I love chicken pot pie. My best friend recently suggested that I come up with a paleo version. I accepted the challenge and got busy baking!
Honestly, I’d never had homemade chicken pot pie. I’ve had the frozen variety a couple of times (to my mother’s horror) and order it in restaurants when I want a warm, cozy, American classic.
I know I’m preaching to the choir when I say that the crust is the best part of a chicken pot pie. With my incredibly high standards for a flaky, savory, take you back to childhood crust, I started my paleo conversion. The experiments were a success. This recipe is DEAD ON.
I adore Ina Garten and used her pot pie recipe as a rough go by. Like the classic recipe, hers calls for green peas. The paleo friendliness of green peas is arguable. I left them in because to me, it’s not pot pie without green peas. Feel free to substitute with broccoli if you want another option.
In addition to these little pies being simple and delicious, they also make for surprisingly easy cleanup. The baked-on bits that unavoidably spill over wash off with ease – another testament to why cooking with almond meal is a great idea.
The instructions may look long, but it’s a simple process. Don’t be intimidated and jump in. Be sure you let the pot pies cool after baking; just like their non-paleo cousins, these little guys come out boiling lava hot.
Gluten Free, Dairy Free Chicken Pot Pie
Ingredients
CRUST:
- 3 cups Almond Meal
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- ½ cup Coconut Oil room temperature
- 1 tablespoon Cool Water
PIE:
- 2 Chicken Breast Halves Roasted and Cubed about 1 lb raw
- 2 cups Yellow Onions Chopped
- 2 cups Frozen Green Peas
- 2 cups Frozen Carrots
- ¼ cup Coconut Milk full fat
- ¾ cup Almond Meal
- 4 cups Low Sodium Chicken Stock
- 3 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil EVOO
- 1 teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1 Egg for egg wash
Instructions
ROASTED CHICKEN:
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Wash chicken breast and pat dry.
- Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Drizzle and rub 1 Tbl EVOO on the chicken breast.
- Sprinkle with generous amount of kosher salt and cracked black pepper.
- Bake at 350 F for 35 minutes.
- Remove from oven when finished and let cool.
- Cut into about ½” cubes when cool enough to handle.
CRUST:
- In a food processor, mix the dry ingredients together (almond meal, salt, and baking powder).
- Add the coconut oil and slowly pulse until it’s evenly mixed. It should have the consistence of peas.
- Slowly add the water and pulse until it forms a dough-like texture.
- Remove from food processor, roll into a ball and wrap in cling wrap.
- Put the dough into the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- [Now is a good time to start on the pie fillings]
- Dust a pastry board (or cutting board) with almond meal.
- Place the ball of dough on the dry almond meal and cut into 8 even sections. (Roll into one large piece if you’re making one large pie.)
- Using your hands first and then a rolling pen for even thickness, press and roll each of the 8 pieces into a circle.
- Keep dusting the top and bottom of dough with dry almond meal so that it doesn’t stick.
- Use the ramekin or dish you are baking in to cut the right-size circle in the dough.
PIE:
- Heat the EVOO in the bottom of a large pot.
- Add the yellow onions and cook on medium/high until they’re brown.
- Slowly add the almond meal and reduce the heat.
- Slowly add the chicken stock and stir.
- Add the coconut milk, 1 tsp salt, and black pepper.
- Add the peas, carrots, and chicken.
- Spoon an even amount into each of the 8 ramekins (or other oven-friendly bowls).
- Place the crust on top of the filling.
- Scramble one egg and paint the crust of each pie generously.
- Sprinkle with kosher salt and cut 3-4 slits in the top.
- Bake at 375 for one hour.
- Let cool, then ENJOY!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
We made this tonight (pregnancy craving!) and it was absolutely delicious!! My 4 y/o is going through a picky eating phase, but still tried it and loved it! We will definitely be making again!!
Awesome! Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Kate!
Just put my ramekins inside oven … the filling smells amazing and the crust feels soft … not to soft if you know what I mean … hope hubby likes it !!!! He doesn’t even know most his meals are “ diet “ he calls it ..
I am a natural improvisor, however this recipe was easy to follow.. I did adjust broth amount, used a splash of half & half (not paleo, I know) a little ghee with the crust and it came out great!! I didn’t really need to bake as long as an hour, I took it out early bc hungry people couldn’t wait and we all loved it! Thanks for a great recipe!
So glad you loved it Sara! I am the same way with recipes as well, I improvise here and there to my liking 🙂
I am concerned that this will taste like coconut milk…do the other flavors overpower it? Has anyone tried it with the coconut milk that comes in a carton or is that just too thin?
Hi Rachel! Others have tried it and no reports on it tasting like coconut milk, it just makes the inside thick and creamy. I think that coconut milk that comes from the carton will be too thin. Hope that helps!
i wanted to comment and say peas of any kind is not allowed on the paleo diet so you got them in this pot pie well this is not a paleo pot pie so people that are doing the paleo diet cant eat this sense there is peas in it
Hi Lynn! Cassy states that you can use broccoli instead of the peas in the blog post. Some people do just fine with peas so they can include them if they would like. Thanks!
I made this dish, and the family loved it, especially the crust.
I wonder how almond flout would do in the pie, instead of almond meal. I was not a fan of the texture of the meal in the pie mix, too granular for my taste.
Some comments. (Disclaimer–I have been spoiled by my wife of thirty years…she does all the cooking…ALL the cooking…my waistline is proof). If you don’t know your way around a kitchen, you may find the following useful. I am so non-skilled, I had to text my wife at work and ask her why the food processor just blinked at me, would not turn on. So, off we go…
When I combined the coconut oil with the dry ingredients, the results were porridge consistency. General consensus at dinner was that I “over pulsed” the mixture. And, I dropped in the oil a tablespoon at a time. Next time, I would put it all in at once, and pulse until I got the right consistency. All was not lost, however, I added more meal into the mix, and then some white flour…I reached for Panko, but thought better of it…it set up well in the refrigerator, and everything came out ok.
I overlooked the part where it says how long to cook the chicken for, so I turned to my trusted friend Google…ended up cooking the chicken at 420 for twenty minutes, came out nice and juicy.
What else…oh, yeah, the coconut milk…first time I’ve used it…it says “shake well”…seems easy enough command to follow. When I opened the top, it was solid, just as the oil was. So, I scooped out a quarter cup and dropped it in the pan. Then, I noticed the bottom half was liquid…evidently, it was a fail at “shake well”…so, I poured some liquid into the pan and hoped for the best.
Taking the dough from the ‘fridge, I started rolling out individual crusts. I learned quickly that the more I handled it, the more it wanted to fall apart. So, less handling, more rolling. I put the individual crusts between wax paper and returned them to the ‘fridge, and continued with the pie mix.
Anyway, long story short, for this beginner it was five hour adventure, including going shopping for the ingredients, shopping for individual serving bowls, prep and cook…
The recipe yielded just about 9.5 cups of pie filling. I added one more breast to the mix, and added a 1/4 cup of celery. Was enough for about five bowls, similar to the bowls in the pics.
Overall, I would give the recipe an A…not quite an A+, because I didn’t quite care for the texture of the almond meal in the pie. I don’t know if it was for flavor, or a thickening agent, but I plan on experimenting with almond flour, and coconut flour.
What a recipe to take on when you are not used to cooking! Thanks for the positive feedback John!
I am so upset I spent a lot of time and money cooking this and it turned into a oily slop :(((
I know this post is nearly 2 years old, but I wanted to comment in case it helps others coming across this recipe.
First, I want to say I have made this recipe and followed the directions exactly and it was awesome! We made it as one large pie. The crust was finicky, but it didn’t matter because it tasted great in the end.
This time, I was making some individual pies and bringing some to a friend who is allergic to almonds. I wanted to keep it Paleo still and wound up using Sunflower Seed Flour instead. All you do is get sunflower seeds, blend them up in something like a Magic Bullet and *voila*…Sunflower Seed Flower! It works exactly like the Almond Flour.
Since I was delivering this to someone who just had surgery, I couldn’t use glass ramekins, so I used individual serving aluminum pie pans. They’re a little shallower than small ramekins, so they don’t fit as much, but that means they make more pies. I got 10 individual pies out of this recipe.
The part of the recipe that says, “Place the ball of dough on the dry almond meal and cut into 8 even sections” should really be followed. I made the mistake of trying to roll out a big section and I just wound up having to roll the dough out again and again because I rolled it too thin and then it stuck to the wax paper.
I also chose to freeze these since I was making them for my friend to have for future meals. I covered each individual pie with aluminum foil and froze those. I put the round dough cut-outs in between wax paper, put them in a Ziplock bag, and laid them flat in the freezer.
We gave 4 pies to my friend and kept the other 6. We just took out one or two of the pies wrapped in aluminum, took the aluminum off the top, carefully removed the pie crust from the wax paper and laid the frozen crust on top of the pie filling. We brushed the egg wash on top, cut three slits (did not sprinkle salt on top as we didn’t think it was needed) and followed the same baking instructions as above (375 degrees for one hour) and they came out perfectly — no need to even defrost!
My husband and I love these things and they’re great to have on hand. We will be making a stock pile of these to have on hand this winter! Thanks for a great recipe!
Glad they turned out so well Katie!!
Thank you! I think this was the missing puzzle piece since switching to paleo 😉
Haha my pleasure!
This looked so good bad turned out so badly! 🙁 I followed the directions very closely too because it was my first time with the recipe. Dough did not stick to itself – crumbled like granola might. Gravy/sauce was watery even after religious stirring – was a nasty grainy AND watery texture all in the bottom after cooking. Cooking time for chicken made it fully cooked, so when it cooked again with the pie it became tough and flavorless. We could not bare to eat more than a couple bites.
Will not try again. I’m very sad. If someone is still trying out this recipe I suggest some sort of substitution of coconut flour for almond flour and the addition of tapioca flour in gravy/sauce mix.
Beat the egg, not scramble it, right? I am VERY excited to try the recipe for dinner tonight!
Exactly!
This crust was not great, sorry. Too salty, too crumbly. Pushed it off and just ate the veggies.
Re: Coconut flour usage. I don’t know if someone’s already answered this, but I was using a different recipe and it substituted 1/4 c. almond flour/meal with 1 Tbsp. coconut flour. So, going off that measurement, it should be a 3/4 c. coconut flour that equals 3 cups of almond flour. I’m going to try this tonight and let you know how it works!! I’ve been waiting a long time to finally be able to do this recipe. 🙂
Awesome!! I hope it works out!