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Deeply delicious homemade chicken pot pie.
If there is a better way to eat chicken, I have not found it. This homemade chicken pot pie recipe is everything: a creamy filling bursting with chunks of chicken and vegetables with a double butter crust, baked to perfection.
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Homemade Chicken Pot Pie Recipe Notes
Perfect roast chicken and chicken soup rank among the best dinners ever. But there is something about a warm, homemade chicken pot pie, made from scratch with a flaky, buttery crust, that just seems to make life — and dinner — better.
This recipe for homemade chicken pot pie does right by this comfort food classic, with a creamy filling stuffed with chicken and vegetables, plus a double butter pie crust to put it over the top.
What’s the Pot Pie Filling Made Of?
This chicken pot pie is made from scratch — no canned soup here! This chicken pot pie filling is made with a classic white sauce folded with lots of chunks of chicken and classic vegetables like carrot, celery, onion, peas, and corn.
How to Thicken Chicken Pot Pie
This chicken pot pie has just the right combination of white sauce, chicken, and vegetable filling. The sauce is a classic, milk-based white sauce, thickened with a mixture of butter and flour called a roux. Roux is a mixture of flour and butter that is cooked and whisked together over a stove.
Here’s how to make the roux for the chicken pot pie filling:
- In a large sauce pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat, swirling to make sure no areas of butter burn.
- Add the flour and whisk to a paste; this is your roux.
- Cook the roux until a light golden color, about 1 minute.
Then you will begin adding your liquid, which will thicken thanks to the starch in the flour.
Chicken Pot Pie Recipe Notes
This is a big ol’ deep-dish chicken pot pie. So use a deep-dish pie plate. if you use a standard 9-inch Pyrex pie tin, you will have extra filling. This is not a bad thing.
Here’s how you can adapt if you do not have a deep-dish pie plate:
- Enjoy the excess creamy filling it on its own, or over smothered buttermilk biscuits
- Bake the entire recipe, but use a casserole dish. A pie plate is not strictly necessary. You can line and cover a casserole with pie dough just as easily, and the result will be very rustic and homey, just like chicken pot pie.
- Cut the filling recipe down to a 3/4 recipe
Let the Chicken Pot Pie Rest After Baking
Let the pot pie rest. This chicken pot pie, like all proper pot pies, is fairly soupy when it comes out of the oven — not to mention 425 degrees Fahrenheit — way too hot to eat. Let it rest for a solid 15 minutes before digging in. The leftovers (if any) will be firmer.
Can I Substitute Puff Pastry for Pie Dough?
The Puff Pastry Alternative. Many great chicken pot pie recipes call for store-bought puff pastry, such as this excellent recipe from one of my go-to food blogs, Once Upon a Chef. Puff pastry is a delicious way to go, producing flaky, buttery layers similar to a pie dough.
If you do not want to make homemade pie dough, and want to use puff pastry instead:
- Eliminate the bottom crust (it will be too soggy) and cut a single circle of puff pastry two inches wider than the pie plate.
- Drape the puff pastry over the filled pie shell (leave the overhang in place).
- Then egg wash, use a knife to cut a few vents on top, and bake.
Perfect pie dough. A lot of people are intimidated by homemade pie dough for chicken pot pie. Don’t be. Homemade pie crust is actually easy to make, and the flavor and texture of a buttery pie crust here is worth the effort. Mostly you just have to 1) not overwork the dough, and 2) let it rest.
Read over my step-by-step tutorial on making great pie dough.
Did you make this Homemade Chicken Pot Pie recipe? You’ll also like:
- Roast Chicken With Herbs
- New England Fish Chowder
- Pan-Fried Chicken Tenders
- Homemade Chicken Soup
- Authentic Chicken Pozole Recipe
Deep-Dish Chicken Pot Pie
A hearty, homey chicken pot pie full of creamy chicken and vegetables topped with flaky crust.
Prep Time20 minutes mins
Cook Time45 minutes mins
Total Resting Time (Pie Dough + Finished Pot Pie)1 hour hr 15 minutes mins
Course: dinner
Cuisine: American, english
Keywords:: casserole, chicken, chicken pot pie, comfort food, dinner, homemade chicken pot pie recipe, pie dough, pot pie
Servings: 4 to 6 people
Ingredients
- 1 recipe perfect pie dough (recipe linked below)
- 4 cups cooked chicken meat (about 1 pound, from a roasted chicken), cut into a large dice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 cup peeled, diced carrots (about 3 medium carrots)
- 1 cup peeled, diced celery (about 3 medium stalks)
- 1 cup peeled, diced yellow onion (about 1/2 large onion)
- 1/2 cup peas, fresh or frozen (no need to thaw)
- 1/2 cup corn kernels, fresh or frozen (no need to thaw)
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup unsalted chicken or turkey stock
- 2 cups milk
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 1 large sprig thyme
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- 2 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste (I use Diamond Crystal; Morton's is saltier, so you may want less)
- 1 teaspoon fresh-cracked black pepper
- 1 egg, whisked
- flaky sea salt, such as Maldon, to garnish
Instructions
For the Pie Dough
Prepare a double-crust pie dough to the point of chilling the two flattened discs. Let rest, covered in the refrigerator, for at least one hour, or up to 24 hours.
After you have made the chicken pot pie filling below, remove the pie doughs from the fridge, and roll on a lightly-floured surface to a round 1.5" to 2" wider than the pie tin, and about 1/8" thick. Proceed as written below.
See AlsoHomemade Chicken Pot Pie {Made from Scratch} | SimplyRecipes.comChicken Broccoli Alfredo Casserole (Easy Recipe) - Meatloaf and MelodramaPuff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie Recipe (Small Batch) - Happy Foods TubeUnleash The Flavor Explosion: Explore The Delights Of Homemade Chicken Pot Pie Recipe From Scratch
For the Filling
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
While the pie dough is chilling, make the filling. Heat a large sauté pan or skillet over medium heat with the olive oil. Add the carrots, celery, and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and the vegetables have softened, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add the peas and corn and cook two minutes more. Remove from heat and set aside.
TIP: If the vegetables start to brown too much, or the pan seems dry, add a tablespoon or two of water.
Make the white sauce. In a large sauce pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat, swirling to make sure no areas of butter burn. Add the flour and whisk to a paste; this is your roux. Cook the roux until a light golden color, about 1 minute.
Add the chicken stock in several additions, whisking thoroughly to make sure no lumps form. Whisk in the milk, thyme, 2 teaspoons of salt, pepper, and bay leaves. Bring the sauce to a low boil, then stir constantly until thickened, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove from heat. Fish out the bay leaves and thyme. Add the diced chicken, parsley, and the cooked vegetables to the sauce, and stir to combine.
Taste for seasoning. You may need the remaining 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt or not depending on the saltiness of the chicken and which brand of salt you use.
To Assemble and Finish
On a lightly-floured surface, roll out one of the pie dough rounds with a rolling pin until the dough is about 1.5" to 2" wider than the pie pan and about 1/8" thick. Dust the pie dough with a little flour and rotate often so it does not stick to the rolling pin or the counter.
Pour the chicken pot pie filling into the pie shell and smooth with the back of a spoon. Do not overfill.
Roll out the other pie dough as above, and gently drape over the filling. Using a knife or kitchen shears, cut the excess dough from the pie, leaving about a 1" drape on all sides.
Tuck the draped dough upward, folding it down onto the rim of the pie. Use the tines of a fork to crimp the edges and seal the two doughs. Lightly brush the whisked egg wash over the pie and garnish the top with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, such as Maldon. Use a knife to cut a few vents in the top.
PRO TIP: Put the pie plate on a rimmed baking sheet or some tin foil to catch any juices that may spill out of the pie during baking.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the filling bubbles slightly from the vents. Rest for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.
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Tagged with
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14 comments
Lori
4 months agoReply
This is over the top delicious!! It was sublime! My husband couldn’t stop eating it. Truly perfection.Unpeeled
4 months agoReply
Oh yay!! I am so glad to hear this and I am glad you enjoyed.
Linda
1 year agoReply
Hi there: I have made this a number of times and it is indeed DELICIOUS. Wondering if I can put it together in advance and freeze it without cooking it until needed.
Thanks,
LindaUnpeeled
1 year agoReply
Hi, Linda! I am so very sorry that this comment got lost in the shuffle and I’m just now responding. I am so glad you like it! You can definitely freeze this. Assemble, chill fully, wrap in plastic wrap, and then freeze. You can bake this directly from frozen. It will just take a little longer and the bottom crust might be slightly less crisp. If the top crust starts to brown too much before the center is bubbly and hot, just tent it with foil.
Keri
2 years agoReply
I made this in a Brown Betty casserole dish – I wished I had just a little more pastry for the size but still turned out tasty- there were practically no leftovers! Before cooking I was concerned it tasted too salty (I’m a poor judge so used the amount in the recipe) but seems to have worked out by the end of cooking. Is it just me or is parsley in the ingredient list but not in the directions? After it was in the oven I realized I’d never added it.
Unpeeled
2 years agoReply
Hi, Keri! Glad you enjoyed. And good catch–the parsley was missing from the directions part of the recipe. This has been corrected. Thanks again, and happy Pi(e) Day!
kisaman
2 years agoReply
Should I blind=bake the bottom crust before adding the filling?
Unpeeled
2 years agoReply
Great question. Generally speaking, I am a big believer in blind-baking bottom crusts before adding a creamy or custardy filling to keep the pie dough crisp. This recipe doesn’t call for that, though, for a couple of reasons. The baking time is fairly long. Blind-baking the bottom crust would add an additional 20-30 minutes, which might deter some people. A blind-baked bottom on a 2-crust pie could also makes it tricky (in my opinion) to adhere the top crust to the bottom. This could be problematic because the filling can bubble out of the sides when baking. Although a blind-baked bottom crust would be ideal, I do find that the long baking time ensures that the bottom crust gets some color by baking from the bottom up. So a bit of a trade-off, but I tend to think that sacrificing a bit of bottom crispiness is outweighed by the practicality of not doing it here.
Steph
2 years agoReply
This was amazing! I nine of us to cook for, well 8, one is a 4mo old baby, and I doubled the recipe and made two deep dish pies! I used your pie crust recipe and followed it precisely and loved your “shaggy mess” description. I pride myself on my pies and for years have struggled with the flaky crust. This was PERFECTO!!!!!! I was pleased as punch. And, yes, your pic on the pie crust recipe saying ” No. Don’t do this, overworked dough” looked like my mom’s crusts which were hard because she used her Cuisinart to mix!!!! I always disagreed with that, even as a girl, and mixed by hand to feel it. But the shaggy mess helped immensely! And the filling! My first time making pot pie!! My husband and sons had been out working hard in the heat (we’re in the southern hemisphere) all day and were thrilled to come home to this lovely meal! Wow! Thank you! I did dump some brandy in the filling with the broth as I love alcohol in whatever I can put it in, lol! Also, sorry, long comment, but I read your background and my paternal grandmother (whom I loved so much) was from Calabria. Grandpa was from Fugi. They were Baltimore natives and I loved their Italian cooking growing up. Anyway, meant to mention that awhile ago. Loved this recipe!!!!Unpeeled
2 years agoReply
What a wonderful note! Thank you so much. I am glad that the recipes worked out for you…sounds like you have your pie dough technique down perfectly, too! And I love hearing from fellow Southern Italian people 🙂 Thank you again for this wonderful note.
Izzy T.
3 years agoReply
Outstanding. Creamy and full of good stuff. The homemade pie crust puts it over the top.Jeannie
3 years agoReply
Made this tonight and we loved it !!
The crust was so good and not difficult to make. . Can’t wait to warm the leftovers up tomorrow Thx for another great recipeF.R
3 years agoReply
I admit that I did not make the pie crust because I wanted to simplify a little. So I did a biscuit cobbler topping but the filling as-is and it was 100% great. This is an excellent recipe!Judy Thomas
3 years agoReply
FANTASTIC.
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