Easy Herby Chicken Pot Pie
This Easy Herby Chicken Pot Pie incorporates fresh summer vegetables in a quick weeknight dinner that is cozy and comforting. It's a great recipe to take and share with others or drop off with a little extra love.
Servings: 8 slices
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
Serve with a side salad.
• Chicken - technically, you can use dark meat thighs or rotisserie chicken or chicken from the crockpot, etc. Whatever you prefer, that’s why its easy. It just needs to be about 2-3 Cups cooked.
• 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 9x13 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.
• 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 9x13 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.