Keep The Flavor And Save Yourself Time With Canned Chicken Pot Pie

A homemade chicken pot pie crafted from scratch is a beautiful thing — a flaky golden crust that gives way to a succulent sauce covering chopped, fresh vegetables and recently roasted chicken. However, making such a chicken pot pie can be incredibly time-consuming. On a busy weeknight and even on a lot of weekends, you might not have time to make a pastry dough, roast a chicken, chop and sauté your veggies, and make a roux and broth-based sauce. In these instances, go a different route, save yourself some time, and achieve a very similar flavor profile, all by reaching for some cans from your pantry.

No, we're not saying hunt down a canned chicken pot pie with the whole thing already assembled, cooked, and ready to slip and slide out onto your plate like a canned cheeseburger. Instead, for more appetizing results, you can simply rely on some canned food combinations that are sure to please. Roasted chicken? Grab a can of chunk chicken. Peas, carrots, green beans, corn, potatoes, any other veggies you like? Grab some cans. Gravy? Try a can of cream of chicken soup, thinned down to your desired consistency. As for the pastry crust, go for a top crust only and look to the fridge for canned biscuits or canned crescent rolls.

Yes, it's entirely possible to make a chicken pot pie in mere minutes using all-canned ingredients, where all you really need to do is open some cans, assemble, and heat. However, while this is quick and convenient, you might want to use a few other chicken pot pie hacks for even better results.

For example, do as the Amish do when they're making their pot pie (which, by the way, swaps the crust for noodles) and add in a little saffron. You could also dress up your canned combos vol-au-vent style by including equally convenient ingredients such as some cream cheese, a splash of sherry or heavy cream, or crumbled bacon. Like the idea of relying on canned veggies and soup for your filling, but don't care for canned chicken? Grab a rotisserie chicken near the check-out lane instead, for that roasted chicken flavor and combination of light and dark meat, with still very little work on your end.