Dutch Oven Campfire Chicken Pot Pie
Camping season is right around the corner! Woohoo! But with camping comes more great food, just made over the fire! Camping over the open fire is definitely an acquired skill. But, if you are familiar with cast iron, it is a skill that can easily be tackled! We love getting lakeside sights and letting the dutch oven do her thing while we do ours. (Fish)
If we are going camping for any length of time, there are two requests that are a MUST: Bread Bowl Chili and Easy Chicken Pot Pie! Sure they love the campfire pizzas, walking tacos, wild rices soup and breakfast scramble casserole, but hearty whole filling for the hungry crew is a must to reducing all the snacks for my hungry crew! So, Dutch Oven Campfire Chicken Pot Pie:
Start with your dutch oven slightly warm. I do this by adding my home-canned seasoned chicken that was canned within it’s own juice and has fat in it already! If you are not using home-canned chicken, no worries, a simple 1-2 Tablespoons of warmed butter or fat will work. You want to be able to take your wooden ladle and gentle coat the inside of your Dutch oven. Once it is melted, you have a warm dutch oven. Then add your cubed chicken. Canned chicken is essentially cooked, it just need to be re-heated. So, with raw cubed chicken , cook it thoroughly in the butter for 1 minute. After it obtains a little coloring, go ahead and add 1 Cup of water. Cook.
Dutch oven on the campfire warming some diced chicken!
Next, add your favorite seasonings. We like to add 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Add 1 Tablespoon of minced garlic. Stir into hot dutch oven with you warm cooked chicken. Return to heat until chicken is fully cooked.
Make sure your chicken is cooked completely before adding your other ingredients.
Then, add 5 cans of mixed vegetables and 2 cans of cream soup. Your cream soup can be your favorite. Personally, we add 1 can of cream of mushroom and 1 can cream of chicken. Stir and return to fire. Be sure to stir often as to not burn. (If you fire is flaming hot.)
Once hot and bubbling remove from heat and sprinkle with cheddar cheese. (cheese is optional) Next, add biscuits. Yes, fresh biscuits are the best. Or even the freezer biscuits that you bake. We make a slew of biscuits before we go on a long trip. But “Pop biscuits” work too. Hence, easy chicken pot pie. You need (2) cans or rolls of pop biscuits.
You can leave them whole like us, or cut them into fourths. Cutting them small will help them cook throughout faster and a more even layered biscuit on top. BUT if you are leaving your dutch oven on the fire for some time with the lid and it “bakes”, your biscuits will be just fine as they are AND delicious!
Place your biscuits over top, covering the potpie. Then, return back to heat. This time, be sure to grab a stick, some charcoal or a small burning log will work as well, for the top of the dutch oven. (Biscuits will bake.) When working over the fire, be sure to have heavy gloves and hot pads for removing your cast iron dutch oven lid. If you do not have one already, be sure to purchase a lifter if you plan on using the cast iron over the fire. It is such a life saver! Most of my cast iron campfire cookware is from LODGE and did not come with the lifter. You can purchase those separate inexpensively at AMAZON! To clarify, not a fire poker, but a lifter. (This one is under $12.)
Most purchased from this company come with them now, like this 9qt cast iron.
Bake until biscuits are done. This recipe works for a quick meal at home too. Adjust recipe to a 9X13 cake pan.
Place in heat safe bowls, we love enamel, like these:
Serve hot & Enjoy!
Happy Cooking! Happy Camping!!!