Chicken and Leek Pot Pie

It’s not quite Fall yet but sometimes you’re just in the mood for Fall comfort food. One of my favorite things I used to make is a chicken pot pie. It was good and turned out so thick that you could slice off a piece for leftovers and the filling would stay perfectly in place. My Dad could eat an entire pot pie in one sitting.

You don’t have to give up comfort foods though when you’re trying to eat healthy or cut back. You just need to get a little bit more creative. The filling part is pretty easy to modify by leaving out the butter and using flour and broth without the whole milk. The crust is a little more challenging but not impossible. Instead of using a top and a bottom crust that packs a huge calorie and fat punch, you can use biscuits like I did in this pot pie version or you can use just a little bit of crust and make it look pretty.

I used just a quarter of one pie crust and sliced it into strips. I used a simple as heck fancy basket weaving trick and wove the strips into a cute little crust that I carefully lay on top. It was just enough crust to provide that buttery crunch and texture but not so much that it loaded the pie and your backside down. It looked pretty too as a bonus.

Chicken and Leek Pot Pie 

• 1 slice bacon, chopped
• 1 medium (8oz) cubed sweet potato
• 1 cup (130g) diced celery
• 16 oz boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1/4 cup (30g) all purpose flour
• 1 large leek (200g), sliced
• Fresh cracked pepper
• 2 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 (50g) of a refrigerated pie crust

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a large pot with non-stick spray and heat over medium heat. Add the bacon pieces and cook about 3 minutes until it’s almost crisp. Add the potato cubes, celery and chicken. Cook for about 6 – 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked thoroughly.

Stir in the flour and leeks, and mix well to combine. Add a couple turns of the cracked pepper for flavor, if desired. Cook for about a minute and add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly to avoid lumps from the flour. Simmer for 3 – 4 minutes until the broth thickens. Remove from heat.

Pour the mixture into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Top with the pie crust. Bake at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. I strongly suggest baking the pie on a cookie sheet just in case there are any boil overs or drips. You don’t want those on the bottom of your oven to smoke up the house. Remove the pie from the oven and cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 servings at approximately 299 calories – 27g protein, 33g carbs, and 7g fat.

Notes

• I had a bunch of leeks leftover from another recipe so the purpose of this one was to use them up before they went bad. Leeks are similar to onions but they have a slightly different flavor. If you need another leek recipe, try the colorful cod soup.
• I used pre-cooked bacon because I had some in the freezer ready to go. You can use uncooked or the pre-cooked variety here.
• I purchased a 2 pack of the refrigerated pie crusts that come not-in-the-pie-pan. I used one of them to make my rustic apple tart and I used part of the other for this recipe. I actually sliced the rest of the crust, wove them into square shapes and cooked them with a little cinnamon and sugar for a treat for The Kid. Pie crust = gone at last.

So you really can have your comfort food and eat it too. Seriously, pot pie for just shy of 300 calories. You can’t beat that and it was full of flavor.

The leftovers reheated really well and we had them for lunch the next day. My freezer is looking so much more manageable now that I’ve been using up the random ingredients I’ve stored in there. Plenty of room now for new mystery odds and ends to take their place. 😉

What is your favorite comfort food? If you tell me, I just might have to try remaking it.