These Super Easy Mini Chicken Pot Pies are a healthier, lighter version of your favourite comfort food made with puff pastry and in the perfect individual serving size!
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Ingredients in mini chicken pot pies
Okay, first of all HOW CUTE ARE THESE MINI CHICKEN POT PIES?!
I've taken your favourite comfort food, most likely made with love by your mom, gramma, aunt or whoever's the good cook in the fam, and made it a teensy bit healthier, and the perfect serving size for dinner. These Mini Chicken Pot Pies are freezer-friendly, so you can take them out and heat them up in the oven after a long day, and they're also made easier thanks to a bit of puff pastry.
Here's what you need to make them:
- onion
- garlic
- celery
- carrots
- thyme
- dried sage
- flour
- chicken broth
- shredded chicken
- peas
- puff pastry
How to make mini chicken pot pies
These mini chicken pot pies are so easy to make, but they'll take a little bit of time. I like to meal prep these for the freezer since they freeze and reheat so well. Here's how to make them fresh the first time, and we'll cover freezing in the sections below.
- Cook and shred chicken – you can also do this a couple days ahead of time or use rotisserie chicken.
- In a large skillet, saute onions, garlic, celery, carrots, salt and pepper. Add flour and mix well, then add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Stir in chicken and peas, then remove from heat.
- Divide filling evenly among 4 medium-sized ramekins that have been greased.
- Roll out puff pastry and cut into thin slices with a pizza cutter, then take the slices and add to ramekins in a criss-cross fashion (or just place a large piece of puff pastry overtop of the whole ramekin).
- Place ramekins on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy or let cool then freeze!
Making shredded chicken
To make the shredded chicken, you will boil it in water on the stove for 15 minutes before shredding with a fork and knife. If you'd like a more comprehensive resource on shredded chicken and the three different methods you can do it, check out my shredded chicken recipes guide.
You can also use store bought rotisserie chicken to cut down on your prep time – all you have to do is cut/shred it up and then add it to the filling as instructed below.
Ingredient substitutions
If you're looking to sub some ingredients in or out, I've got you covered. Here's what you can do to make this recipe your own.
Veggies – You can add any veggies you want to this recipe! I recommend keeping the onions and garlic as is for flavour, but instead of using celery and carrots, you can just use a bag of frozen veggies to make things easy. You can also use any type of veggie in this recipe – cauliflower or cauliflower rice would be a nice addition.
Chicken – You can shred your own chicken, use rotisserie chicken, or just double up on the veggies and leave the chicken out altogether for a vegetarian main!
Flour – Instead of flour, you can use cornstarch to thicken up the filling for this recipe. Just sub in 2 tbsp of cornstarch.
Puff pastry – I prefer to use puff pastry for the delicious taste and texture, but you can sometimes find mini pie shells that would likely work with this recipe, and then you don't have to use the ramekins as they should come with their own foil container to bake them in.
Adding the puff pastry
Honestly, puff pastry is my new cooking shortcut discovery of the year. It's SO easy to cook with (literally just roll out of the package and cut into whatever shape you want and bake), and it's a relatively simple ingredient without a ton of additives. Of course anything store bought is not going to be as good for you as something you can make from scratch, but I think it's safe to say that in the crazy busy world we live in today, it's not always possible to make your own crushed tomatoes or homemade stock or homemade pie dough, etc.
I'm all about efficiency, so something as simple as puff pastry or pre-made pie dough really makes these Mini Chicken Pot Pies come together in no time, and a little goes a long way. I only used one sheet (a box usually comes with two sheets) and then cut the sheet into 1-inch thick slices with a pizza cutter, then placed them over my ramekins.
So much easier than making an actual pie, and the criss cross weave over the top just oozes fall comfort food. You can just place a piece overtop of the whole pie instead of cutting into the criss cross weave, and that will save you even more time. From there just bake and watch the tops get golden brown!
Storing and reheating
You can store these mini pot pies in the fridge up to 3-4 days, whether you have cooked the filling and assembled in advance or if you have cooked the whole recipe at once. To reheat, I recommend you use the oven as that will get the puff pastry all crispy and refreshed.
Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes until the pot pies are reheated and the puff pastry is golden. These mini chicken pot pies taste so great even as leftovers! Another thing you can do is leave off the puff pastry from the pot pies that you will want to reheat, and add fresh puff pastry before baking. That way they really will taste like new!
Freezing mini pot pies
One of my favourite things about this time of year is giving yourself a break from the hectic-ness of life at night. There's nothing better than pulling out a little Mini Chicken Pot Pie out of the freezer and kicking back with some of your favourite shows.
You can freeze these mini pot pies up to 3 months right in the ramekins – just be sure to cover them with foil or plastic wrap to prevent freezer burn.
You can reheat in the oven right from frozen for 30 minutes in a 375 F oven. In this case, I would take a closer look at the type of ramekins you have to make sure they are oven safe and won't break during transfer – just be sure to take some precautions, otherwise you can defrost in the fridge overnight and then reheat.
Making a regular-sized pot pie
If you'd like to make a regular-sized chicken pot pie, you can easily do so by following this recipe! All you need to do is make the filling as normal, then grease a 9×9 round baking dish with cooking spray and add longer strips of puff pastry overtop.
You can also just place a large sheet of puff pastry overtop, or even use a store bought pie shell to make things easy; the calorie count will change slightly if you're using a pie shell, but it's an easy shortcut to make a regular pot pie without any fuss.
More comfort food recipes
Meal prep tools for this recipe
- Grab some oven-safe ramekins here
- I get all my free-range chicken from Butcher Box, conveniently delivered to me frozen.
- Freeze this recipe in glass microwave-safe bowls up to 3 months
Meal prep challenge
If you'd like some more help with meal planning, then you'll love my free 5-day meal prep challenge! It's basically a free course that will teach you how to meal prep and cook healthy meals at home with some PDF bonus materials. Sign up for free below:
Super Easy Mini Chicken Pot Pies
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp dried sage
- 2 tbsp flour
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 2 cooked chicken breasts, pulled (you can also use 1 1/2 cups leftover chicken)
- 1 cup peas
- 1 puff pastry sheet
Instructions
- Cook chicken in boiling water for 15 minutes until fully cooked and shred once cooled. I usually do this step a couple days ahead of time during my weekly meal prep or use leftover/rotisserie chicken for this recipe.
- Preheat oven to 400 F. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over med-high heat. Add onions, garlic, celery, carrots, salt and pepper, sauteing for 4-5 minutes until softened. Add flour and mix well. Add chicken broth, bringing to a boil and letting mixture thicken. Stir in chicken and peas, then remove from heat.
- Divide chicken mixture evenly among 4 medium-sized ramekins (I use the Coringware kind). Roll out puff pastry and cut into thin 1/2-inch thick slices with a pizza cutter. Take slices and add to ramekins in a criss-cross fashion, or just place a large piece of puff pastry overtop of the whole ramekin.
- Place ramekins on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 20 minutes until puff pastry is golden brown. Remove from oven, serve and enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
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Richard Deschambault says
Great comfort food recipe! I love your website; it gives me great ideas. I would personally cut down on the flour a little, as I find the sauce will thicken as well while baking them. But it’s all a question of taste, isn’t it? Keep up the excellent work, looking forward to your next recipe!
Debbie says
Yes these are definitely adorable! How would you recommend freezing and then reheating these? Thanks!
Taylor Stinson says
Hey Debbie! I would recommend freezing in the Corningware containers themselves or using mini foil containers! Reheat at 375F for 45 minutes or so!
Jennifer M says
I haven’t tried this but I will be shortly.
2 things
I see 6 votes but only 2 comments. Secondly, it’d be nice to be able to “jump to recipe”. My days are so full it’s difficult enough to just get the meal going without having to scroll through so much blogging and ads. I normally go back and read info on tips for cooking the dish. It seems so many recipes now have a book written before you can get to the recipe. I’m not saying you – but there’s so many out there that do.
Looks delicious ‘
Taylor Stinson says
Hi Jennifer – I am in the process of adding Jump to Recipe buttons on all of my posts, but with a backlog of over 400 recipes to update it’s taking me some time to work through them all. Thanks for your patience and your kind words!
Patricia says
Hi I am going to try this recipe soon. I am kind of new to cooking and I’m wondering how big of a dish I can use. Could I use one big dish or would it be runny like stew?
Ps thanks for all your notes and explanations it really helps as a novice!!!
Taylor Stinson says
Hey Patricia – if you’re new to cooking I would recommend that you follow the recipe exactly using the ramekins the first time just to absolutely ensure that it turns out! I have not tried this recipe in a larger dish myself either so I don’t feel comfortable advising. I would imagine you could use a 9×13 baking dish but then I don’t know how that would work with the puff pastry, and it might end up being too soupy as you’ve said. I’m sorry I wish I could help further!
Patricia says
Very helpful and thank you for the reply!!
Taylor Stinson says
Happy to help! 🙂 Will try to make a larger chicken pot pie later this year and update you!
emily says
hey how would you change this recipe if you are using refridgerated pie crust? i only have that.
Taylor Stinson says
Hey Emily – I wish I could help but I’ve never done this myself so I don’t feel comfortable giving advice 🙁 I wouldn’t want you to burn it or waste ingredients.
Amy says
I made this for my parents as a young chef and it turned out awsome!!! I did make a couple changes though, for one I didn’t do onions (personal preference), secondly, I decided to do one big pan of it, more like an actual pie or casserole, and lastly, I used a biscuit mix which I made and then instead of making individual biscuits spread the dough on top of the other ingredients. This turned out awsome! I put it in the oven at 400 degrees but only for 16 minutes. I did this because I didn’t want to overcook the biscuit, so at the 16 minute mark I put on some cheese, melted butter, and herbs then threw it in for another 2 minutes or so on broil. Thanks sooooooooo much for the tasty recipe! Hope this helped someone!
Irene says
Question – in the recipe it says “Add chicken broth, bringing to a boil and letting mixture thicken.” How long are we supposed to boil the chicken broth for? Or is there something visually I should be looking for? I wasn’t sure and felt that maybe I left it boiling for too long because I was waiting for it to thicken, more like a gravy.
Great recipe, used it for Thanksgiving leftovers.
Taylor Stinson says
Hi Irene – it’s just a couple of minutes, it should have thickened slightly because of the flower. Hope you enjoyed!