Chicken and Rice Pot Pie

Pot pie always seems simple enough: Cook filling, make crust, pour ingredients onto crust, bake. But we wondered if we could simplify it even more and eliminate the need to make our own dough. Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• Cooking the pastry topping and creamy filling separately puts this pot pie on the table in under 30 minutes. It also keeps the pastry from getting soggy.
• Be sure to pat the chicken breasts dry with paper towels before you cook them in the skillet. This ensures they will brown more evenly.
• You could make your own puff pasty, but it is far more convenient to buy it frozen from the supermarket. Just be sure to thaw it first.