We are officially in T-Day week!! Wahoo! Hopefully you have just a few days of work, and it’s turkey time! And family and friends time too lol – but lets be honest, we are here for the food. After the big day, you have all these leftovers, and obviously, turkey sandwiches are a must, yet there has to be something more! I’ve got a great idea for you!!!
Turkey Pot Pie!
It’s straight up one of the best things you can do with your leftover turkey and maybe even some of your leftover veggies. I used Martha Stewart’s Basic Pie Dough Recipe. I will go through that recipe first because (this is important) you need to refrigerate the dough for at least an hour before use! I will then move on to the pot pie part – you can always use store bought pie crusts and not make your own either. If that is the case, scroll down to the pot pie part. Also, you can use this for chicken too, but it has to be cooked prior to starting this recipe. That’s why leftover T-Day turkey is perfect since it’s already cooked!
Here we go!
Martha Stewart’s Basic Pie Dough:
For the crust, you need flour, butter, sugar, kosher salt and a food processor with a dough blade. I think you can use a mixer, but Martha says food processor so I do what Martha says! Not pictured: Ice water
Put 2.5 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt in the processor – pulse until its combined.
Cut up your two sticks of cold unsalted butter.
Toss the butter into the processor – “pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with just a few pea-sized pieces of butter remaining” per Martha verbatim.
Add a quarter cup of ice water, then pulse the dough until it is crumbly. It should hold together when you squeeze it with your fingers.
Mine did not hold together after just a quarter cup of water, so Martha says to add a tablespoon of water at a time until it holds together. I did that, and it worked. If you want a flaky crust, try to avoid over processing the dough. Next put half the dough on to a piece of plastic wrap and create a three quarter inch thick disk, wrap up. Repeat with other half and place in the fridge until for at min an hour or up to the three days.
If you are going to make your own dough, plan accordingly! You can find are recap of the ingredients and directions from above right here on Martha Stewart’s website.
Turkey Pot Pie
Now time for the good stuff! The turkey pot pie – wahoooo!!!! You can choose to make your dough or you can buy pre-made dough. If it’s the frozen kind (I’ve never used that), make sure the sheets are thawed. I suggest using refrigerated pastry dough if you don’t make your own.
Here are just some of the ingredients you need. Pictured are carrots, celery, broccoli, green onions (scallions), large white onion, chicken broth, all-purpose flour and peas. Not pictured is of course the TURKEY, two Yukon gold potatoes, salt, pepper, olive oil, parsley and one egg.
To start, preheat oven to 425°.
Before you start chopping veggies, fill a large pot up with water and begin to bring to a boil.
Chop up your potatoes, broccoli and carrots. The two potatoes should be about one inch cubes. Broccoli can be in chunks and/or florets. I used the carrots that were pre-sliced so I kinda just diced them up smaller. The broccoli was about two cups, and the carrots comes out to be about one and half cups.
Add to those vegetables to the boiling water to cook. You only want to cook them for about 5 – 7 mins or so in the water. You want them cooked, but not mushy and overcooked because they will continue cooking later on. So boil just long enough to take the toughness away but still firm. Then strain and set aside.
While those veggies are cooking, you can dice the white onion, three large stalks of celery and two green onions. If you have fresh parsley now is the time to dice up about a quarter of a cup really fine.
Dice up your turkey, about 2 – 3 cups, and set aside.
In a VERY LARGE skillet or sauce pan, heat up a tablespoon of olive oil over medium to high heat. Above is my frozen oil parsley cube. This past year I had a garden and preserved my fresh parsley at year end in cubes so I could pull it out and use when needed.
After the olive oil is heated, add the onions, celery and your fresh parsley and a shake of kosher salt. I don’t go too overboard with the salt since the chicken broth later will have some in it. If you want a measurement, I would say a teaspoon for now. You can always add more later. At this time, I would add the diced up celery, too (it’s not pictured). I added it later, and with our pot pie it wasn’t as cooked as I would have liked it to be (it was still tasty, but not perfect). Again, it is not pictured, but put it in! Saute everything until the onion is tender.
Once the onion is tender, stir in one cup of all-purpose flour, one more teaspoon of kosher salt and green onions. Mix it around until the onions and celery are completely covered.
Next, gradually add one cup of chicken broth to the mixture and top it off with a teaspoon of pepper. You can add a lil more broth if you need to. Make sure you stir everything constantly. Do this for approximately two minutes or until the mixture thickens.
After it thickens, stir in your cooked vegetables that were off to the side until evenly mixed.
Add in a cup of frozen peas.
Stir in your turkey next, combining everything together. Continue to stir until everything is heated. Like I said you need a REALLY BIG sauce pan to fit all that goodness in there. If at any point you don’t think everything is going to fit, you can always put the skillet mixture in a large stainless steel mixing bowl, combining the turkey and mixture in the bowl instead.
When everything is combined, the mixture should look like the above picture.
Roll out your dough on a clean, floured surface. Make sure you have greased your pie dish. You might get lucky, rolling the dough out perfectly for the bottom of your pot pie. If you are like us and it doesn’t make a perfect circle, you can patch it together like I pictured above. Trim the sides that may hang over and add to your other disk so as not to waste them.
Fill your dish with the mixture – you can pile it pretty high. Our pie dish is 9 inches in diameter. We piled our mixture really high to get it all in, but it fits. Feel free to pat it down a lil with the the back of the spoon to get it all in.
Re-flour your work surface and roll out the other disk for the top.
Cover the top of the pot pie with the piece you just rolled out. It’s okay to patch the top if it’s not perfect! Then pleat the top and bottom together by pinching both layers with your fingers. If you have excess like above, trim it before pleating the edge.
Poke vent holes in the top with a knife.
Prepare an egg wash by cracking one large egg in a bowl and lightly whisking it with a fork.
Wish a brush, apply the egg wash to the all over the pie, even the edges. Then bake at 425° in a preheated oven for 35 – 40 mins.
Remove and let stand for 15 mins – Note I missed a egg washing, whoops!
After 15 minutes, serve and enjoy!!!
Turkey Pot Pie Recipe:
Servings: 8 – 10 depending on how big your slices are
Equipment:
- Large Pot
- Strainer
- LARGE skillet or sauce pan
- Spatula
- Cutting board
- Knife – to chop
- Knife – to poke holes
- Small bowl
- Fork
- Brush
- Pie Dish
- Rolling Pin (if you made your own
- Bowl to set veggies aside (if you want)
Ingredients:
- 3 – 4 cups of leftover turkey, chopped up
- 2 yukon gold potatoes, chopped
- 1.5 cups of chopped carrots
- 2 cups of chopped broccoli
- 1 large white onion, diced
- 3 stalks of celery, diced
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 2 tablespoons of parsley, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- kosher salt
- 1 cup of all-purpose flour
- 3 cups of chicken broth
- Pepper
- Pie crust dough (you can buy this pre-made or use the recipe above)
- 1 egg
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 425°
- In a pot, bring water to a boil
- While the water is coming to a boil on the stove, chop up the potatoes, broccoli and carrots
- Once water is boiling, carefully place the potatoes, broccoli and carrots – cook for about 5 – 7 mins. You want the vegetables still firm, not mushy
- While the vegetables are boiling, dice the large white onion, celery, green onions and parsley
- Chop up approximately 3 – 4 cups of turkey (your call on how much turkey you want to use)
- In a LARGE (I MEAN HUGE) skillet or sauce pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium to high heat
- Add in the onions, parsley, celery and teaspoon of kosher salt – saute until onion is tender
- Add 1 cup of flour, green onions and 1 more teaspoon of kosher salt – stir until everything is coated very well
- Slowly add in 3 cups of chicken broth and a teaspoon of pepper, stir continuously until the mixture thickens
- Add 1 cup of peas, stir – feel free to bring the heat down to medium at this point or lower if you feel like it’s necessary
- Add in turkey, stir – see above for a suggestion on what to do if you don’t think it’s all going to fit in the sauce pan
- Turn heat down to low or completely off once everything is mixed
- Grease pie dish
- Flour a clean surface. Roll out 1 half of your dough for the bottom of the pie. Place the dough into the dish for the bottom layer – you may patch it up if need be (see above). Trim edges and add back to the dough you have for the top
- Fill your pie dish with your mixture, you can pat it down to get it all in and it can even go pretty high up, if need be
- Re-flour your work area. Roll out your dough for the top part of pie – cover the mixture in the dish with the layer you just rolled out. Patch, if need be (see above)
- Pleat your dough by pinching the top and bottom layers together (see above) and trim it along the way
- Poke vents into the top of the crust with a knife
- Crack 1 egg into a bowl, whisk with a fork
- Using a brush, spread the egg wash over the entire pie and the edges of the pie
- Place oven in preheated oven and bake for 35 – 40 mins
- Remove when crust is golden brown, let stand for 15 mins
- Serve and enjoy!
WOA! There you have it my friend. Let me tell you something, I got hungry half way through working on this post and had to stop to eat. So, I hope reading about this makes you hungry and inspired to try it out with your T-Day leftovers!
You can always make this with cooked chicken – technically, when I first made this, it was with chicken, I think? Maybe? IDK lol. Also, if you want, you can make these in individuals portions with ramekins or even bake-able soup bowls. Make sure you put the ramekins or bowls on a cookie sheet before putting in the oven so you can take them out easily.
I swear, that was my last bit of info on this! Now go! Enjoy your Thanksgiving and holiday weekend and your leftovers too!
Peace out,
Wet Hair, Don’t Care