Dec 01 2008
Turkey Pot Pie: Proof that homemade is healthier than store-bought
So, color me proud — I successfully improvised a meal. “Successful” in this case means that it got a thumbs-up from my daughter. She’s not really a picky eater, but she will let you know when she doesn’t like something.
One of things I’d spontaneously decided to make with all our Thanksgiving leftovers was pot-pies. I love pot-pies and the last time I had one in a restaurant, my daughter demonstrated an interest in them. Tasting a bit of mine, she pronounced it Very Good and went back to eating her meal.
It was a rainy, dreary day yesterday, so that seemed as good a time as any to make pot-pies. In my mind, a pot-pie is pretty simple: diced veggies and meat, Bechamel-type of sauce, double-crust configuration.
As my desire to lose weight and get back in shape intensifies (as it always does at this time of year), I find myself more and more compelled to cook even more healthfully than I already do. So, I look for recipes that, among other things, don’t contain too much butter, salt, milk, or sugar. EatingWell.com is perhaps the best site I’ve found for this, so this is where I began my search for a healthy pot-pie recipe.
EatingWell.com did not disappoint. Trouble was, I didn’t have most of the ingredients called for, even though I had just gone grocery shopping. (Such is the frustration of cooking on the fly.) Looking at the recipe, however, I noticed the EatingWell version wasn’t too far off from what I already had on hand — I’d just need to get a little creative with the sauce.
Bechamel sauce is pretty calorie-dense with over 80% of those calories from fat. No surprise there since Bechamel sauce is made with milk, butter, and flour. EatingWell’s version used low-fat sour cream which I didn’t have. However, I did have a can of cannellini beans (aka white kidney beans). I also had:
- Leftover turkey, chopped up in bite-sized pieces, about 3 cups
- Leftover green bean casserole, about 1.5 cups — made with sauteed onions because french-fried onions are gross
- Half a bag of frozen mixed veggies (about 1.5 cups)
- 2 cups of chicken broth prepared at half-strength with Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base
- A box of frozen puff pastry sheets
After draining and washing the beans under cold running water, I pureed them in my food processor until smooth and transferred to a bowl. I then added the leftover green bean casserole and stirred in some ready-made Mediterranean spice mix to give it some flavor. I heated up a large pan and threw in the frozen veggies and turkey. Once they were warm, I stirred in the bean mixture and added a splash of the chicken broth to loosen things up and make it easier to stir. As the entire mixture warmed up I added more broth until the “sauce” was the consistency I wanted — thick enough to stay on a fork and thin enough to pour easily from a large spoon. If I had to guess, I think I used a little over a cup of the broth.
Meanwhile, I thawed out the puff pastry sheets and used an 8-oz ramekin to cut top and bottom-sized circles which I baked. These would be my “biscuits” forming the top and bottom layers of my pot-pies. These didn’t take too long — I cut these out and baked them as the veggies and turkey were warming up in the pan.
Assembly was simple: one pastry round in the bottom, spoon in hot pie mixture, top with another pastry round. Et voila — dinner is ready. Including time to thaw the puff pastry, dinner took me under an hour to make. Without the crust, I imagine it would take me around 20 minutes tops.
So, how does this stack up, nutritionally? Well, knowing that making per-serving food calculations are dodgy at best, I’ve nonetheless done a little estimating using the calorie counter at About.com. I used their recipe analysis feature to work up a nutrition profile for my turkey pot pie and compared it to a similar serving of a comparable frozen pot pie. Here are the numbers:
| Jenny’s Turkey Pot Pie | Marie Callendar’s Frozen Turkey Pot Pie | |
| Serving Size | 235g | 232g |
| Calories | 437 | 511 |
| Total Fat | 24g | 31g |
| Saturated Fat | 6g | 10g |
| Protein | 25g | 12g |
| Fiber | 3g | 1g |
| Sodium | 364mg | 1062mg |
Comparing against other brands like Swanson’s and Banquet, my pot pie did even better. The About.com counter also gives foods a “nutrition grade” on a A-F scale. Although no grade was available for the Marie Callendar pot pie, a similar serving of Swanson’s pot pie gets a D+, which is about par for the pot pies that were graded. My pot pie gets a B+.
Of course, the EatingWell.com recipe blows mine out of the water, nutritionally. Assuming a similar serving size (about 1 cup), here are the numbers:
| Jenny’s Turkey Pot Pie | EatingWell.com Turkey Pot Pie |
|
| Calories | 437 | 403 |
| Total Fat | 24g | 12g |
| Saturated Fat | 6g | 4g |
| Protein | 25g | 29g |
| Fiber | 3g | 4g |
| Sodium | 364mg | 667mg |
As with my recipe, the About.com calorie counter grades the EatingWell recipe at a B+, but with fewer calories, half the total fat, and more protein, the EatingWell.com recipe is healthier overall. So, in the future, if I have the urge to make pot pie again, I’ll probably opt for EatingWell’s recipe. Still, in a pinch, my on-the-fly recipe is a competent runner-up and beats the pants off store-bought.
Yay me!