Easy Chicken Pot Pie

A homemade chicken pot pie is a beautiful sight!

During the winter we regularly make a soup to eat through the week. Eating soup is great to warm up but can quickly get repetitive. Here's a simple way to take a think soup (or chili) and turn it into a meat pie.

• Pie Crust
• Pie Filling
• Decorating
• Baking

Step 1: Pie Crust

Pie crust is one of the simplest dough to make. It may sound tricky. Especially when experts talk of managing the heat/melting of butter. The easiest way to manage is to use your freezer.

Ingredients

• Butter - 1/2 cup or 1 stick
• Flour - 1.25 cups
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Water - 1/4 cup
• Egg - 1 large egg

Process

1. Chop Butter - you need chunks
2. Bowl - add flour, salt, chunks of butter
3. Mix/Crumble - ideally use a fork to not melt the butter with your fingers... they sell a special tool for this, a pastry blender
4. Water - whisk water and half the egg together. yes, save the other half egg to coat pie.

---whenever you aren't working the pastry move it to the freezer. preheat the oven before adding the filling. Ideally use filling from the fridge but not necessary.

Step 2: Pie Filling

A great use for a thick chili or stew. This chicken soup was thickened with barley and lentils. After a few days in the fridge it was very thick. We also added frozen pies for what looks like a traditional pot pie filling.

Pile it high but leave enough dough at the edges to seal with the upper crust.

Thickening:

• Nearly there - add some cornstarch or an egg
• Too thin - over heat cook with rice, barley, lentils or any other grain

--once filled, cover with a second piece of dough rolled out to form the upper crust. use a fork to press along the edges and seal the seam... some people use so egg wash around the edge but we don't think it's necessary.

Step 3: Decorating Your Pot Pie

Yes. We like chickens.
You may have seen a few earlier posts about their house, heater and summer treats...

Handy if you have a pair ofchicken oven mitts! It's easy to simply use the design.

1. Roll out dough using plastic wrap
2. Pin hole the design into the dough
3. Cut using a dinner knife
4. Add detail using extra dough

---polk a few slits in the center of the pie to allow steam to vent (see the baked images). You'll also want to brush with the second half of egg that was whisked in step 1.

Step 4: Baking Your Pot Pie

Preheat the oven to 425. A hot oven is the best way to get a flaky pastry. However, too hot and it will burn the surface of your pot pie without cooking it evenly.

The best way is to follow this process.

1. Preheat to 425
2. Bake the first 10 min at 425
3. Drop Temp to 350
4. Bake till golden brown

At 350 you really can't burn this buttery crust. You can see our pie change color from 25 min to 40 min. It came out around 45 min.

Step 5: Enjoy!

Hope you've enjoyed this pot pie recipe!

The goal here is to show how easy it is to take a soup/stew you are getting tired of eating and upcycle it into a delicious pot pie. If you find your soup is a bit too thin simply add some red lentils, barley or rice over heat and it will thicken right up. From there you just need a pie crust.

Thanks! Jeff

Here are a few other recent baking instructables:

• Chocolate Eclairs - surprisingly, easier than they look
• Babka Basics - a classic that's too often overlooked