By Sarah DiGregorio
- Total Time
- 1 hour and 10 minutes
- Rating
- 4(822)
- Notes
- Read community notes
No one knows when people started making pies, but they were common in medieval Middle Eastern and European cooking. “The Oxford Companion to Food” speculates that the English word may come from the word “magpie,” because magpies collect random items in the way a pie often houses varied ingredients. It’s appropriate, then, that this pie is here to accommodate your Thanksgiving leftovers: turkey, of course, but also leftover roasted squash or sautéed mushrooms in place of peas, chop up half a rutabaga instead of carrot and celery, or a stray leek or shallot instead of onion. Any fresh soft herbs can go in the biscuit topping. For an even simpler version, use canned biscuits arranged on top of the filling as the crust, or defrosted puff pastry with a vent cut in the middle. For a more assertive flavor, use the larger amount of mustard.
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Ingredients
Yield:6 servings
- 2cups all-purpose flour
- 1tablespoon baking powder
- 1teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
- 8tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
- ¼cup thinly sliced chives
- ¼cup chopped, lightly packed fresh soft herbs, such as parsley, dill or tarragon
- ¾cup buttermilk
- 5tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1small red or yellow onion, chopped
- Kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
- 6garlic cloves, chopped
- 1small or medium carrot, peeled and chopped
- 2celery ribs, including leaves, chopped
- ¼cup all-purpose flour
- 1teaspoon onion powder
- 2cups chicken or turkey broth or stock
- 2teaspoons to 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- Juice of ½ lemon (about 1 generous tablespoon)
- 1½cups chopped or shredded cooked turkey or chicken
- ¾cup frozen peas
- Black pepper
For the Biscuit Topping
For the Filling
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
603 calories; 35 grams fat; 18 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 47 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 5 grams sugars; 27 grams protein; 640 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
Make the biscuit dough: In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the cold chunks of butter and toss to coat. Using your fingers, pinch, smear and squeeze the butter into the flour until the butter pieces are the size of a penny or the size of a pea. There’s no need for perfection, but the butter should be evenly distributed throughout the flour, and each butter bit should be coated in flour. Stir in the chives and herbs. Pour the buttermilk into the mixture and mix it briefly and gently with a fork, just until a shaggy dough forms. Cover and put the dough in the refrigerator while you make the filling.
Step
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Make the filling: Heat the oven to 400 degrees. In an oven-safe 10-inch skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion, season lightly with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent and shrunken, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic, carrot and celery, and cook, stirring, until fragrant and slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add the flour and the onion powder, and cook, stirring constantly, until the flour is completely incorporated with the vegetables, about 1 minute. Whisk in the chicken broth, mustard, Worcestershire and lemon juice, and cook, whisking, until the mixture comes to a bubble. Let it cook, whisking once or twice, until it thickens to lightly coat the back of a spoon, about 2 minutes. Stir in the turkey and the peas. Season generously with black pepper; taste and season with additional salt if desired. Remove pan from the heat.
Step
3
Evenly scatter the biscuit dough over the top of the filling, in golfball-size clumps. (Don’t press or roll the dough into neat balls, which can make the biscuits tough.) Put the skillet on a foil-lined sheet pan to catch any drips and bake in the oven until the filling is bubbling and the biscuits are lightly browned, 35 minutes. (If using canned biscuits or puff pastry, the cook time will be closer to 25 minutes. Check the package directions for a guide.)
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822
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Cooking Notes
Marie
I will be trying left over stuffing on top for the crust
Marie
How about using left over stuffing for the crust?
Kirsten
I followed the recipe very closely. I’ll delete the lemon juice if I make it again, and use a little white wine instead. The lemon put it in a direction I don’t expect for pot pie; it reminded me of dolmades.
Barb
It's not generally a good idea to refrigerate leftovers in cast iron. So I will probably make the pot pie in a casserole dish so I can pop any leftovers directly into the refrigerator.
Brady
Following commenters' suggestions, I subbed wine for lemon juice. I also doubled the carrot and rounded up the turkey to 2 cups because frankly, I wanted to use up more leftovers... and to have more leftovers from this dish. I also reduced the mustard to 1 tsp because I'm not that into mustard and neither are the kids. Very enjoyable, loved the topping. Will make this again but will up the broth a little to account for increased turkey and carrots.
Jay
Marie, we've used leftover stuffing as the 'crust' for leftover turkey dinner pie several times, and it works and tastes great.
Alek
I pour melted butter into cold buttermilk for drop biscuits. I whisk it with a fork and it seems to get evenly distributed. Would this be good or is the described method preferred for a reason?
M A
Alec, rubbing the butter into the flour is a way of controlling gluten development in biscuits. In the rubbing process, you’re actually coating most of the flour particles with fat to help prevent them from absorbing too much liquid. If you like your biscuit recipe then by all means use it, but give this method a try and see if you like the difference. I use the melted butter technique for cornbread, but there’s much less gluten overall in cornbread so it’s less concerning.
Jennae
Made this today and it turned out delicious! I love that it uses ingredients I usually have on hand. I never have buttermilk though. I substituted whole milk with a splash of apple cider vinegar mixed in and it did the trick.
Cynthia
I would sub some of the yummy, thick, rich turkey gravy (left over from the feast) for the stock and the flour, and dollop leftover stuffing on top.
Working Mom
Butternut squash and mushrooms are essential turkey potpie ingredients.
Dave
We use pie crust rather than biscuit. And no recipe is necessary, just choose your ingredients according to the leftovers you have. Do use English peas and corn, even if you don't have those leftover, because what is pot pie without them?
GingerGirl
My favorite biscuit topping for turkey pot pie is to roll it out, spread with cranberry chutney or whole berry cranberry sauce, roll up and slice as you would cinnamon rolls.
Leslie Dumont
Excellent recipe, go easy on the Worcester sauce, lemon and Dijon. They’re nice additions but too heavy. I suspect the recipe writer is not a golfer because the photo shows more of a crumble than golf balls. I don’t see the reason to use a cast iron (except for that homey feel). I have a complete set of Griswald cast iron pans and I protect their finish from anything with acid. And since there is no dough on the bottom (in which case you would be wanting a crisp bottom crust)…why wreck the pan?
kf
Good -do not add lemon. Consider making 1/2 biscuit recipe or cook spread out in a larger pan.
DSBingham
Excellent base recipe.GLUTEN FREE mod: Substituted Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 Baking Flour Blend (light blue label) for the all-purpose flour listed. We made it with 2 cups of chopped turkey so needed more stock liquid for the filling. We didn't have peas onhand, so used leftover cut up string beans. Also, added a bit more Worchestershire sauce, to taste. IMO, this would not be a good "make-ahead" recipe - the topping needs to be crisp and airy straight from the oven.
Lisa C.
I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out awesome! I think I would switch out the lemon juice and replace it next time with some sort of white wine.
Jennifer
This was just the ticket for leftover smoked turkey breast. Delicious! Others suggested it’s dry - I get it, but I liked the texture. I used a 12” cast iron because that’s what I have, so I used 2 carrots, 2 cups of turkey, but everything else the same. The amount of crumbles on the top worked out perfectly - for a 10” pan it would have been a lot! Ok, it’s a little bland, but it isn’t lamb vindaloo, it is pot pie! A little Tobasco and my husband said it was amazing. Winning!
Jack
Added mixed frozen veges instead of peas, added 1 additional stalk of celery, added 10 cloves of garlic came out very good. Added rosemary, thyme and freeze dried chives to the top. Next time increase dough by 1.5.
JB
12/7/23. Last time, very good, but biscuit too thick for amount of filling and filling too thick. This time, half biscuit recipe, but forgot to halve the water for buttermilk powder. Added ¼ cup flour. Dropped plops onto filling. Used 3 T flour, for a more liquid filling. 1 t mustard, 1 t Worcestershire. 1 T white wine. Herbes de Provence instead of fresh herbs.
Susan
After making this twice I agree, there is not enough filling to balance out the biscuits. Next time I will increase the filling by 50% and the chicken stock by 100%.
Laura Krauss
Did the biscuit topping with dill and honestly I found this to be blah. The flavors were not there for me. I have made pie before with a topping like this that was way better. The filling wasn't tasty at all. My family all said don't ever make this again.
Bookworm
Made this however used gravy soaked stuffing (2 kinds) for the topping and it was absolutely delicious. For those who said the topping in the recipe absorbed too much of the sauce, I believe there wasn’t enough sauce to begin with, and will increase the amount the next time I make it. I filled individual ramekins with the filling, and then added sauce but found I did not have sufficient sauce to fill all the ramekins.
HW
I made this last week. Note, I did not make the biscuit topping, I used a pie crust instead. The dish was not well received at all.
Ivy
Very delicious. I will absolutely make this again. I substituted mushrooms for the celery and took another reader's tip and substituted white wine for the lemon. The herbed buttermilk biscuit topping is a revelation!
Matthew
Are the peas intended to go in frozen (perhaps to lower the temperature of the filling)? Or should they be thawed in advance? I'm guessing thawed.
Jean
Yummy. Next time try reducing the lemon juice.
Betsy
I reduced the mustard too (2 t rather than 1 T), and used 1/2 leftover gravy (instead of flour), and 1/2 stock.
Liz D
This was a very good pot pie. It came out a little more savory than I expected, but it was still good. The biscuit topping was excellent, very light and flaky. I will make this again.
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