I knew I wanted to try to switch up my mom’s classic pot pie recipe (the original blog post is old and not the most beautiful) – and for some reason Cajun Chicken came to mind. I decided to add some fresh jalapenos from our garden and swap out some Guinness (or any other stout beer) for cream sherry.

The Cajun-seasoned chicken and Guinness definitely gave the pot pie a darker, more robust flavor – Jordan loved it. I think I am partial to my mom’s way – the use of white wine or cream sherry definitely gives off more of a comfort food factor for me.

This time around I used Trader Joe’s canned biscuits as my crust. I rolled out the biscuit dough on a lightly floured surface until they were about the right size to go over the ramekins. Notice from the above photos it was a tad hard for me to cut vent holes – these biscuits were a lot thicker than the canned ones I have used in the past. I probably will stick to frozen puff pastry in the future as I like the thin, flaky crust that bakes up on the pot pies.

Recipes revamps are always worth a shot – I like the original, husband likes this one…guess I just started an ongoing pot pie debate?

Recipe
Cajun Guinness Chicken Pot Pies
Makes 1 large pie, serves 8 in (4 inch) ramekins
a wingin’ it recipe (estimation on measurements)

Ingredients

• Cajun Chicken
• olive oil and butter for the pan
• 1 1/2 cups onion (about 1/2 of a large yellow onion)
• 2 cloves minced garlic (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups diced carrot
• 1 1/2 cups diced celery
• 2 medium jalapenos, cored with seeds removed, and diced
• 1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms (optional)
• 1 cup frozen peas (optional)
• cajun seasoning
• poultry seasoning
• thyme
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup flour
• (12 oz) Guinness
• Chicken broth ( a few splashes)
• heavy cream or half and half (a splash)
• Pre-made dough – Options are endless (frozen puff pastry, frozen pie dough, pizza dough, crescent roll dough, etc).

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F. Season chicken with some Cajun seasoning, plus a little salt and pepper (I used a cajun seasoning with no salt added). You can use any kind of chicken you want, for this particular recipe I had some frozen chicken tenders laying around so I thawed those out. Skin on, bone on chicken works great too. After seasoning the chicken, put on a sheet pan and cook in the oven until done. Remove from oven, shred chicken, and set aside.

Meanwhile, dice the onion,  garlic (if using), carrot, celery, jalapenos, and mushrooms. Add a tbsp of olive oil and about a tbsp of butter to a large skillet or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and let cook for a few minutes, then add the garlic (if using), carrots, celery, and jalapenos. If you are using the mushrooms, I like to sauté them in a separate pan with some butter, chicken broth, and thyme. Add a little bit of salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, and thyme to the onion and vegetable mixture. If everything seems dry feel free to add a small splash of chicken broth. Stir.

Sprinkle about 1/4 cup of flour over the mixture and stir constantly until the flour is dissolved. The mixture will be thick. Add the beer, a little at a time, until you start getting to the thickness of pot pie that you like. Add a splash of cream and more chicken broth. You don’t want your mixture to be too thick because the crust will soak up some of the liquid.

Once your pot pie mixture is the way you like, add the mixture to ramekins or a large pie dish. You don’t want to fill your ramekins up to the very top, you need to leave room for the crust. I almost always make pot pies in ramekins, and depending on what type of pre-made crust I am using (crescent rolls, puff pastry, frozen pie dough, etc) I just roll out and shape pieces to fit the mold.

Place ramekins on a large baking sheet and bake pot pies at 400F for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are nice and browned.