Celebrating Arkansas farm families means celebrating the products they produce and create from all across our state. With summer upon us, it seems the vegetable bounty is bigger than usual. This easy, herby, chicken pot pie is a great recipe for gathering families or dropping by to a friend. It’s easy enough for a weeknight or hearty enough for a Sunday dinner.
I am serving as an ambassador for the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board through my company Arkansas Influencers. While I’m being sponsored by them, all opinions and ideas expressed are my own.
This post may contain affiliate links where I get paid for you clicking on a link in this post. If you purchase anything via my links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I do actively participate in Amazon Associates Affiliate Program. For more information, visit my Disclosure Statement and Terms & Conditions page.
Soybean farming is huge for Arkansas. As a matter of fact, Arkansas ranks tenth in the nation for producing soybeans and it is the number one row crop grown in Arkansas, accounting for more than rice, sorghum, corn and wheat combined. According to themiraclebean.com and the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board, “Approximately half of Arkansas’s soybeans are exported, while the rest remain within the state to be produced into vegetable oil or soy feed for Arkansas livestock and poultry.”
“Approximately half of Arkansas’s soybeans are exported, while the rest remain within the state to be produced into vegetable oil or soy feed for Arkansas livestock and poultry.”
themiraclebean.com | Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board
Its garden season and that just means its easier to eat up the things around you! Whether you grow your own garden, have a farmer close to you or look forward to walking the aisles at your local farmers market, this makes such an easy option any time of year.
I’ll also add pot pie is one of the easy (and perfect) meals to take to people as well. Whether it’s a new baby, post-surgery, after a diagnosis, when a foster kid is dropped off or to ease the load of a busy week with a few ingredients, you have a masterpiece (that includes vegetables).
Amy Hannon, author of Love Welcome Serve cookbook issued a challenge in March for her pot pie to complete her mission to love on others and serve the Lord with gladness. She is a hospitality cheerleader and all about using her kitchen to love on others (sound familiar?!?). So I’m thinking I had pot pie on the mind when I hosted my mother in law that month. But, it was just what we needed on that cold, blustery cold, week.
I top mine with a crust (because I had a roll out crust in the freezer), but you could put it in a crust, use canned biscuits or a packaged baking mix or spooned biscuits.
Easy Herby Chicken Pot Pie
Ingredients
- 3 red potatoes
- 2 regular sized frozen chicken breast, or 2 cans white meat chicken (drained), or 1 lb fresh chicken
- 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
- ¼ Cup water or chicken stock
- 1 bag frozen mixed vegetables usually including green peas, carrots, corn and green beans – this can also be substituted with 1/2 Cup of fresh vegetables of each kind.
- 1 8 oz. tub garlic and herb cream cheese spread
- ½ cup milk or cream
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Pie crust or biscuit mix make according to packaged directions
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- If using a pie shell crust instead of top crust, cook pie shell as directed on package.
- Allow to cool.
- **if planning to make ahead, cook insides, then pour into pie crust right before serving.
- Crust will be soggy if stored in the fridge inside a baked pie shell.
- Peel and cut potatoes in ½ inch cubes.
- Salt water and bring potatoes to a boil.
- Boil for 10 minutes or until tender and potato easily cuts with a fork.
- Drain potatoes.
- Cut chicken in to ½ inch cubes.
- Pour vegetable oil in a skillet and heat as you cut chicken.
- Brown chicken in a skillet on medium.
- Sprinkle with the desired seasoning as it cooks.
- Microwave/steam vegetables as directed on package.
- **if using fresh vegetables, cut them off the cob, or out of the pods or into similar bite-sized pieces. Steam or par-cook before adding them to the chicken mixture. You could saute them in the same pan if you desire.**
- Once the chicken is fully cooked and browned on edges, pour water or broth into pan over chicken.
- Quickly scrape bits off bottom of pan and stir around chicken.
- Add potatoes and vegetables to chicken.
- Cook down until most of the water is gone.
- Scoop out cream cheese on top of chicken and vegetables.
- Pour milk over mixture and stir all together until cheese is melted.
- Add more milk if necessary for desired consistency for “inside” of pie.
- Let simmer in the skillet for 3-5 minutes, just let it get bubbly and married together.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- Pour in to pie plate or pie shell.
- Cover pie with top crust, if using this method.
- Sprinkle with a little herb mixture, whatever you have – even if its just salt and pepper
- Make sure to insert pie bird or cut a cross slit in the top of the crust to vent while baking.
- Make a few “poke” marks around top of pie crust with tip of knife.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 or until crust is brown and inside is bubbly.
- If making ahead of time, set out of the fridge while the oven heats up and cook 20-30 minutes based on how cold the pie is.
- If it has been frozen or in the refrigerator overnight, bake first 10 minutes covered with crust.
Notes
• Vegetables – in the future, I’d probably just use a bag of frozen “vegetables for stew” that already has the potatoes in it, but I had frozen veg and red potatoes left over so that’s what I used here.
• Cream cheese – this could be any brand and could be chive and onion or even garden vegetable. The whole time I stirred this, I wondered what herbed goat cheese or even better herbed allouette tub deli cheese would be like. Frankly, you could probably even do jarred cheez whiz (yes, the yellow kind) if you wanted that buttery cheddar flavor)
• Cream – you can do whatever percentage milk or cream depending on what you have. I originally did 1 Cup milk and it was way to runny and had to boil it down. I would start with ½ cup and add more if desired.
• Crust – for this recipe, I used a rolled out round pie crust on top, because that’s what I had in the freezer. But you could put it in a crust shell with no top. You can put a crust on top and bottom. You could top it with biscuits or you could top it with a pouched biscuit mix like cheddar bay biscuits from Red Lobster. That’s probably what I’ll try next time!
• Portion – this makes 1 – 9.5inch to 10-inch pie. You could double and make in a 9×13 or metal lasagna pan and take it. That could be topped with the biscuit topping or even crescent rolls or crescent roll sheet or puff pastry would make it so pretty.
Notes:
- Chicken – technically, you can use dark meat thighs, rotisserie chicken, chicken from the crockpot, etc. Whatever you prefer, that’s why it’s easy. It just needs to be about 2-3 Cups cooked.
- Vegetables – in the future, I’d probably use a bag of frozen “vegetables for stew” that already has the potatoes in it, but I had frozen veg and red potatoes left over so that’s what I used here.
- Cream cheese – this could be any brand – chive, onion, or even garden vegetable. The whole time I stirred this, I wondered what herbed goat cheese or even better, herbed Alouette or boursin tub deli cheese would be like. Frankly, you could probably even do jarred cheez whiz (yes, the yellow kind) if you wanted that buttery cheddar flavor)
- Cream – you can do whatever percentage of milk or cream, depending on what you have. I originally did 1 Cup of milk, and it was too runny and had to boil it down. I would start with ½ cup and add more if desired.
- Crust – for this recipe, I used a rolled-out round pie crust on top because that’s what I had in the freezer. But you could put it in a crust shell with no top. You can put a crust on top and bottom. You could top it with biscuits, or you could top it with a pouched biscuit mix like cheddar bay biscuits from Red Lobster. That’s probably what I’ll try next time!
- Portion – this makes 1 – 9.5inch to 10-inch pie. You could double and make in a 9×13 or metal lasagna pan and take it. That could be topped with the biscuit topping or even crescent rolls or crescent roll sheet or puff pastry would make it so pretty.
I love this recipe because there are so many options, given the circumstances you are serving. This was a weeknight dinner at home. I made it in the morning during naptime, let it cool, covered it with the crust and foil and put it in the fridge during our afternoon activities. I took it out of the fridge and put it in the oven and let it cook while I got salads and drinks together and set the table. SUPER EASY and interchangeable based on what we had on hand in our freezer and pantry!! This is also a nice way to hide leftovers after a big holiday meal.
We had it again the week after Easter with leftovers from our big meal. At our house, we never lack for chicken, but you could use leftover turkey or ham as well if that’s what you had instead. Pork could probably work, just cut it into small pieces.
You may also love version this if you are trying to keep things lighter or WW Friendly – Naked Chicken Pot Pie – all the yummy insides without the crusty calories.
