Paleo Chicken Pot Pie

There was a reason I waited to post this after my chicken in a Crock Pot & homemade broth recipe. That is a great way to prepare chicken and make your own broth for my Paleo Chicken Pot Pie. As I've said before, I absolutely love comfort foods and casseroles. In my future cookbook, I'll have a huge section devoted just to casseroles. I've always been a fan of mixing foods together into one pot or dish. Why not?

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." -Aristotle

Combining delicious foods together makes something exponentially better, in my humble opinion. I threw together my recipe after scouring many other pot pie recipes - both Paleo and non-Paleo. Peas were obviously out of the equation. I wanted to make a creamy sauce for the filling. Cashews are my go-to for creamy sauces. I'm sure one could use canned coconut milk to make a creamy sauce as well, but I prefer cashews since they have a more neutral flavor. Arrowroot serves as a great thickener, as long as you don't use too much. Too much arrowroot can create a gummy texture in foods. Trust me, I made that mistake once. I tried making dumplings out of mostly arrowroot for chicken and dumplings. Not good.

So, here's my version of Paleo Chicken Pot Pie. It's creamy and comforting. Love it. I'm still a novice with baking, so I found an amazing crust recipe that worked really well.

Paleo Chicken Pot Pie
Paleo Rating: 8 clubs
Servings: 8

Ingredients:

Filling:

• 2 T. fat of choice, for sautéing veggies + more to grease the dish
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 carrots, diced
• 3 parsnips, diced
• 4 celery stalks, diced
• 8 oz. mushrooms sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 4-5 oz. spinach
• 3 cups chicken, shredded or diced
• 1 cup raw cashews, soaked for at least 4 hours
• 2 – 2 ½ cups chicken broth, preferably homemade
• 2 t. poultry seasoning    
• ½ t. rosemary, or to taste                                      
• ½ t. thyme, or to taste
• ½ t. sage, or to taste
• 1 t. coconut aminos
• 2 T. arrowroot
• 4 garlic cloves, whole
• Sea salt and freshly-ground pepper, to taste

Crust:
Courtesy of Paleo Perfectly

• 2 ½ cups almond flour (I used Honeyville)
• ½ t. sea salt
• ½ t. baking soda
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup coconut oil or ghee (I used coconut oil)

Directions:

1. Soak the raw cashews in a bowl covered with water.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a large casserole dish with palm shortening, ghee or coconut oil (I used an 11x14 baking dish).
3. Heat your fat of choice in a deep pot over medium-high heat. Add onions through mushrooms. Season with sea salt and pepper. Cook until veggies are tender, stirring regularly.
4. While your veggies are cooking, make the sauce. Drain the cashews and rinse. Add to a blender (I used my Vitamix), along with enough water to just about cover them. Blend.
5. Add chicken broth, garlic cloves, seasonings, coconut aminos and arrowroot. Blend until smooth and creamy. It will appear runny, but that’s ok. The arrowroot will thicken the sauce once it heats up in the pot.
6. When the veggies are almost tender, add in the minced garlic. Stir to combine.
7. Add shredded chicken and spinach to the pot. Stir until spinach is wilted.
8. Stir in the sauce and allow it to heat through. You’ll notice it to thicken up quite quickly.
9. Pour the filling into your greased baking dish.
10. Finally, make your crust. Mix almond flour, sea salt and baking soda in a medium-size mixing bowl. Cut in the coconut oil or ghee with a fork or pastry cutter. Add in eggs and mix with a spatula until it becomes a large ball of dough.
11.  Put dough onto a piece of parchment paper, slightly larger than your casserole dish. Top the dough with a second piece of parchment paper. Roll out with a rolling pin into the shape of your baking dish.
12. Transfer the dough by flipping it over onto the filling. Peel off parchment paper. Reshape, as necessary.
13. Bake in the preheated 350°F oven for 27-33 minutes, or until crust has cooked. You can test this by touching the crust. If it’s hard, it means it has baked long enough. If it’s still soft to the touch, it needs to bake a little longer.
14. Dig in! Comforting and creamy chicken pot pie with a delicious crust. 

I've made this a few times now. Instead of the crust, you could make a crumble topping. You could also make Paleo biscuits. Or you could leave it crustless. You could thin out the sauce by using less arrowroot and more broth to make a stew or soup.

Question of the Day: Did you/your family ever eat those frozen chicken pot pies with the flaky pastry crust? My family ate them regularly. The crust was my favorite part of the meal.