Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie – The Ultimate Comfort Food

When I first ventured into slow cooking I spent years cooking meals you expect from a slow cooker –  beef stew, soup, chili…

It wasn’t until Lucy (my then 10 year old daughter) challenged me to bring more interest and variety to slow cooking that I starting trying the “unexpected.” I began by making a list of my favorite meals to see if  I could re-invent them for the slow cooker.

My first big success was Chicken Pot Pie. It was and still is one of my favorite dinners. I remember many nights as a child with a chicken pot pie on my lap in front of the TV – total delight. I love all of the variations with a special fondness for The Barefoot Contessa’s Chicken Stew and Emeril Lagasse’s Chicken Pot Pie. So in my quest for the unexpected I spent some time sifting through my old cookbooks and with some help from my friend Maria came up with this slow cooked decadent meal.

It easily fits in our 20 minutes and under guideline in fact I’ve made it so often I am close to making it in 10 minutes provided I use an already prepared roasted chicken from the market and pre-chopped onions.

Jane (always committed to healthy home cooking) created a lighter alternative but either way you’re in for a treat.

Ingredients

6 tbsp unsalted butter (or half butter half olive oil)
2 cups yellow onions, chopped
¾ cup plus 1 tbsp all purpose flour
5 cups prepared chicken broth, preferably lower sodium
2 cubes of chicken bouillon
6 cups cooked chicken, cubed
2 cups carrots, medium diced
10 oz bag frozen peas (or 2 cups fresh)
2 jars / 1 cup of whole cocktail onions (in the cocktail garnish section of your grocery store, or frozen pearl onions)
½ tsp ground black pepper
½ cup heavy cream *
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed for 15 minutes at room temperature

Melt butter/olive oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions and saute until they are translucent but not yet beginning to brown (about 4 minutes).

Add flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes.

Add the liquid stock and bouillon, stirring constantly to remove lumps until it resembles a milky liquid as the stock and flour combine.

Stir in chicken, carrots, peas, cocktail onions and pepper. Pour into your slow cooker and cook on high for 3-4 hours.

Stir in the cream 10 minutes before serving.

Cut slightly thawed puff pastry into 2 x 2 inch squares or cut with a 2 inch round cookie cutter. Bake as directed. (These can be made early in the day and kept at room temperature until serving time). Serve pot pie in bowls with a puff pastry topper.  Meg’s Tip – if you have an ovenproof slow cooker insert, once the chicken mixture is cooked place your pre-prepared pastry on top of the chicken mixture then take the insert out of the slow cooker and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes at at 350.

* More healthful option – substitute half butter for olive oil. Substitute the cream for half and half. Switch out the pastry and top with sliced toasted french bread rubbed with olive oil.

Looking Ahead
We’re lining up our cleanse-friendly recipe for next week.

Zen Toolkit
Use the meat pulled from a large grocery store rotisserie chicken.

Zen Moment
“When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It’s also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.”
– Molly Wizenberg, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, 2009