Chicken Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuit Crust

a classic recipe for sunday supper

this recipe is inspired by and modified from the cheddar bay biscuit pot pie recipe from ilungaa (Annai) on instagram. Annai’s recipe is great but includes certain flavor profiles that stray from more traditional pot pie flavors that my family prefers. The pot pie filling of this recipe is more classic but includes a tweaked version of the cheddar biscuit crust Annai shared (which i find to be more texturally pleasing than pie crust).

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Ingredients

Chicken Pot Pie Filling

• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thigh

• 4 tbsp (half stick) unsalted butter

• 1 cup half & half

• 1/4 cup parmesan¹

• 1/3 cup all purpose flour

• 1 yellow onion (I use the larger ones), diced

• 3 (fat) carrots, diced

• 3 (long) celery stalks, diced

• 5 garlic cloves, finely diced

• 1 cup frozen peas²

• 3 cups chicken stock

• 1 tsp fresh thyme

• Herbs de provence, smoked paprika, salt and black pepper

Cheddar Biscuit Crust

• 2 cups all purpose flour

• 1 tbsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1.5 tsp each of garlic powder, salt and sugar

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and grated

• 4 ounces of shredded cheddar (medium or sharp), cold

• 3/4 cup buttermilk, cold

• more (melted) butter for brushing³

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Instructions

Chicken Pot Pie Filling

1. Season the chicken thighs with salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Sear the chicken thigh in a skillet;⁴ no need to cook the chicken all the way through but you want to get a good color and crust on the chicken. Set chicken aside to cool.

2. In the same pan, add the 4 tbsp of butter and sauté the onions, celery and carrots until softened, about 6-8 minutes on medium heat. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Make sure to scrape up the chicken fond on the bottom of the pan.

3. Add garlic, fresh thyme, 1 tsp herbs de provence and 1 tsp smoked paprika, sauté on medium until fragrant, about 2-3 mins.

4. Add in the flour and stir well, cook for about 3-4 mins stirring frequently to avoid burning the flour. Turn down the heat a bit if needed.

5. A little at a time, stir in the chicken stock and mix and scrape constantly until no flour/veg clumps remain and then mix in the half and half until combined. Simmer on low until slightly thickened and stir occasionally.

6. Chop the chicken into cubes, add the chicken and peas into the filling and mix. Let the peas cook a bit since they are frozen and then taste and season the filling if and as needed. Optionally stir in the parmesan, it will add some saltiness and help thicken the base. (My husband and I prefer quite a peppery and herby filling so I really crank on the pepper grinder at this stage.)

7. Turn the heat off the filling and while it is cooling, preheat the oven to 400 F and work on the biscuit crust.

Cheddar Biscuit Crust

1. In a bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, salt and garlic powder. Mix to incorporate before adding the shredded cheddar and grated butter. (Optional - crack some black pepper into this as well. See comment about pepper love above lol)

2. Gently stir in the buttermilk until just incorporated. Avoid overworking the dough but it should be able to lightly pack together when you create mounds.

3. Using golf ball sized blobs that are lightly flattened, cover the top of the pot pie filling/skillet with the biscuit crust

4. Bake⁵ at 400 F for about 30 mins (Check the crust at 22 ish mins, brush the top with butter (or heavy cream, see FN 3 below) and sprinkle some more salt on the crust and bake for the remaining time) based on your oven it may take less than the full 30 mins.

5. Let cool for at least 10-15 minutes before serving. Add more black pepper if desired (again, we love pepper).

This recipe comfortably serves 6-8 depending on side dishes.

instagram:

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1. I’m still not sold on whether this is entirely necessary. This quantity is already significantly reduced from the inspo recipe and I’m not sure if the flavor payoff is significant for only needing a quarter cup. I think you have parm laying around, great, but don’t go out of your way to buy parm for this recipe.

2. This amount could be increased if your skillet has the room to spare.

3. If you have heavy cream laying around, then you could also brush the cream on top of the biscuit in lieu of the melted butter.

4. This would ideally be the final skillet in which you bake the pot pie, so be mindful of width and depth.

5. I strongly recommend placing the skillet on a foil lined baking tray because this will very likely bubble over and will save a lot of cleaning time.