This from scratch chicken pot pie is unlike any other. With a homemade cream sauce, generous topping of cornbread, it is a comforting meal-in-one that can win over folks who may not care for more traditional chicken pot pie recipes.

You can streamline this by preparing the filling the night before and storing it in a covered container in the refrigerator. Mix up the cornbread batter a half hour before supper, pour it on top of the filling, and bake! If you’d like to dive right in, just scroll down to the next photo to see the recipe steps, or scroll directly to the printable recipe card at the bottom. If you’ve a mind to visit a bit, keep on reading.

With the weekend approaching, I’m making plans. We aren’t going anywhere or anything, but I’ve gotten in the habit over the past two years of trying to get my house and myself prepared in order to enjoy the weekend. Thursday is when I get started with making sure I have meals we can throw in the crock pot and such and Friday is full on what we refer to as “preparation day”, where I get my work done pretty early, my husband comes home from work early whenever possible, and we spend a little time tidying things up and making a nicer than usual supper so that we can disconnect and enjoy our life together over the weekend.

One of the many benefits of this is that we’ve come to greatly appreciate our home more. In fact, our perspective has changed entirely in that department. Several years back, I was sitting outside on the back porch and a thought occurred to me as I looked up at brilliant blue sky peeping through a hole in my tall green pines. I realized that if this wasn’t my house, I’d be willing to pay good money to get to stay here for a weekend getaway. And from there my thoughts expanded. Ricky and I had our first “staycation”, an entire week where we both took off work and just treated our home as if we were in a vacation rental. We explored the yard, sat on the back porch, enjoyed sitting in our living room reading, and rather than think “where can we go?” we thought “What can we enjoy here?”

I know this sounds simple and to many of you it may seem obvious but today’s busy society has been conditioned to treat our homes as glorified way stations and drop off points, just a place to sleep before we get out in the world again. I think we lose sight of what a tremendous blessing it is to be able to have a home and because of that, we don’t revere it for what it is. A retreat, a respite, a place of refuge from the world where you can be surrounded by the familiar, the people you love, and a hot meal.

And now, every weekend is a staycation for us. We have become very focused on the dividing line between work and rest. The human body just wasn’t mean to go 24/7. We were designed, literally, to have a day of rest each week. I realize not everyone is able to do that, which makes me appreciate  yet another blessing.

You know the thing about blessings is that they are all around us, but they are mixed in with lots of opportunities to complain as well. Which leaves us with a choice of two things to focus on. Which one we choose makes all the difference in our quality of life. We’ve found that to be true firsthand. Now let’s make a delicious supper for our loved ones to come home to.

Now listen, this recipe calls for more ingredients than I usually ask you to use. However, it comes together really easily and I will tell you that I’ve always hated chicken pot pie – but I love this one. So it’s worth the little bit of extra work.

You’ll need: frozen mixed veggies, butter (it’s hiding in this pic), chicken broth, salt, pepper, all purpose flour, heavy cream, chopped onion, and cooked chicken. You can use a bouillon cube and some water in place of the broth and half and half in place of the cream if you like – but heavy cream is the absolute best.

There are additional ingredients for the cornbread topping, listed in the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Cover your mixed veggies with water in a large saucepot and bring just to a boil over medium high heat. Cook until veggies are tender, 5-10 minutes. Drain in a colander.

Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Add chopped onions and sauté until just barely tender, about 2-3 minutes. Add chicken broth, salt, pepper, and flour and stir until well combined. Add cream and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened, about five minutes.

Remove from heat and pour over the vegetables. Stir in chicken.

Spoon this into a greased 9×13 baking dish. Prepare homemade cornbread topping according to directions (recipe card at bottom of this post) and pour over top. 

Bake at 400 for about twenty minutes, or until cornbread is golden on top.

Serve up this warm comfort meal to those who bless your supper table each night. Life is good and if you take notice of it, it gets even better.

Cornbread Topped Chicken Pot Pie

 

Author: Christy Jordan

Serves: 9×13 casserole

Ingredients

• 14 ounce package frozen mixed veggies
• ¼ cup butter
• 1 cup chicken broth or 1 bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup of water
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons plain (all purpose) flour
• 2 cups heavy cream (or half and half, but cream is best)
• ½ cup chopped onion
• 2 cups cubed or shredded cooked chicken

For cornbread topping

• 1 cup plain yellow or white cornmeal
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar (can omit if you like)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• ½ stick butter, melted and cooled
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 15 ounce can of whole kernel corn, drained

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray.

Make the filling

1. Place frozen veggies in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and cook until veggies are tender, about 5-10 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Add chopped onions and sauté until just barely tender, about 2-3 minutes. Add chicken broth, salt, pepper, and flour and stir until well combined. Add cream and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened, about five minutes. Remove from heat and pour over the vegetables. Stir in chicken.
3. Spoon veggie mixture into the prepared dish and set aside.

Make Cornbread Topping

1. Place cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and stir to combine. Add milk, melted butter and eggs and stir until smooth. Stir in cheese and drained corn.
2. Spoon cornbread mixture on top of veggie mixture and spread to cover the filling. Bake until cornbread is lightly browned on top, about twenty minutes. Enjoy!

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My fake plants died because I didn’t pretend to water them. 

~Mitch Hedberg

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