Leftover chicken and ham pie with mushrooms

This chicken and ham pie is made with leftover chicken and a deliciously creamy mushroom sauce. Served with your favourite vegetables, it makes the perfect midweek family supper.

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Leftover chicken and ham pie with mushrooms

If you’ve got leftover chicken, and you don’t know what to do with it, why not turn it into a delicious pie.

This chicken and ham pie with a creamy mushroom sauce and crispy pastry topping makes a delicious and easy mid-week meal for the whole family to enjoy.

This pie is packed with juicy chicken and savoury ham, all mixed in a creamy mushroom sauce. It is topped it with a layer of homemade crispy pastry, or if you are running short of time use store-bought puff or shortcrust pastry.

With only a few minutes of prep time and 25 minutes in the oven, this pie can be on the table in next to no time, leaving you plenty of time to browse my web site for more quick and easy meals 🙂

What you will need

To make a chicken and mushroom pie you will need these ingredients. You can get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions on how to make this pie on the printable recipe card at the end of this post.

Leftover chicken – to make a pie large enough to feed 4 people you will need 3 to 4 cups of shredded leftover chicken. You may find that there isn’t enough chicken leftover from a single roast to make this pie. What I do is shred any leftover chicken and pop it into a freezer bag and freeze. You can keep frozen cooked chicken in the freezer for up to 3 months. When I want to make this pie I just remove the bags of chicken from the freezer and let them defrost on the counter while I make the pastry.

If you don’t want to use leftover chicken, you can use fresh. I’ve included instructions on how to poach chicken to use in this pie below.

Ham – you can use any chopped ham you like. I’ve made this successfully with chopped sandwich ham, or even leftover gammon.

Mushrooms – you can use any fresh mushrooms you like. Chopped button mushrooms, white mushrooms or chestnut mushrooms work well. You can even use large Portobello mushrooms if that’s all you have in the fridge.

Cream – it’s a well-known fact that cream makes everything taste better! I’ve used single cream here, but you could use half-and-half or even double cream. You will have to mix the cream with milk and flour so that the filling will have a lovely creamy sauce.

Pastry – I prefer making my own pastry, and I’ve included instructions for that too. If you are short of time you could use store-bought puff or shortcrust pastry.

How to make a chicken and ham pie

Make the pastry

If you are using store-bought pastry you can skip this step.

You will only need half of this pastry. You can freeze the rest in a plastic bag, or use it to make my upside down apple pie or a batch of bolognese sausage rolls.

Sift 240g (2 cups) of all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add 125g (4.5ounces) of cubed butter and 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)1 (image 1). Don’t add any baking powder. We don’t want the pastry to puff up during cooking. For this reason you should not use self-raising flour.

Rub the butter into the flour with your finger tips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (image2). Lift the butter and flour above the bowl and let it drop back as you rub. This will ensure you incorporate plenty of air into the mixture, which will result in a lighter pastry.

Now separate 2 large eggs and add the yolks to the flour. You can use the whites to make meringues, or to make these coconut meringue topped jam tarts. Add 4 tablespoons ice cold water (image 3).

Use a flat-bladed knife to cut the eggs and water through the flour until the pastry starts to come together in lumps (image 4).

Now use your hands to gently press the pastry together into a flat disk. Do not knead. Handle the pastry as little as possible – over-worked pastry will be tough.

Place the disk of pastry into a plastic bag, or wrap with clingfilm and place in the fridge to relax for half an hour.

Make the mushroom sauce

The next step is to make the creamy mushroom sauce.

Chop the mushrooms and fry then gently in butter until they soften and release their moisture (about 5 minutes). Then stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and continue stirring until all the lumps have been removed. Add the milk and cream and stir until it starts to bubble and thicken. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Assemble the pie

Place the shredded chicken and chopped ham in a mixing bowl and add the cooled mushroom mixture. Mix well to combine then tip into an 8″ x 8″ or a 9″ x 9″ pie dish.

Roll a small piece of pastry into a long strip, cut it in half down the middle. Brush the edge of the pie dish with beaten egg and press the pastry strips firmly around the edge of the pie dish. This will allow you to attach the pastry lid to the dish.

Roll half of the remaining pastry to a square, approximately 1/8″ thick. Cover the pie with the pastry lid, and press a fork around the edge to seal it to the pastry strip.

Use pastry trimmings to decorate the pie. Brush the top of the pie with beaten egg.

Bake the pie in a pre-heated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

How to poach chicken

If you would like to use fresh chicken rather than leftover chicken, follow these instructions for poaching chicken breasts.

• Place the chicken breasts in a saucepan of cold water, seasoned with salt and pepper.
• Cover with a lid and bring to the boil.
• Turn off the heat and leave the chicken to cool in the water.
• Remove the chicken from the water and cut into small chunks ad use in place of the leftover chicken.

The residual heat from the boiling water will poach the chicken. Chicken poached in this way will be tender and juicy.

If there is still a slight pinkness in the chicken, it won’t matter as the chicken will finish cooking in the pie.

Shred the chicken or cut it into small blocks and use in this chicken and ham pie recipe.

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Can I freeze chicken and ham pie

The answer to this one is both Yes, and No.

If you are making this pie with leftover chicken, which has already been frozen and defrosted, then it is not advisable to freeze it again.

If you are using chicken leftover from the previous nights roast chicken, or freshly poached chicken, then by all means freeze this pie.

Wrap the unbaked pie in a layer of tinfoil and cover with a layer of plastic wrap or clingfilm. Place in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To bake from frozen, allow an extra 10 minutes of cooking time, otherwise allow the pie to defrost in the refrigerator and bake as per the times given in the recipe.

If you do freeze this pie, it would be advisable to assemble the pie in a disposable aluminium baking dish so that you don’t have to leave your normal baking dish in the freezer.

What do I serve with chicken and ham pie?

I like to serve this pie with fresh or frozen garden peas and a helping of other vegetables. If you are really hungry, you could also add a helping of mashed potatoes.

If you enjoyed this recipe, you may also like to try some of my other pies:

• Chicken, leek and mushroom pie
• Traditional British meat and potato pie
• Individual beef pot pies with pepper sauce
• Steak and kidney pie with puff pastry
• Chicken and mushroom puff pie with cheesy pastry

Additional resources

Don’t forget to check out my handy Cookery Conversion Calculator if you want to convert any of your recipe measurements from grams to cups, ounces, tablespoons or millilitres and vice versa. You can also use the calculator for converting oven temperatures between Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas marks.

If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read all about it in this post on baking at high altitudes.

Recipe – Leftover chicken and ham pie with mushrooms

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