Raise your hand if you like chicken pot pie!  Would you like it even better if you could get the same great taste with less fat and calories?  Clean Eating magazine came through with a yummy recipe in their October 2012 issue.  I made it for the first time tonight and I know I’ll be making it again.  The recipe below is almost verbatim – why mess with perfection?!It takes longer to make the chicken pot pie than many of the other meals we’ve shared (it took me about an hour and half including 25 minutes baking time) but it’s worth it.  The pot pie fed my family of four and we have two servings leftover.  Another advantage is that the protein, veggie, and carb portion of our meal is covered with this one dish!

Ingredients

• Olive oil cooking spray
• 1 1/4 c whole wheat flour, plus a a tbsp for kneading
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 3 tsp safflower oil (I used sunflower oil, since that’s what I had on hand)
• 2 carrots, halved and cut into 1/4″ thick pieces
• 1/2 white onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 ozs frozen corn
• 1.5 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 3/4″ pieces
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 c low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 1/2 c 2% milk
• 1 c frozen baby (petite) peas
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• fresh ground pepper, to taste
• ground sea salt, to taste
• 3 tbsp cold unsalted organic butter

Preparation

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Mist a 2 qt baking dish with cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, whisk together 1 c flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.
• In a large skillet, heat 1 tsp oil over medium-high heat.  Add carrots and onion.  Cook, stirring occasionally until carrots are tender and onion is translucent.  Add in garlic.  Stir continuously to prevent garlic from burning.  Transfer onions, carrots, and garlic to a bowl.
• Spray cooking spray and heat corn through.  Transfer corn to bowl with onions, carrots, and garlic.
• Heat remaining 2 tsp oil; add chicken and Italian seasoning.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the chicken is no longer pink.
• Return vegetables to the skillet.  Stir and combine.
• Sprinkle 1/4 c flour over the mixture.  Stir until chicken and veggies and coated and the flour darkens.
• Add broth and stir.  Bring it to a simmer then add in milk.  Again, stir and bring to a simmer.  Once it’s simmering, reduce heat to medium-low.  Stir until it’s slightly thickened.
• Add peas.  Stir until heated through.
• Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper.  Stir.  Transfer the entire mixture to the greased baking dish.
• HINT:  Be sure to do the biscuits after the mixture has been transferred to the baking dish.  Adding the cold butter and finishing the biscuits at the last moment ensure a better rise and fluffier texture.
• Cut butter into 1/4″ cubes and add to reserved flour mixture.  Mix butter into the mixture using a pastry blender, fork, or your fingers (I use my fingers).  Add 1/2 c milk and stir until flour is just moistened.
• Lightly flour a work surface with the remaining tbsp and knead the dough into a ball (make sure your hands are floured).  Divide the dough into 5-6 equal pieces.  Pat each piece into a circle – about 1/2 thick and 2 1/2 inches in diameter.  Place disks on top of the chicken mixture in your baking dish.
• Bake for about 25 minutes.  I’ve found that my biscuits don’t brown (see below) when I use whole wheat flour.  However, I did check to make sure they were cooked through.  Also, the chicken mixture was bubbling.

Variations

Clean Eating‘s recipe called for button mushrooms instead of corn.  Since my family likes corn and we don’t like mushrooms, I substituted.  If you want to use mushrooms, the recipe calls for 8 ozs, stemmed and sliced.  Cook the mushrooms until the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are slightly browned.

The recipe also calls for 1/4 c plus 1 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley.  I didn’t have any.  If you do, add 1/4 c parsley when you add the lemon juice.  Sprinkle the remaining tbsp parsley right before serving.

I wanted to throw some celery into the mixture but I’m the only celery fan in my family.  So, I didn’t include it.  This time. 🙂