[Smilette31]

Most of my favorite foods are HIGH in calories. Chicken or Beef Pot Pie ... Tuna Casserole ... Shepards pie ... etc etc. My 8 year old niece LOVES the homemade chicken pot pie I make. Its her favorite food.

Now I know I'm counting calories so I just have to remember portion control but I'm also trying to revamp the classic " comfort " foods that I make from scratch to be healthier. I need some suggestions about the chicken pot pie. My niece informed me today that if I dont continue to make it once every other week for her ... then she's disowning me as her aunt ( hahahaha ).

Normally I use all canned veggies so I'm thinking if I continue to use the onion, celery ... and then instead of canned veggies ... use frozen or fresh ( so no salt added ) ... peas, green beans, carrots. I also use potatos ... and not sure if cutting those out completely would be a good idea or maybe using sweet potatos since they are better for you ( not sure how that would taste though ). And the chicken I boil because I end up shredding it so theres no added fat or salt when I do that.

The tricky part is the sauce. I make a basic rue. Butter ... flour. Then I stir in chicken broth ... and then milk til thick. I'm thinking the nutmeg and the freshly ground pepper can still go in. I'll omit the salt. Use a low fat or a low sodium chicken broth???? And then skim milk? I dunno ... and the butter I could use no salt added butter? I cant really substitute the butter out for anything could I? Nor the flour??

Just curious what you guys think ... any ideas would be great. I'm going to tinker around with the recipe but if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to chime in!

[aphrodite]

Whole Wheat flour or Steel cut oats, if you can grind them finely enough. Light butter?

Keep in mind I've never actually had chicken pot pie, so I don't know how that would work, but those are my suggestions.

ETA: This might help. http://www.nomeatathlete.com/healthy-baking/

[loquaciousjogger]

You probably could use a butter substitute.

[Jokan]

Use a light butter or u can play around with the 98% fat free cream of chicken soup, that's what I use in mine. I use a little cornstarch mixed with the milk to thicken up the sauce, just play around you'll get it!!

[Smilette31]

Originally Posted by Jokan

Use a light butter or u can play around with the 98% fat free cream of chicken soup, that's what I use in mine. I use a little cornstarch mixed with the milk to thicken up the sauce, just play around you'll get it!!

Isn't the sodium pretty high in canned soups?

[shcirerf]

I experiment with the cheap gravy packets all the time, low in cals, may be a bit high in sodium,? ff sour cream, almost ff cream of mushroom, chic, celery, soups, ff cream cheese, etc.

One of my fave, my DH is an ole redneck, likes gravy, and fried taters, is country gravy packets, adds flavor, but not calories.

It's great for potato soup, scalloped taters, and in other stuff that should taste fattening but does not need to be.

[Palestrina]

You can make a roux with olive oil and flour, I do it all the time instead of butter. Also, a little roux goes a long way so if you're using 2tbsp butter and 2 tbsp flour you can cut that by half with no problem and still get a relatively thick sauce. Definitely replace with low fat milk or skip the milk altogether and only use low sodium chicken stock. I would leave the potatoes out entirely, sweet potato will drastically alter the flavor.

You stumped me on the canned vegetables. I'm quite a foodie so I haven't walked down that aisle in decades, people are still using canned vegetables? They don't just taste like chemicals to you? Blehh. If you're put off by the cost of fresh produce than at least get frozen veggies instead. Often times frozen veggies can be better than fresh because they are picked while they are in season and flash frozen, whereas the produce aisle may have expensive out of season produce. Plus they don't have any of the additives and preservatives that the canned stuff has. I especially like frozen peas, pearl onions, and corn.

For the biscuit topping just use a much thinner layer.

To get max flavor out of your chicken poach, don't boil. In the poaching liquid you should have some carrot, onion, celery, bay leaf, parsley stalk, garlic, and peppercorns too. As long as you never bring it to boil the texture of the chicken will remain silky smooth and never grainy.