A lot of us have those meals that remind us of growing up. Typically, they’re comfort food meals like your mom’s meatloaf, your grandma’s Sunday sauce, or even those frozen Marie Callender’s chicken pot pies that you made in a pinch.
Yep, everyone remembers those individual pies filled with chicken, potatoes, and vegetables that you’d immediately scald your mouth on because you couldn’t wait for it to cool down—even The Pioneer Woman.
That’s right, Ree Drummond herself admits to eating “approximately one million frozen chicken pot pies from the grocery store” in her new cookbook, “The Pioneer Woman Cooks: The Essential Recipes.”
“For all their mass-produced-ness, I still thought those little chicken pot pies were amazing (and if I were to try one today, I’d probably still think so!),” she writes.
Except Drummond doesn’t need those frozen pot pies anymore because she has spent nearly 30 years perfecting her own chicken pot pie recipe—which she claims is the “most outrageously delicious comfort food dish you’ll ever put in your mouth.”
The Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Pot Pie
The Pioneer Woman says she’s been making her chicken pot pie recipe for close to 30 years, and it has barely changed. The biggest thing she’s played around with is the crust, looking for something that’s “flaky, bakes up golden and glorious, and doesn’t absorb too much of the gravy/sauce.” After trying store-bought pie crust, biscuit dough, and puff pastry, she’s landed on homemade pie crust as the best option.
Drummond uses her “All-Butter Pie Crust” recipe, which is also found in her new cookbook, but really any homemade pie crust recipe will do.
After the crust, her filling is always the same, made with rotisserie chicken, carrots, celery, and yellow onion in a buttery, creamy, white wine- and chicken stock-infused sauce that’s spiced with turmeric, thyme, salt, and pepper.
“Can you tell I have spent thirty years obsessing over this recipe,” she writes. “I hope you take one bite and instantly understand why.”
How To Make The Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Pot Pie
Ed Anderson
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) salted butter
- 2/3 cup finely diced yellow onion
- 2/3 cup finely diced carrot
- 2/3 cup finely diced celery
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 3 cups The Pioneer Woman’s Homemade Chicken Stock or store-bought stock or broth, plus more as needed
- 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme, or to taste
- 1/4 cup half-and-half
- 2 to 21/2 cups shredded cooked chicken or rotisserie chicken
- The Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pie Crust or store-bought pie crust
- 2 large eggs, whisked
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until the veggies begin to soften and the onion starts to turn translucent, about three minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the veggies and stir for another minute to let the flour cook a bit. Pour in the wine and stir for two more minutes to let it cook down and start to thicken the veggie mixture. Add the stock, turmeric, salt, pepper, and thyme.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low, then stir and let the mixture thicken for about five minutes. Stir in the half-and-half, then taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
- Next, add the chicken! If the mixture seems overly thick, splash in 1/2 to 1 cup of additional stock. (You want there to be plenty of gravy for the pot pie.)
- Set a two-quart baking dish (round, square, or oval) on a parchment-lined sheet pan, to catch any sauce overflow when baking. Pour the filling into the dish.
- Roll out the pie crust so that it’s an inch or so larger all around than the dish.
- Place the dough on top of the dish and allow the extra to drape over the sides. Trim off the excess so the overhang is uniform all around the dish then brush a little of the egg wash on the underside of the edge to help it stick to the dish. Cut three or four small slits in the center of the crust then brush the egg wash all over the crust.
- Bake until the crust is deep golden brown and the filling is starting to bubble, 25 to 30 minutes.
- Let the pot pie sit for 15 minutes before serving, to allow everything to settle. Serve by the big ol’ spoonful!
This recipe was excerpted with permission from “The Pioneer Woman Cooks: The Essential Recipes” by Ree Drummond.
