Tonight's Dinner: Personal chicken pot pies recipe

Left over chicken makes a great pie

Roast chicken is a wonderful family dinner, but there's usually a decent amount of meat left on the bones after one meal. Why not take that extra chicken and make personal pot pies for the family? You'll not only get a delicious dinner, but you'll use up the rest of the chicken as well.

Casseroles and pies are just a few of my favorite ways to use up chicken leftovers. But my most favorite is the chicken pot pie. Not only do you get to finish off that yummy chicken, but there are also vegetables and gravy all wrapped up in a delectably flakey crust. There's just one problem with chicken pot pie: the crust.

See, as much as I love the pot pie crusts, I'm not the best crust maker. Not only does it take an extra hour or so to mix together all the ingredients to make that flakey goodness, for me it never seems to turn out quite right. So I stopped making the delicious entreé for a while. I really started to miss it, but then a friend said to me, why waste all that extra time making a crust when you can just buy a package of puff pastry and use that as your crust? It was like a bolt of lightning. I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it before. Puff pastry also makes it easy to create personal pot pies for the family or for that special someone.

Personal chicken pot pie recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups milk
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3 cups cubed or shredded chicken
• 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, onion and celery and cook until tender, about five minutes. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl, add the peas and set aside.
3. Add the remaining oil to the skillet, add the flour and whisk until crumbly. Gradually add the milk until smooth and creamy. Add the reserved vegetables, salt, pepper and chicken to the milk mixture and stir to coat.
4. Roll out the thawed puff pastry on a floured surface. Cut it into four equal squares. Separate the chicken mixture equally between four ramekins. Lay each one of the four puff pastry squares over the ramekins. Prick with a fork or knife and cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry turns golden brown. Serve immediately.

More Tonight's Dinner recipes >>

Other pie recipes

Beef and Guinness beer pie
Cheese, tomato and spinach pie
Raspberry lemonade pie