For Heartier Chicken Pot Pie, Add This Fall Vegetable (It Triples The Coziness)

Filled with chicken and veggies, a pot pie recipe is essentially a creamy soup inside a buttery, flaky pie crust shell. But with the addition of sweet potatoes, a chicken pot pie becomes the ultimate fall-inspired comfort food to warm you up on a brisk day. Many pot pie recipes use cubed yukon gold or other savory types of potatoes to bring more heartiness to the mix. But sweet potatoes are the cosy complement that will bring more depth of flavor to a savory, aromatic flavor profile of chicken, peas, carrots, and celery. Their soft, pillowy texture will all but melt in your mouth, providing a luxurious contrast to the meaty chew of the chicken and the tender bite of the accompanying vegetables. Plus, sweet potatoes release starch as they're boiled in the soupy filling, thereby thickening the soup even more.

It's easy to incorporate fresh sweet potatoes into a chicken pot pie at the height of their fall season sweetness. You can use our recipe for chicken potpie, swapping the russet potato for a sweet potato. Simply cut the sweet potato into small cubes to saute with the rest of the vegetables, softening them and melding their flavors before adding corn starch, milk, and broth. As the filling bubbles, it will cook the sweet potatoes while thickening into the creamy, rich filling we all know and love. If you want to take a shortcut, just dice up some canned, drained sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are a fall favorite that pair well with savory chicken pot pie filling, but there are other complementary ingredients and seasonings for an even more cohesive flavor combination. Bring a spicy and sweet Southwestern twist to a sweet potato chicken pot pie by swapping the traditional peas, celery, and carrots for frozen corn, onions, and roasted poblano peppers. Fresh and dried herbs will help make the sweet potato pop, so go ahead and season the creamy filling with rosemary, thyme, and sage.

In addition to a canned sweet potato shortcut, you could also make a chicken pot pie recipe even easier by using store-bought pie crust and canned cream of chicken or mushroom soup for the liquid filling. Or skip the pie crust and use a crescent roll topping for a flaky, buttery crust and more room for sweet potato chicken pot pie filling. If you're planning a pot pie for a crowd, you can add sweet potatoes into this recipe for chicken pot pie casserole that we top with canned puff pastry. Another option is to think outside the box with sweet potatoes by mashing them up to use as the rich topping for the pie instead of pastry or pie crust. For a Thanksgiving-inspired sweet potato pot pie, replace the chicken with leftover shredded turkey.