Mini Chicken, Ham and Leek Pot Pies
Pies are a very important comfort food in many countries around the world. This blogpost gives you a delicious pie pastry and chicken, ham and leek filling recipe. This will enable you to make your own individual mini chicken pot pies which are wonderful as a snack at any time of the day.
A delicious Recipe for using Ham and Chicken or Turkey Leftovers
Christmas and Thanksgiving always leave a pile of leftovers that need to be used up, especially chicken or turkey and ham. Sometimes we put them in a single chicken ham and leek pie, or a chicken and mushroom pie, but in this recipe, we turn them into some delicious mini pot pies.
They are delicious hot and served up on their own or with a nice salad.
Shortcrust Pastry Recipe
The secret to this recipe is the delicious shortcrust pastry which initially I made myself this time, rather than using ready-made pastry.
Some people say life is too short to make your own pastry. But contrary to what some people say, it does not take that long to make a tasty pastry, and you will see that when you try this recipe.
Pastry ready to go in the fridge
Not only was this recipe easy to make, but it uses basic ingredients. The only thing is that you need to put it in the fridge for an hour or so to make it easy to roll out and shape.
The only problem was making the right amount. When I made this initially I used half the pastry ingredients and only had enough for nine pies. So I stored the extra filling and made seven more the next day using store-bought pastry.
The difference in taste was significant, with the homemade pastry being definitely much tastier than the store-bought pack from Aldi.
I will definitely use this pastry recipe again to make other types of pie – maybe even some sweet ones.
The amounts have been adjusted now in the recipe to make the full amount (although it will depend on the size of your muffin tin). My silicon muffin tray has holes with a diameter of about 67mm, and I made a total of sixteen of these pies.
Filling the Pies
The only tricky part of this recipe is filling them so you do not get too much leakage. You need to cut the base of the pastry large enough to give enough to work with when you are doing the crimping.
The egg wash needs to be brushed onto the pastry surfaces that will be crimped so that it works to glue the pastry together.
You can see from the pictures that my handiwork still needs some improvement. I did find that in some cases if you have enough pastry you can overlap on the top, which did actually provide a more reliable seal. It maybe does not look as good but it worked very well!
Overlapped pastry to give better seal
The big question I had was whether or not to put a hole in the top of the pies. I did this for the first batch, but then had quite a lot of filling leakage through the holes in the oven. So in the second batch, I kept them shut, and I think the result was better – less leakage and more filling!
Freezable Mini Chicken Pot Pies
The advantage of cooking individual pies is that they can easily be frozen after cooking and retrieved from the freezer when you need a quick meal. And also they taste better than any pies you can buy in the shops.
Just heat them up in the microwave or oven until they are cooked through.
I hope you enjoy trying this recipe and would love to see some pictures if you do!
How to make Mini Chicken Pot Pies with homemade shortcrust pastry
Mini Chicken Pot Pies with Pie Crust
These mini chicken pot pies are absolutely delicious with a yummy filling of chicken, ham and leek in a creamy sauce - also good to freeze for later.
Ingredients
For the Pastry
- 500g plain flour
- 240g butter
- 2 eggs
- 14 g granulated sugar
- 15 g salt
- 100ml milk
For the Filling
- 350g chicken breast (or leftover chicken or turkey)
- 150g cooked ham (I used leftover ham in this one)
- 1 leek
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 250ml milk
- 200ml chicken stock
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 100ml cream
- 1 onion
- 50g butter
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 1 tbsp thyme leaves
- 1 egg for an egg wash
Instructions
The pastry.
- Mix the sugar, salt and milk together. Then in a mixer or food processor mix the butter and flour together.
- Add the eggs and the milk mixture until a smooth pastry is formed. The pastry should be easy to form into shapes. Put the pastry in the fridge for an hour.
The filling
- If you are using leftovers then just chop the meat into small pieces and set aside. If you are using fresh chicken breasts, chop into small pieces and fry until browned on all sides (5-10 minutes).
- Use a food processor (I use my Nutribullet for this) to blitz the onion into very small pieces. Clean the leek and slice into rounds. Then sweat the leeks in a little butter (15g) for about 4 minutes. Then add the onion and fry for another minute. Set aside on a plate.
The Sauce
- Melt 35g butter in a saucepan and add the 3 tbsp flour and mix together. Then add the chicken stock on a low heat until it has thickened.
- Then slowly add the milk and simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Then add the minced garlic and thyme leaves and stir until the sauce thickens.
- Finally, add the cream, leeks, chicken and ham, stir together and remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Make the pies
- Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
- Remove pastry from the fridge and roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 3-4mm thickness. Use a cookie cutter to cut round pastry pieces for the base and top that suit your muffin tin. The pastry of the bottom should extend beyond the edge so that you can crimp top and bottom together properly.
- Place the pastry in the muffin tin and fill with filling using a spoon. Then place egg wash (whipped egg with a splash of water) around the edge of the base pastry and place the top pastry layer on top. The egg wash should act a bit like glue.
- Then crimp top to bottom pastry layers using a fork. Make sure you get a good crimp to prevent any leakage. (You may want to put a hole in the top to act as a chimney, but I found it to make more mess). Repeat for all the pies.
- Brush the top with egg wash and place the muffin tray in the oven for 40 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from the muffin tray.
Notes
These pies can be easily frozen and taken out to re-heat for a quick and easy meal. They can be re-heated in a microwave, but are better if heated in the oven.
You can reheat them from frozen in 30 minutes at 180C in a normal oven, or 20 minutes in an air fryer at the same temperature.
The quantities above are enough for about 16 muffin tray-sized pies (depending on your muffin tray size).
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 16 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 363Total Fat: 20gSaturated Fat: 12gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 119mgSodium: 657mgCarbohydrates: 29gFiber: 1gSugar: 2gProtein: 15g
This nutrition information was automatically calculated by Nutritionix, but may not be 100% accurate.
Make these pies when you have leftovers from:
Or maybe try this recipe instead: