brush with egg wash.
- Place ramekins on a cookie sheet and bake 35 minutes, until pastry is golden brown.
- Remove cookie sheet from the oven, and serve.
Do you add the celery at the same time as the carrots? Celery is omitted from instructions but is included in ingredient list.
Maureen, yes! Thank you for catching that. I’m updating the recipe with the fix.