Easy Skillet Pot Pie Recipe

This isn’t the usual sweet dessert pie you see on this website, but it’s certainly worthy of attention. Today we’re making pot pie in a skillet – where leftover veggies and chicken or turkey meat come together in an ovenproof skillet. Topped with a buttery pie crust, this easy skillet pot pie is everything you’d want and expect from a one-pan meal.

I often find that comfort is born out of familiarity, especially when it comes to our favorite recipes. Here, I combine leftover chicken or turkey with nutritious vegetables and simmer them in a generously seasoned and creamy stock. Once cooked, the rich, delicious filling is foiled in buttery pie pastry.

I used my traditional chicken pot pie recipe as the base but made a few key adjustments to save time. These few tricks actually cut the work in half! Try them for yourself:

• Prepare everything in 1 pan
• Use leftover veggies and turkey or chicken
• Cover with homemade or store-bought frozen pie crust

I highly recommend you stock your refrigerator or freezer with pie crust NOW. Simply shape pie dough into discs, wrap each in plastic wrap, and store them in the freezer. I can produce 6 pie crusts in 30 minutes. I always have crust on hand for, you know, pie-mergencies. Obviously.

Tell Me About This Skillet Pot Pie

• Texture: Tender bites of chicken or turkey, hearty vegetables, and flaky, buttery pastry make a winning combination. Trust me, this pot pie will put a smile on your face.
• Flavor: You need the carrots + celery + onion as the base, but you can have a little fun with the extra veggies: peas, bell peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, corn, etc. I used mushrooms + frozen peas + leftover rotisserie chicken. This recipe is perfect for using up the extra meat and veggies lingering in the refrigerator, including leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
• Ease: This is a relatively easy homemade dinner recipe. It’s customizable based on ingredients you have/love. You also don’t have to mess with a bottom pie crust and the entire recipe cooks in just 1 pan. Let the filling cool for at least 10 minutes before topping it with the pie crust. Don’t worry too much about perfecting the pie topping: you want it to look rustic, but more to the point, it will lose its integrity once it’s cut and served.

Overview: How to Make Skillet Pot Pie

The full printable recipe is below, but let’s walk through it so you understand each step before you get started.

If pie crust isn’t your thing, feel free to top with biscuits just as we do when making this biscuit vegetable pot pie.

A Kitchen Essential: The Ovenproof Skillet

If you haven’t invested in a cast-iron or ovenproof skillet yet, get one now! You can make everything from crispy honey skillet cornbread and cornbread chili casserole to flaky biscuits, frittata, or a fruit-studded blackberry peach skillet cornmeal cake. Add a hearty skillet pot pie to the equation and you’ll wonder how you lived so long without one. This pot pie is the ultimate comfort food: as cozy as flannel jammies and (almost) as delicious as grandma’s version. All you need is one pan and you’re all set for dinner.

If you don’t have a skillet, you can follow the assembly and baking instructions for this turkey pot pie.

Do you see all those beautiful chunks and swirls of butter in the pie crust below? That’s a good thing. This is an odd thing to shout but YOU WANT CHUNKS! Visible chunks of butter mean (1) you didn’t overwork the dough and (2) more flakes. If you overwork the dough, you’re breaking the butter down too much and will miss out on a flaky crust. So… do less work.