Chicken Pot Pie with Cornbread Crust
This chicken pot pie has a creamy chicken and vegetable filling topped with a buttery, freshly milled cornbread crust and baked until golden.
Ingredients
For the Filling:
- 3.5 tbsp butter divided
- 3-4 chicken breasts cooked and shredded (poached or rotisserie)
- 1 large onion chopped
- 6 celery ribs diced
- 3-4 whole carrots diced
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped sage
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme
- 2.5 tbsp flour
- 1 1/4 cups chicken stock
- ½ cup heavy cream
- Pinch of turmeric for color
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 1 cup frozen peas
- Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
For the Cornbread Topping:
- 200 grams freshly milled hard white wheat flour 1 ¾–2 cups
- ½ cup cornmeal 90 grams
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1-2 tbsp cane sugar 1 for more savory, 2 for sweeter
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter chilled and cubed
- 1 cup buttermilk or milk with lemon juice, see note
Instructions
For the Filling
- Preheat to 400°F or 205°C.
- Sauté the vegetables: In a large oven-safe skillet or Dutch oven, melt 2 tbsp of the butter. Add the onion, celery, and carrots, and cook until softened, darkened, and lighting caramelized, about 8-10 minutes.
- Bloom the aromatics: Push the vegetables to one side of the pan. Add the remaining 1.5 tbsp butter to the cleared space, then add the garlic, sage, and thyme. Cook for about a minute, until fragrant.
- Make the roux: Sprinkle in the flour. Stir to coat and cook for a minute to get rid of the raw flour taste; this creates a roux.
- Add stock and cream: Slowly pour in the chicken stock and heavy cream, stirring as you go. Let the sauce come together and start to thicken. Stir in the turmeric, salt, and pepper.
- Add chicken and peas: Add the chicken and peas to the pan. Simmer until the chicken is warmed through and the sauce has thickened to a good gravy-like consistency but still loose, it will thicken more in the oven. Stir in a squeeze of lemon juice.
For the Cornbread Topping
- Mix the dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
- Cut in the butter: Add the chilled, cubed butter to the dry mixture and work it in with your hands, a pastry cutter, or a potato masher, until the butter is broken into small pieces and coated in flour.
- Add the buttermilk: Pour in the buttermilk and mix just until combined into a thick, scoopable batter. Not too wet, but not too stiff.
- Top the filling: Drop large spoonfuls of the cornbread batter over the filling in the skillet, then gently break it up and spread it out. Don't worry about making it perfectly smooth; a craggy, rustic top is the goal.
- Bake at 400°F until the cornbread topping is golden and cooked through, about 20-25 minutes, and the filling is bubbling at the edges.
Video
Notes
- To replace the buttermilk, add 1 tbsp lemon juice to a liquid measuring cup and fill to one cup with milk. Let stand for 10 minutes, then keep in the fridge until ready to use.
- Turmeric is just for a warm color, a true pinch is plenty. Too much will turn the filling greenish-yellow rather than golden.
- A splash of lemon juice stirred in off the heat at the end brightens the whole dish, add it to taste.
- For the cornbread topping, I find that it makes a thick, scoopable batter. I like to drop scoops of the batter all across the chicken mixture, then use my hands to break up the scoops into smaller pieces to cover the dish more evenly. I’m careful not to press the batter down into the chicken filling.
