Chicken pot pies, rated

https://www.tastingtable.com/1128798/frozen-chicken-pot-pie-brands-ranked-worst-to-best/

8 Frozen Chicken Pot Pie Brands, Ranked Worst To Best
Dani Zoeller/Tasting Table
BY DANI ZOELLER/UPDATED: DEC. 12, 2022 8:49 AM EST
In the heart of winter, few foods sound as warm and comforting as a chicken pot pie. While you may consider pie to be a sweet dish, some of the best pies in the country are savory. Most chicken pot pies begin with a pie crust similar to that which you would use for any other pie. Then, you fill that crust with all kinds of stew goodness, including chicken (of course), carrots, celery, and a creamy sauce. Every now and again, you’ll find varieties adding broccoli or mushrooms to the filling, but generally, a basic recipe will not include such additions. The Blake’s variety we tried even had potatoes.

Like other pies, preparing this ultimate comfort food can be a little bit of a lengthy task, especially if you choose to prepare your own pie dough. Thankfully, plenty of frozen food brands have taken up this delicious dish and made their own easy-to-cook and serve varieties. While the oven will be the best place to prepare your pie, many boxes include directions for microwaves, too. For consistency’s sake, we prepared at least one pie from each brand using the directions as they appeared on the box. While it’s tough to mess up this comfort food, it’s safe to say we certainly had our favorites out of the bunch. Even still, if you’d prefer to go homemade but need something a little simpler, consider trying out our Instant Pot chicken pot pie soup for a delectable variation.

8. Atkins
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   If you follow the Atkins diet, you may feel that a chicken pot pie option is far out of your reach. After all, that crust carries a hefty number of carbohydrates, the very thing an Atkins diet tries to keep at a minimum. Thankfully, among the many other frozen food offerings widely available in grocery stores, you can pick up Atkins’ very own crustless chicken pot pie with 300 calories, 24 grams of protein, 3 grams of sugar, 6 grams of carbohydrates, and 3 grams of fiber. When cooked, you’ll enjoy a dish of chopped chicken and a plentiful helping of broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and slivered carrots. All of this gets tossed in a herb and sherry cream sauce.

While the reviews on this pot pie are generally good, it was our least favorite. The chicken could use a whole lot more flavor, and there were also far too few carrots. In our meal, we only counted three pieces of carrot. On the other hand, there was plenty of broccoli and cauliflower. In fact, the predominant flavor in this one is actually broccoli. We find this especially curious since most pot pies do not include this green veggie or cauliflower at all. Although we appreciate the attempt to create a crustless pot pie, this one doesn’t hold a candle to other pot pie options we tried. With some extra seasoning, it would be greatly improved, but the lack of other veggies is also problematic.

7. Banquet
   Dani Zoeller/Tasting Table
   In 1953, Banquet released its first product: frozen meat pies. Chicken pot pies are a member of this category, so it’s safe to say that this tasty, warming meal has been a part of Banquet since its earliest days. Now, of course, the company has grown to include many other products, but the meat pies remain a vital part of the company’s offerings. For pot pies focused on chicken, Banquet offers a traditional pot pie, one that features broccoli, and a larger, more family-sized version. If you’re not feeling chicken, it also offers customers turkey pot pies, Salisbury steak pot pies, and a beef option. While we are pleased Banquet offers a broccoli variation, we would like to see even more versatility in the available chicken-focused options.

Of the true chicken pot pies we tried, we were least impressed with the Banquet brand. Though we did like parts of the crust, we found this pot pie to be far too small and with far too little filling. We did like how prevalent the chicken flavor was within the pot pie, but we also wish there was less of that and more veggies and pieces of chicken. We understand that the family-size pie will be more substantial, but the smaller version could stand out to be a little bigger. Note that the crust burns quickly, even with a foil wrapping, which doesn’t prevent that dreaded burnt crust entirely. That’s unfortunate because the crust is the best part of this pie.

6. Healthy Choice
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   Since 1989, Healthy Choice has been a partner in helping change the game when it comes to making healthy food available to the masses. It aims to bring people food that is healthy and unreasonably scrumptious. So much so, it becomes easy to make healthy choices that greatly impact their customers’ lives. For example, as part of its Café Steamer lineup, Healthy Choice offers a crustless chicken pot pie as Atkins does. This offering includes chicken, carrots, peas, corn, and even tender dumplings, all coated in a pot pie sauce like that of a regular chicken pot pie.

We did enjoy how nice and tender these veggies were and were pretty impressed with the chicken it included. There was a generous amount, and it was well-flavored. However, the dumplings included in this pot pie are rather odd and chewy. Where they are supposed to be a substitution for the crust of a typical chicken pot pie, we just did not like this attempt at an alternative. We enjoyed this one more than the Atkins one, but it has more to do with the steamer way it was prepared rather than its actual recipes or contents. If you’re hoping to enjoy a crustless pot pie, we recommend choosing this one and then eating around the dumplings.

5. Stouffer’s
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   The company responsible for a peculiar lasagna-flavored bloody Mary mix, among other dishes, also has a chicken pot pie. Stouffer’s shares that its story began in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924, expanding to a second restaurant in Detroit, Michigan, in 1926. By 1954, the company was selling frozen food, and only six years later, the Anacapri Inn in Fort Lauderdale, a Stouffer’s hotel, opened. In 1992, Stouffer’s would sell its hotels and restaurants to allow for increased focus on the frozen food market.

Though the company offers a plethora of different frozen food options, there are actually only three pot pie varieties: white meat chicken pot pie, a larger size of the same pot pie, and chicken pot pie bites. The bites were rather disappointing, and they were quite small with only a little bit of filling. The image on the box shows bites that are absolutely overflowing, but that is just not the case for the actual product in the package.

In terms of the pot pie, we found that it tasted and felt very industrial. It seemed like a frozen meal much more than some of the others did. We wish there was more of a homemade quality to it because the flavor was just a little plain. Furthermore, the crust was easily burnt in the cooking process and needs to be wrapped as the directions state. However, even with the wrapping, it still came out dry.

4. Boston Market
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   Boston Market has plenty to offer, with restaurants around the country and even the ability to bring a holiday feast straight to your door. The frozen food portion of the company also has a slew of frozen meals intended to satisfy a healthy appetite. With both a crustless pot pie and regular chicken pot pie available, it also brings the traditional pot pie to carbohydrate-conscious diners, like Atkins and Healthy Choice do.

We were delighted by the size of this pot pie, and though it is the smallest it offers, it’s plenty to offer a satisfying meal. The crust is golden brown, the vegetables are plentiful, and the cause is wonderfully creamy. We do, however, wish the crust was a little more flakey than this one offers, but the taste of the filling is quite good. The crustless variety offers all the traditional filling ingredients as well as celery and dumplings to make for a more satisfying dish. We liked these dumplings much more than the ones from the Healthy Choice variety. Additionally, since there is so much more room for chicken, the crustless pot pie is also an excellent source of protein at 24 grams. Having nailed down a great pot pie offering, Boston Market could offer some flavor variety, even extending into turkey and beef pot pies.

3. Boomerang’s
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   Chicken pot pies have a natural home in the Boomerang’s lineup since this company was inspired by the Australian meat pie. As Boomerang’s explains, Jack Fennell enjoyed a meat pie in Sydney and returned to Austin to work with Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts chefs to bring Americanized meat pies to the masses. This Texan company, now widely distributed across the United States, aims to make incredible meat pies that provide a unique and convenient dining experience.

Boomerang’s offers several chicken pot pies, including a classic variety, chicken and mushroom, and a chick’n classic plant-based option. The classic variety includes all the ingredients you’ve come to expect in a pot pie and brings it to a hand-held form. For a great spin on a chicken pot pie, we very much enjoyed the chicken and mushroom variety. We found the mushrooms to be a welcome addition to this already tasty pie; in fact, we preferred this variety over the original flavor. Though we enjoyed the flavors of these pies, we found the crust to be quite a bit less flakey when cooked in the oven. It was even a little crispy. However, when we cooked another hand pie in the microwave, the crust came out absolutely and deliciously perfect. The box and container for these pies produce an excellent result when prepared in the microwave, making them a fabulous and easy lunch to enjoy in a busy office, at school, or even relaxing at home.

2. Blake’s
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   When a company gets its start with meat pies, you just know the chicken pot pie is sure to be fantastic. It all began in 1970 when, according to Blake’s company story, Charlie Blake began experimenting with his grandmother Clara’s recipes. First, he worked on turkey pot pies and had the life-changing forethought to go sell them in town. He did, and the pies were a success. The rest, as you say, is history. Today, Blake’s remains committed to bringing well-made, fresh meals to customers. For chicken pot pies, Blake’s offers a traditional pie, organic, and gluten-free variety. Additionally, the brand also offers a turkey pot pie, the original favorite of the company. You can also check out the shepherd’s pie for something a little different and quite hearty.

These pies are immediately noticeably different from other pot pies because the crust does not go all the way around. Rather, the crust sits atop the filling, almost like a large biscuit. Initially, you may think you miss that surrounding crust, but we found that it leaves more room for the comforting filling. All that said, the crust on top is perfect, and if that crust encompassed the whole pie, this one would have been our favorite. It is flakey and delicious in a way that we simply didn’t see with the other pies. We highly recommend this one, but we do miss that extra bit of crust around the side.

1. Marie Callender’s
   Dani Zoeller/Tasting Table
   While Marie Callender’s makes our favorite frozen dessert pie, we were also blown away by the chicken pot pie. Like Marie Callender’s, we believe there’s something special about taking life at a slightly slower pace. Stopping to smell the roses. Enjoying precious moments with family. And digging into the ultimate comfort food: chicken pot pie. Though the chicken pot pie we tried is outstanding, Marie Callender’s also offers many more chicken pot pies, including one with a cauliflower crust, another with rich parmesan chicken, chicken with mushrooms, and even one that features bacon. The company has even partnered with Gardein to bring you a plant-based version of the classic chicken pot pie.

We found this to be everything we look for in a chicken pot pie. The crust is golden and perfectly flakey, the filling is lush with plenty of everything it should have, and the cooking instructions were nice and simple. We also love that the plant-based option exists so even more people can enjoy this delicious pot pie. Additionally, the fact that there are so many variations on the original makes Marie Callender’s the absolute hero of the frozen pot pie.

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