11 Tricks For Making Frozen Pot Pies Taste Better
The frozen pot pie has been feeding hungry bellies for over 70 years. Since its invention by the C. A. Swanson company in 1951, these frozen delights originally had just one filling flavor, chicken, but soon expanded to include other meats like beef, turkey, and vegetables. A huge part of frozen pot pies' appeal is their ability to turn a meal that's usually pretty arduous and time-consuming, involving making a dough from scratch and a separate filling, into something that requires little more effort than turning your oven on and popping your pie in. Additionally, these frozen meals are usually pretty affordable, with some personal pot pies costing little more than a buck each.
However, one drawback of frozen pot pies is that on the surface, they don't seem that customizable. Because their filling is encased in a sealed pastry, it can be hard to tweak them to your specifications, and this can leave you with a pie that's, for want of a better word, tasteless. This tastelessness can also extend to their pastry, which can be difficult to alter in any way. Thankfully, though, there are loads of small tweaks you can make to frozen pot pies that'll improve them, and most of them take barely effort at all.
1. Take your filling and make a new crust
While the filling of frozen pot pies is usually creamy, well-seasoned, and full of tender meat, their crusts can be another story. All too often, these crusts can feel like an afterthought and come out of the oven tough, chewy, or soggy, instead of having the promised flaky texture. Frozen pot pie crusts can also tend to burn pretty easily and, depending on the brand you buy, may taste flat or like they're full of artificial additives.
A simple trick to fix this is to scoop the filling out of your pot pie and place it in a freshly made crust. By doing this, you cut out the preparation of the filling, which is arguably the most time-consuming part of the meal. Pot pie crusts can be made simply, with some of them requiring little more than flour, butter, and water. You not only get a fresh-tasting crust, but you also get to make exactly the style you want — if you want your pot pie with puff pastry, go for it! Because the filling inside is precooked, this trick doesn't take any additional cooking time: Just cook your pie until your crust is golden-brown and the inside is bubbling.
2. Add an egg wash for color and flavor
One of the most disappointing things about frozen pot pies is their color. Too often, these pies come out of the oven pale and looking pretty unappetizing — or conversely, they turn a dull shade of beige, which doesn't exactly excite the senses. A quick workaround, however, is to put an egg wash on your pie. Egg washes are a common feature of homemade pot pies, and when applied, they give your crust a golden, shiny glaze.
Egg washes do more than just add color; they also give your pot pie an added richness. Because egg washes achieve brownness via the Maillard reaction, they help the pie develop brand-new flavor molecules. You can make an egg wash in various combinations of egg and liquid, or just by using a beaten egg. If you opt for the latter, your egg wash will be thick and produce a darker color, whereas egg washes cut with milk or water will give your pie a lighter tone. Make sure you're beating your egg wash really thoroughly so that the egg whites and yolks incorporate with each other well and you're not left with any stringy white bits.
3. Generate a crispy bottom with some cooking spray
A disappointing bottom is one of the worst things that can befall a pot pie, and unfortunately, they're all too common. While the top crust is pretty capable of crisping up in the oven thanks to its contact with dry heat, the bottom crust is encased in a metal pie dish, leading to a host of problems. If you don't end up with a soggy bottom, you run the risk of the pastry sticking to the pie dish, leading you to scrape half the pie out with a spoon.
How do we avoid both of these things happening, we hear you cry? With oil. All you need to do is pop your pie out of the dish before you cook it and spray the inside with a small amount of cooking spray. Put the pot pie back in the dish and cook. Once it's done, you'll find that the pie is easy to remove from the dish, thanks to the lubrication that the cooking spray adds. The cooking spray will also help the bottom cook more evenly, giving it both more firmness and more flavor. If you don't have cooking spray, you can also use a little oil to grease the dish.
4. Flip your pie upside down
One issue with frozen pot pies is that you're often left with way too much crust. Because of how pot pies are shaped, and the fact they come in a tin, it's easy to find that you've scooped all of your filling out and eaten it before you've even started on the bottom crust. An easy trick to solve this is to flip your pie on its head, placing it on your plate with the top crust down. By doing this, you maximize your pastry-to-filling ratio and ensure that every bite has both elements, improving your overall experience.
Flipping your pie upside down also solves another major issue: dryness. Pot pies often end up with a top crust that's slightly overcooked and dry and a bottom crust that's still moist. When you flip your pie over, though, your top crust gets moistened by the filling by the force of sheer gravity. As the bottom crust is usually pretty well-lubricated, you don't have to worry about biting through a chalky, brittle section to get through to the inside.
5. Sprinkle it with some herbs for freshness
Frozen pot pies are usually pretty flavorful, but they often lack a key element: freshness. As these food items are processed and designed to be kept in the freezer for extended periods, any vibrancy from the vegetables used can be sapped away, and everything can taste a bit dull and salty. A light sprinkle of freshly chopped herbs can fix that. Herbs are an excellent way to add flavor without increasing food's salt levels, which is useful for pot pies, given that some of them contain over 40% of your daily value for sodium. They're also cheap, readily available, virtually calorie-free, and make your food look much better.
Herbs are also great for adding an entirely new twist to your pot pies flavor-wise. If you fancy making your pot pies a little more peppery and spicy, try using a scattering of coriander. For an Italian twist, go for the floral, bright tones of oregano. If you're less interested in taking risks with your pies, though, you can't go wrong with using parsley, which pairs well with any standard pot pie flavor.
6. Keep your pie crust consistently cooked with foil
Frozen pot pies tend to cook irregularly, with the outside rim becoming burnt before the inside is cooked. This then leaves you with a choice as to whether you undercook the inside of your pie to make the outside appetizing, or lose half of your pie by cutting it off once it's finished cooking.
Luckily, this is pretty easily avoidable by using tin or aluminum foil. Simply place a ring of foil around the frozen pie's crust, which creates a makeshift pie crust shield, a kitchen tool that protects the outside rim of the pastry. By doing this, you create a barrier between the dry heat of your oven and the pastry, and instead of scorching, it will cook slowly and consistently. If you still want to brown it slightly, you can do this for the majority of its cooking time, and then take the foil off for the last 10 minutes or so.
Using this foil trick also has a bonus: By wrapping the outside with foil, you help to prevent the crust from adhering to the pie dish. Your pie will slide seamlessly out of the foil casing.
7. Throw your pie in the air fryer
Cooking frozen pot pies in the oven doesn't take a lot of work, but it does take a lot of power for a piece of food that's pretty small. You can reduce your energy bill and improve your pie's flavor, however, by using your air fryer. You can cook two pot pies in a 6-quart air fryer. At 350-degree heat, they'll take a little over 20 minutes to fully cook from frozen, making this a quicker method than the oven, where pot pies take a bit over a half-hour.
Your pot pie's flavor is increased through the improved browning that this method produces. While many pot pies turn an irregular light brown in the oven, air fryers give your pies a consistent, deep brown color and no burnt edges. You can deepen this color (and the flavor) even more by cranking up your air fryer at the end of the cooking process for a few minutes and then leaving the pie in the residual heat.
8. Douse it with an ultra-savory sauce
Frozen pot pies are reliable and comforting, but they're hardly challenging taste-wise. This can lead to them being, well, pretty boring. So one of the best ways to make them more interesting is to give them a quick dousing with Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire sauce is made using a combination of vinegar, garlic, molasses, sugar, tamarind, and anchovies. These flavors meld together to make a condiment that's full of umami, as well as a tangy sweetness that cuts through the occasional flatness of pot pies and helps to give the otherwise boring crust some much-needed punch.
Remember, though, you don't have to just stick to one type of sauce. Virtually any everyday condiment will give your pot pie a flavor boost, and each one of them has its strengths. As pot pies are rarely spicy, a few shakes of hot sauce can round out their flavor and give them an extra kick. Ketchup, on the other hand, will give your pot pie some all-important sweetness, as well as some tangy notes from the vinegar in the recipe. Chutneys, relishes, and even jams can add some immediate intensity and a slight hint of spice to your pie. The world's your oyster!
9. Use the filling to make a brand-new meal
Frozen pot pies are a meal of two halves, and you may not like both halves equally. So, if you're a fan of the filling but not the pastry, salvage the inside of your pie and make a brand-new meal with it. Frozen pot pies serve as a great base for a quick pasta sauce, which you can bulk out by mixing in some extra vegetables. Just scoop out the inside, letting the pie thaw slightly before doing so to make it easier to break into. Once the filling has melted, heat it in a pan until bubbling, throw in any extra veggies or meat you like, and then spoon it over pasta.
The flavor profile of frozen pot pie filling is also pretty similar to various soups and stews. As such, adding in some broth or stock is a quick way to make a homemade-tasting soup in no time. You can also spoon the filling over mashed potatoes, stuff it into other meat, or make it into a casserole by stirring in some rice or pasta, sprinkling the mixture with breadcrumbs, and baking the whole thing in the oven.
10. Add crunch with panko breadcrumbs
Frozen pot pies are fairly good at generating a good crispiness on their top crust, but that crispiness can sometimes be a bit chalky and brittle, a result of the pastry burning slightly. However, you can generate crunch without overcooking your pie with the help of some panko breadcrumbs. Panko breadcrumbs create moreish crispiness thanks to their irregular shapes, giving them more surface area, and their airiness. When placed on top of a pie, they give it way more crunch, as well as increased visual appeal and taste, thanks to the browning of the breadcrumbs.
To add panko to your pie, all you need to do is scatter them over the top before baking. It's useful to use some kind of glue to make sure they stick to the pie's surface properly — an egg wash daubed over the pie's top crust should do the trick. To give your panko topping added flavor, you can mix in any dried herbs or spices you like, or some grated cheese to amp up its savoriness. You can also mix your breadcrumbs with a little butter, which can help them brown better and make them taste richer.
11. Grab yourself a gravy
While many pot pies are generously filled, some can be seriously lacking, and this can leave you with a meal that's 90% crust and 10% filling. Rather than throw the whole thing out, you can add much-needed moisture by whipping up a quick gravy. A chicken or beef gravy is a fantastic way to add extra flavor and lubrication to a pot pie without distracting from its central flavors. It can also be a good option if you're serving your pot pie with a side of mashed potatoes or some other carb and find that the pie itself doesn't have enough filling to keep everything on your plate juicy.
There's no need to make gravy from scratch for this: Store-bought gravy can do the trick, and many can be made better with some quick tweaks. Stirring some chopped fresh herbs through your gravy can cut through its intense savoriness and give it a brighter flavor. By contrast, if you want to double down on the savory taste of your gravy, add in a few dashes of Worcestershire, soy, or even fish sauce.