Lightened Up Turkey or Chicken Pot Pie {dairy-free}

When a reader asked me to create a lightened up chicken pot pie, I was immediately brought to the early years of my marriage.  A new wife trying to navigate her way through the kitchen with a new responsibility of feeding someone else, I was a slave to recipes. It took me a long time to gain enough confidence in the kitchen to tweak a recipe.  It was even longer before I started creating my own recipes.

If I found a recipe that worked and Tim liked, I tended to make it a lot.  One particular recipe was for a chicken pot pie with a phyllo dough crust.  Using a phyllo dough crust for pot pie is a great idea.  It not only cuts way back on the calories, making a much lighter pot pie, but it also saves tons of time.  Regular turkey or chicken pot pie can be an all-day ordeal if you are making homemade crust.  With a phyllo dough crust, you can have this on the table in under an hour.  It takes about 20 minutes prep time, and then cooks in the oven for 30 minutes.

I used Fillo Factory’s Organic Fillo Dough product.  They also offer a whole wheat phyllo dough, which I sadly couldn’t find.  I just saw on their website that they are offering 25% off all orders, so if you would like the whole wheat version but can’t find it in your area, it would be a great time to order.  (Not sponsored or an affiliate link, just noticed that deal when I was linking to their site)

Now that I have much more kitchen confidence, I knew I could create a dairy-free pot pie recipe.  I did this by using all broth instead of milk as the base.  It’s just as comforting without the milk, trust me.  Instead of thickening the sauce with a roux, I created a slurry with arrowroot powder (you can also use cornstarch) and some of the hot broth.This was such a simple way to thicken the sauce–no need to use an extra pan to create the roux.  No need to use a boatload of extra flour to create a thick sauce.  (Thank you, Mark Bittman, for the idea.)

Just so you know, in my first trial I used only 1 tablespoon of arrowroot powder, and that’s what you see in the pictures.  Next time, I used two tablespoons, and the mixture thickened more.  So you can expect a slightly thicker result than what you see in the pictures.

This is just as good as a turkey pot pie as it is as a chicken pot pie.  I made it as a turkey pot pie first because I thought this would made perfect Thanksgiving turkey leftovers.  So many Thanksgiving leftover recipes are just as heavy as the Thanksgiving meal.  I love that this is a lightened up pot pie recipe that is still total comfort food! I suggest you use this recipe whenever you have leftover chicken or turkey you’d like to use up!

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