Sourdough Chicken Pot Pie Recipe

Name: Sourdough Chicken Pot Pie
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 3 red potatoes, chopped; 4 carrots, diced; 1/4 cup butter; 1 medium onion, diced; 4 garlic cloves, minced; 3 cups bone broth; 4 tablespoons sourdough starter (discard is fine); 1 tablespoon fresh or dried parsley; 1 teaspoon garlic powder; 1 teaspoon onion powder; 1 to 3 teaspoons salt, to taste; Fresh cracked black pepper, to taste; 1 cup peas, fresh or frozen; 4 cups cooked chicken, shredded or cubed; 1 cup fed sourdough starter; 8 tablespoons butter, melted; 1 tablespoon honey; 3/4 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Sourdough chicken pot pie baked in a skillet with a golden sourdough biscuit topping

This sourdough chicken pot pie tastes as good as it looks.

Some nights I just want real comfort food. Something warm, something filling, something that still sits well an hour later. This is the meal that fills that need at our house.

It is also one of my favorite ways to use whatever is coming out of the garden. Potatoes, carrots, onions, peas . . . if you have something different on hand, use it instead. Make a combination that tastes great to your family.

And it is a fun way to use sourdough. The topping bakes up fluffy and buttery, and nobody at my table has ever guessed there was sourdough under that golden crust.

Sourdough Does Two Jobs in This Recipe

Most pot pie recipes start with a roux, butter and flour cooked together to thicken the filling. This one skips that step. You whisk four tablespoons of sourdough starter straight into the broth, and it thickens the filling as it simmers.

That is a perfect job for the starter you would otherwise pour off on feeding day. It does not need to be active or bubbly for the filling, so sourdough discard works beautifully here.

The topping is the second job, and that one does need fed, active starter. More on that in a minute.

Sourdough starter is nothing more than flour and water left to ferment with the wild yeast and bacteria already living in your kitchen. It is how bread was made for most of human history, long before commercial yeast showed up on grocery shelves, and plenty of people find that slow fermented grain is gentler on them than a quick rise loaf.

I have been putting starter into just about everything lately. If yours is still a work in progress, I walk through the whole thing in Making Bread the Natural Way.

The Topping That Does Not Taste Like Sourdough

Here is the part that surprises people. The topping has a full cup of fed starter in it, and it does not taste tangy at all.

The reason is that half teaspoon of baking soda. Sourdough is acidic. Baking soda is a base. When the two meet they neutralize each other, and the sour flavor goes right along with them. Do not skip it. It is doing real work in this recipe.

You do not roll this topping out like a pie crust either. You stir it together, pour it over the hot filling, and let the oven handle the rest. It bakes into something between a drop biscuit and a cobbler crust, buttery and golden on top, soft where it meets the filling.

Building a Filling Worth That Crust

Start the vegetables in butter over medium low heat and give them the full ten minutes. You are not trying to brown them. You are softening them so they finish tender under the topping instead of staying crunchy in the middle.

Whisk the starter into the broth before it goes in the pan, not after. Starter dropped into hot liquid clumps. Whisked in first, it disappears.

This is where homemade broth earns its keep. It gives the filling a body and a savory depth that boxed broth rarely matches. And if you cook a whole chicken in the crockpot, you can pull both the cooked chicken and the broth for this recipe out of the same bird. Here is how I do that.

The salt is written as a range on purpose. If your broth is already salted, start at one teaspoon. If it is unsalted homemade broth, you will land closer to three. Taste the filling before the topping goes on, because that is your last chance to adjust it.

Make It With What You Have

Potatoes, carrots, onion and peas are the version I make most often, but there is nothing sacred about that list. Green beans, corn, celery, mushrooms, parsnips and cubed sweet potato all work. Use what is coming out of the garden or what needs using up in the crisper drawer.

Leftover turkey stands in for the chicken without a single other change. And if you do not have a cast iron skillet, any oven safe pan will do. You can also build the filling on the stove, pour it into a nine by thirteen dish, and add the topping there.

From Dr. Michelle's Kitchen

Sourdough Chicken Pot Pie

By Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

A one pan twist on classic chicken pot pie, filled with garden vegetables and finished with a fluffy, buttery sourdough topping that does not taste like sourdough.

Servings6 servings

Prep Time20 min

Cook Time40 min

Total Time1 hr

CuisineAmerican

CategoryMain Course

Ingredients

Filling

3 red potatoes, chopped
4 carrots, diced
1/4 cup butter
1 medium onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups bone broth
4 tablespoons sourdough starter (discard is fine)
1 tablespoon fresh or dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 to 3 teaspoons salt, to taste
Fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
1 cup peas, fresh or frozen
4 cups cooked chicken, shredded or cubed

Sourdough Topping

1 cup fed sourdough starter
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon honey
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

Filling

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Add the chopped potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic to a cast iron skillet or other oven safe pan along with the 1/4 cup butter. Saute over medium low heat for 10 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften.
Whisk the 4 tablespoons of sourdough starter into the bone broth until smooth, then pour it into the pan, stirring as you add it.
Stir in the parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and black pepper. Cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes.
Stir in the peas and the cooked chicken. Taste the filling and adjust the salt now, before the topping goes on.

Sourdough Topping

While the vegetables are cooking, stir together the fed sourdough starter, melted butter, honey, salt, baking powder and baking soda until just combined.

Assemble and Bake

Pour the sourdough topping evenly over the chicken and vegetable filling in the pan.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, until the topping is puffed and beginning to turn golden brown.
Let the pot pie cool for a few minutes before serving.

Notes

Fed sourdough starter means a starter that has been given equal parts flour and water, mixed, and left at room temperature for 4 to 12 hours before you use it. The 4 tablespoons that go into the filling do not need to be fed, so discard works there.

The baking soda in the topping is not optional. It neutralizes the acid in the starter, and that is what keeps the crust from tasting sour.

Salt is written as a range because broths vary. Start at 1 teaspoon with salted broth and go closer to 3 with unsalted homemade broth. Taste before the topping goes on.

Leftovers keep in a covered container in the refrigerator for about 4 days. Reheat in a 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes so the topping crisps back up.

Storing and Reheating

Leftovers keep in a covered container in the refrigerator for about four days. The topping softens overnight, which is normal and not a sign you did anything wrong.

Reheat servings in a 350 degree oven for ten to fifteen minutes rather than the microwave. The oven crisps the top back up. The microwave turns it into bread pudding.

This one does not freeze especially well once the topping is baked. If you want to work ahead, make the filling, freeze it flat in a bag, then thaw it, warm it in the skillet and mix a fresh topping the day you serve it.

One Pan, One Dinner, Less to Wash

The reason this recipe stays in our rotation is not just the flavor. It is that the whole thing happens in one skillet, from the first pat of butter to the last golden edge of crust.

That matters on a weeknight. Real food does not have to mean an hour of dishes afterward.

If getting dinner on the table is the part that trips you up, grab my free 30 Minute Meal Formula. It is the framework I use to put real meals together fast, without hunting for a recipe first.

Make this one for your family, then tell me what they thought.