Having a ready made meal in your freezer is such a wonderful thing. These meals are here when you need them in a pinch. Let me show you how to make homemade frozen chicken pot pies to fill your freezer for later.
Why Homemade Frozen Chicken Pot Pies?
There are many reasons that I would suggest making these pot pies for your family. For starters they are by far my favorite things to have on hand. Delicious homemade goodness ready to be baked at a moments notice.
Our entire family really enjoys these homemade pot pies. They are also a wonderful thing to have on hand for giving away to family and friends. You never know when someone will need a little pick me up at a meal time.
Another aspect to love about homemade frozen pot pies is the simplicity of the ingredients that goes into them. Whole vegetables, chicken and homemade broth are such a wonderful blend of great nutrition and health benefits. Really what’s not to love?
Today I’m sharing with you my favorite homemade frozen chicken pot pies recipe. If you are like me, be ready to make more than one so you can fill your freezer even faster.
Please know that this recipe is very flexible. You can double any item in it to your preference or double the entire recipe. Tweak it so that it fits your families tastes.
Supply List:
Chicken (I used thighs-2lbs)
Carrots, peas, potatoes, corn, or any other veggies you like
An onion
Pie Crusts or your own homemade ones
Salt, pepper, parsley and thyme (learn to grow and preserve your own thyme)
Easy Homemade Frozen Pot Pie Recipe
Alright lets get started. Please note when I made this batch I made enough for one large pot pie in a 9″ pie pan, and three 7″ disposable freezer pie pans.
First take your chicken and put it in a large stock pot with plenty of salt (2 Tbs) some pepper (1/2 tsp) and half of an onion.
Cover the chicken completely with water and bring to a light boil. Then turn it down to low and let it cook low and slow for an hour or until the chicken is fully cooked and fall’s apart easily.
You could also speed this part along by doing this in your Instant Pot, or another programmable pressure cooker, if you have one. Just follow the directions for making homemade stock.
Pull your chicken out of the liquid and set it aside. Let this cool while you work on the vegetables.
Start dicing your veggies. You can put in any vegetables you like. If you wanted to base this on seasonality of produce or what you have on hand that is totally ok.
In our home the regular add in’s are potatoes, corn, carrots and green beans or peas. From gleaning peas in the previous year we have a lot of those to add to our pot. I also add the other half of the onion in the mixture. Since it cooks down so much the kids never even know it’s there.
Get a sauce pan nice and hot and melt three tablespoons of butter in it. I sprinkle in about 1/2 Tbs of parsley at this point as well. Then add your veggies.
Saute them for three to five minutes or until the vegetables are starting to cook a bit. Your carrots and potatoes will not be softening yet and that’s ok because they will cook through when you bake your pot pies. Your onion will become translucent.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup of flour over the mixture and let it absorb all of the juices.
Keep stirring so that you do not burn your roux, that lovely creation made from the butter and flour. This will turn pretty thick as you go and that’s good.
Slowly add a ladle the broth from the chicken pot into the sauce pan. Do this one ladle of broth at a time so that you can keep your roux as thick as possible.
I added about three to four cups. Liquid content is based on preference for your family as well. If you like a thicker pot pie use less liquid.
Pull your chicken out and shred it all up with some forks.
Add it to your pan and stir it all together. Here I usually add salt and pepper to taste and a touch thyme, maybe 1/8 of a tsp. I personally feel that thyme is pretty strong in flavor so start with a sprinkle and work your way up to the taste you like best.
Filling Your Pans
Once your filling is made grab your pie crusts and prepare your pans with one in the bottom of each pan.
Fill each crust about 2/3rds full. Do not over fill as this could boil over later.
Place a crust on the top and add a few vent slices in the top crust.
It’s a good idea for those that you are freezing to let them cool a bit before you freeze them. This helps to prevent condensation on your food and that nasty freezer burned taste people do not like.
Label and freeze.
Cooking Instructions for Pot Pies
To cook simply pull from your freezer and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Remove the lid part way through so you get a nice golden brown crust.
I personally do not bring my pot pies out the night before because when I need one it’s usually a last minute thing. Just ensure that the center of your pot pie is nice and hot and you are good to go.
Enjoy!
This is well worth the time when you have three spare meals frozen for later.
What’s your favorite freezer meal recipe?
Happy homesteading!
Trackbacks/Pingbacks