Remember last year’s Thanksgiving? That’s a bit of a trick question – 2020 was a pandemic blur. What I do remember about last year’s holiday was our smaller scale gathering, big gratitude, AND the Turkey Pot Pie.
Today’s Turkey Pot Pie recipe is a adaptation from last year’s most popular recipe from Joy the Baker Magazine. Y’all LOVED this pot pie because it’s essentially an entire Thanksgiving feast in a single pot pie. This year I’ve added dried cranberries to the stuffing crumble at the behest of a brilliant blog reader. The result is a bigtime salty savory pot pie with an occasional bite of sweetness.
Let this pie hit the Thanksgiving spot if you’re having a small holiday this year OR gather up your leftover turkey and make this pie. Happy holiday, friends!
Here’s what you’ll need to make Thanksgiving Turkey Pot Pie:
• All-Butter Pie Crust – we’ll just need a single pie crust for this recipe but if you’re going to make one pie crust, you might as well make two. Why not throw a Sweet Potato Pie in the oven, too?
• Onions, garlic, carrots, frozen peas, and green beans. I use a mix of fresh and frozen veggies for this pie. If you’re low on time and energy, a thawed bag of frozen veggies will also be dang delicious.
• Butter, all-purpose flour, chicken stock, cream cheese and milk to create a thick and creamy gravy for the filling. Season generously with salt, pepper, and fresh or dried herbs like thyme, sage and rosemary.
• Let’s talk about turkey! Look for either uncooked or precooked turkey breast at the grocery. I love to keep it easy for this pie and buy a pre-cooked turkey breast. This pie is also perfect for leftover turkey the weekend after your big Thanksgiving meal!
• StoveTop stuffing – yes the boxed mix. Have you ever had StoveTop stuffing!? It’s FANTASTIC! We’ll whip up a box and add a few dried cranberries for the full Thanksgiving effect.
Let’s start by making the creamy gravy for this Turkey Pot Pie.
In a heavy bottom saucepan whisk together melted butter and flour. I know – this might feel wild. The mixture will feel thick but whisk pretty constantly until the flour begins to brown slightly. This will mean that the flour is toasty delicious.
Stream in the milk, whisking constantly. You’ll feel the ingredients start to seize (that’s the flour absorbing the liquid) but keep streaming and whisking. The mixture will smooth. Add the stock, cream cheese and seasoning and stir until the cream cheese melts.
Taste the creamy gravy and add more seasoning to your taste.
In a separate skillet cook down onions until just softened and translucent. Add the garlic and stir for one minute more.
Add all the veggies and herbs and give it a toss just to heat the vegetables (they’ll cook through more thoroughly in the oven).
Add the cooked and cubed turkey breast.
It’s a full pot and it’s going to be a full pie, too!
Stir the turkey and vegetable filling into the creamy gravy.
Give the mixture a taste and add any more seasoning you’ll enjoy.
Roll out the pie crust and – for best results – chill the pie crust and chill the filling. It’s ideal if everything goes into the oven cold.
If you don’t have time to chill all of the components – chill them as much as you have time for.
Now let’s make the topping!
Stir together StoveTop stuffing according to the box directions but stir in a small handful of dried cranberries. They’ll soften along with the stuffing.
Spoon the pie filling into the unbaked pie crust.
(I don’t fuss with par-baking my crust. The bottom and sides of the pie crust will cook to golden but still be a bit soft. I like it!)
Top with cranberry studded StoveTop stuffing. And set the pie off to bake. Place this pie on a parchment lined baking sheet in case there’s any spill over in the oven.
Bake to golden and bubbling Your kitchen should smell like a full Thanksgiving feast – it’s bonkers.
Happy baking friends! Drop any questions or comments below!
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Thanksgiving Turkey Pot Pie
- Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: Serves 8
- Category: dessert, holiday
Description
An entire Thanksgiving dinner in a single pot pie.
Ingredients
For the Crust:
- 2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
- 1/2 cup cold buttermilk
For the Filling:
- 1– (approx 3 pound) bone-in skin-on turkey breast (cooked or uncooked)
- 4 tablespoons tablespoons olive oil, divided
- Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 2 ounces cream cheese
- 1 cup diced yellow onion
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 cup diced green beans
- 1 teaspoon each chopped fresh thyme and sage
- 3/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
For the Topping:
- 2 (6 ounce) packages stuffing mix (such as Stovetop
- 3 cups water
- 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
- To make the crust, in a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Add cold, cubed butter and, using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture. Quickly break the butter down into the flour mixture, some butter pieces will be the size of oat flakes, some will be the size of peas. Create a well in the butter and flour mixture and pour in the cold buttermilk. Use a fork to bring to dough together. Try to moisten all of the flour bits. On a lightly floured work surface, dump out the dough mixture. It will be moist and shaggy. That’s perfect. Divide the dough in two and gently knead into two disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. We’ll only use one disk for this pie so perhaps freeze the other pie dough disk for another use if you don’t make another pie within three days.
- Cube turkey breast into bite size pieces if you bought a pre-ccooked piece of meat. To cook the turkey breast, place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Place turkey breast in a large oven-safe skillet or cast iron. Pat the outside of the turkey dry and rub with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper, on the outside and inside of the skin. Allow the turkey to rest on the counter for 20 minutes or so if it’s fridge cold.
- Place pan in the oven and immediately reduce heat to 350 degrees F. Allow the turkey to roast for 1 hour before checking the temperature. Place a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the meat and see that the temperature reaches 165 degrees. If after an hour the turkey hasn’t reached temperature, let it back for another 10-15 minutes before testing again. Remove from the oven and allow turkey to rest for 20 minutes before dicing into bite-size cubes for the pie.
- To make the filling, start by dicing the onion, garlic, carrots, green beans, and thawing the frozen peas. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in the flour. Mixture will be very thick. Heat for 1 minute. Turn flame to low and slowly add the chicken stock. Whisk until no flour bits remain. Whisk in the milk and add the cream cheese. Heat over medium low heat, stirring often, until cream cheese has melted and the mixture is the consistency of warm, thick pudding. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove mixture from heat and spoon into a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium skillet over medium heat, remaining olive oil. Add onions and saute until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add minced garlic and saute for one minute more. Add carrots, green beans, and peas. Cook for about 5 minutes. The vegetables will not be entirely cooked through. Add the fresh herbs and stir to combine. Remove from heat and stir in cooked, cubed turkey. Stir the mixture to the sauce. Stir to combine. Set aside and allow the filling to cool slightly.
- To assemble the pie, remove one of the pie dough disks from the fridge. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out into about a 13-inch round. Roll the dough a few strokes, then use your fingers to move the emerging circle around the floured surface. This ensures that the dough isn’t sticking to the work surface. The circle won’t be perfect, that’s ok. Try not to get any tears in the rolled out dough, but if you do, they can be patched together with extra dough. When you roll the dough and you can see it start springing back, that means that the butter is warming and the crust shouldn’t be rolled out anymore. Gently lift the 13-inch round from the floured surface and center in a deep 9-inch round pie dish. Fold an excess dough under the pie crust and crimp. Place in the fridge while you assemble the topping.
- In a medium saucepan simmer water and butter. Add the stuffing mix and cranberries, cover, and allow to rest until absorbed, about 5 minutes. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork.
- Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees F. To assemble pie, spoon the filling into the crust and top with stuffing. Bake until crust is golden and the filling is lightly bubbling around the edges, 35-45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand for 20 minutes before serving. Pie can also be cooled to room temperature, covered, and chilled in the refrigerator. To re-heat, cover loosely with foil and reheat until just warm in a 300 degree F oven.
Photos with Jon Melendez.
25 Responses
This is the absolute best use of leftover turkey I have come across. Can’t wait till make it again this year!!
Really good. Took to work Thanksgiving and it was gone by the end of shift. Great flavor and fun to put together. Love the stuffing topping
This looks perfect for me and my husband’s low-key Thanksgiving. It’s a great idea! Could I make this the night before and then bake it the day of? I assume I could since everything wants to be cold? Would you make the stuffing topping day of, or could it be assembled all together?
Can this be made ahead and frozen?
I made this for a small Friendsgiving this past weekend, and WOW did this deliver. I was nervous about making my own crust, but the crust was easy to work with, and the gravy was packed with flavor, especially since I made the gravy using the leftover roast turkey juices. I ended up with way more stuffing leftover than needed, so the next time I make this, I might play around with using only one package of stuffing, instead of two. All in all, really good, and can’t wait to make this again!
Bought an extra bird this past November, just in case, and finally making it this weekend for some family. I absolutely loved using my leftovers for this recipe in 2020 with the magazine edition, and the cranberry add is brilliant, so we’re goin’ in for the remix this time. Bless you for creating this recipe! It’s a part of my Thanksgiving (and extra bird party) tradition forevermore.
fianlly made last night with the box of stuffing mix loitering in the pantry since Thanksgiving. Delicious! Thanks Joy
I’m in Oslo so we had Friendsgiving on Sunday. I made this with a few additions – mushrooms as suggested by the other Erika in the comments, I roasted potatoes and carrots, then used boxed puff pastry for the crust and topped with some fried onions for the last few minutes of the bake. That gave it a bit more of a mashed potato/green bean casserole feel too. Also we only had one package of Stovetop Stuffing left from the 8 bags my friends brought back from the US so the onions stretched the crunchy topping! Our dinner party of 8 loved it – tusen takk Joy! This one is staying in the recipe files.
This looks delicious, and a great way to use up some leftovers! Do you think it can be frozen? And if so, before or after baking? Thanks!
I was away from home for Thanksgiving and didn’t have the time or space to make all of the usual dishes — instead, put together this amazing Turkey Pot Pie and got all the flavors of Thanksgiving in every bite! Comes together quickly and easily, and this pie crust recipe is my new go-to. Highly recommend, whether you’re looking for a simple home-away-from-home Thanksgiving or a great place to use some leftovers. Thank you Joy!
Has anyone tried using a wild rice crust on the bottom?
Made this for Friendsgiving and it was a HIT! Even better the next day when a few of us had it for brunch. Only change next time is fewer peas, they seemed to be in excess.
All of my friends at the table voted it the best comfort food of the season ??
Apologies for the ?? At the end, meant !!
And one more note – I made dressing, half cornbread half ciabatta, added the cranberries and was happy I did!
Even if we don’t have thanksgiving here, I’m always intrigued by trying typical thanksgiving dishes!
The absolute BEST way to use up leftovers. I made it last year for the day after. It fed a crowd and everyone LOVED it! Definitely on the docket for this year.
I’ve always eaten turkey pot pie in restaurants. Now that I have the recipe, I’m gonna try it out. Hope it turns out well. Fingers crossed.
I’m going to use mushrooms in the gravy to add in the green bean casserole flavor to the mashup! Otherwise the stuffing crumble with cranberries is totally inspired! Happy leftovering everyone!
That’s a fantastic idea Erika!
I’ve been waiting for this, Joy! I remember seeing it in your magazine last year and hoping you would post it this year. Perfect for my small family and can’t wait to bake it up. Thanks!
Oh wonderful! Have such a sweet holiday!
I may have to try this using leftovers of my potato stuffing on top…
Yes that sounds incredible!!
I love making pot pie with leftover turkey, but using stuffing instead of a top crust has never occurred to me. What a brilliant idea!
This sounds awesome!
Any suggestions what I could use instead of the boxed stuffing mix? It’s not available in my country.
Thanks!
I am giving this a five star because it looks like a winner. I thank you for providing a great way to use leftover turkey. This is a new way to create
a pot pie that is a warm welcome here since everyone here loves a great homemade potpie. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving in advance.