Photo: 12 Tomatoes Creative Team

What makes a better chicken pot pie than making it a pie you can hold in your hand? It’s the perfect bite of chicken pot pie with a soft, creamy center and buttery crisp exterior. I hate when you spend all this time making a homemade chicken pot pie, and then you don’t get hardly enough crust-to-pie ratio. Gone are those days with these cute little muffin pan pies. The muffin pan is important for making a pot pie that’s surrounded by crust. This is the meat pie-inspired version of a classic American staple. You HAVE to check this one out.

Photo: 12 Tomatoes Creative Team

Using store-bought pie crust is a very easy way to produce a chicken pot pie. If you do decide to make your pie crust here, be sure to make enough for the base and top.

Pie crust that’s rolled out makes for an easy execution to these muffins. Use a biscuit cutter or a reliable cup to cut as many four inch rings from the pre-rolled crust as you can. The goal is to get as many crusts as you can before having to reroll out the store-bought dough. Take each ring of pie crust and roll it out even thinner to ensure you can wrap the pot pie in the end. Use a rolling pin to evenly roll each circle out to around the size of a taco-sized tortilla.

Photo: 12 Tomatoes Creative Team

Make the filling how you would any other pot pie filling, in steps. Saute the vegetables until they are very soft, toast the roux, make a bechamel with cold milk, then add your mix-ins and final seasonings to taste. Be sure to save half of the cheese to add an even gooey-er element to each pie. Pick a cheese you love most!

Photo: 12 Tomatoes Creative Team

To get these pot pies ready for the oven, you will have to twist both of your pie crusts together. This is the technical part. Starting on one side, you’re going to fold the base layer of pie crust over the top layer folding toward the center of each pot pie. This will seal the pie while creating a crust for the pie. Continue with this technique for the rest of the pies, then brush each pie liberally with egg wash. This is one step that will determine how golden these will look, so get every nook and cranny. Finish with vent slits and top with flakey Malden salt.

Photo: 12 Tomatoes Creative Team

Once these muffins are assembled, they become the easiest thing to pop into the oven. You can bake the full tray if you are serving a crowd or freeze the whole tray and individually store each in a Ziplock bag for easy dinner at any time. Like your own personal hot pockets. Once baked, these pot pie muffins make for excellent leftovers and can even be repurposed into stuffing or an egg scramble.

Photo: 12 Tomatoes Creative Team