Chicken Pot Pie

During the cold weather, a warm, filling pot pie is irreplaceable as one of the best chicken recipes out there. And being loaded with nutritious vegetables, eating some pot pie is a thoroughly good idea!

It’s a pity about all the fattening cream that goes in there – so in our recipe, we’ve done away with it!

Ingredients (serves 4)

Crust:

- 250 ml of whole-wheat flour
- 3 tablespoons of ice water
- 1 teaspoon of cider vinegar
- A quarter of a teaspoon of salt
- 65 ml of vegetable shortening

Filling:

- 750 ml of chicken stock (separated into 3 cups)
- 350g of cubed sweet potato
- 150g of sliced carrots
- 2 teaspoons of butter or margarine
- 125 ml of chopped onions
- ½ a cup whole-wheat flour
- 500g diced chicken breasts
- 100g of peas (frozen is fine)
- A handful of chopped mushrooms
- ¾ of a teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of black pepper
- Olive oil
- 2 teaspoons of low-fat milk (1%)

Instructions

For the crust:

- Preheat the oven to 200°C. Measure out your flour.
- Mix together ¼ cup flour, ice water and vinegar into a small bowl. Separate to this, mix ¾ cup of flour into a larger bowl. Mix these bowls with the vegetable shortening in a pastry blender, or use two knives to mix if you don’t have a blender. Stir until the mixture becomes moist.
- Press dough mixture into a 5-inch circle on cling film.
- Cover this with more cling film. Chill this for 5 minutes.
- Roll the dough, still covered, into a 13x10 inch oval. Place the dough into the freezer for about 5 minutes, or until the cling film is removable.

For the filling:

- Cook the diced chicken in a pan – use olive oil to prevent sticking.
- Bring 2½ cups of chicken stock to the boil in a medium-sized saucepan. Add in the potatoes and carrots and cook for 2 minutes. Drain mixture in a colander over a bowl to save the liquid.
- Melt the butter into a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add in your onions and mushrooms and cook these for 3 minutes.
- Mix together ½ cup of flour and the remaining chicken stock, stirring with a whisk. Add these to your frying pan. Add in your potato mixture and reserved cooking liquid, your cooked chicken, mushrooms, peas, and salt and pepper. Cook for around 10 minutes to allow the mixture to thicken.
- Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool. While it’s cooling, spread some olive oil around the inside of a casserole dish.
- To add the crust – remove one layer of cling film from your dough, and position it over the chicken mixture. Press it against the edge of the dish and then you can remove the final layer of cling wrap from the dough.
- Finally, pierce some slits to allow air to escape and brush the crust with milk. It’s now ready for the oven!
- Bake at 200°C for around 45 minutes or until golden. When it’s ready, let it stand for 15 minutes. Dig in!

Health benefits

Not only is it filling, but chicken pot pie has the nutrients of all the veggies you add to it, as well as the protein-rich chicken. Since we’re using chicken breasts, we’re not eating the fatty chicken skin.

To lighten the pie, we substituted the heavy cream in the filling with chicken stock, and opted for whole-wheat flour as opposed to all-purpose because it is less refined. All-purpose flour, while delicious, loses more than 50% of its nutrients. With whole-wheat flour, none of the nutrients are lost.

For further nutrition information, take a look at our nutrition blog page.