Day-Two Chicken Pie: Six Ways to Eat Yesterday's Pie
Hypothesis
A pie that has spent a night in the fridge has a softer lid and a firm, set filling. Instead of fighting that, some dishes can use it: the set filling as a sandwich spread, the re-crisped pastry as a crunchy topping.
Kit
- Personal chicken pies, chilled overnight
- Oven or air fryer
- Frying pan
- Sandwich press, or a heavy pan to weigh the sandwich down
- Sliced white bread and butter
- Eggs
- A pot of hot clear soup
- Freshly cooked rice
- Salad leaves, cucumber, tomato and a sharp dressing
- Probe thermometer
Method
- Proper reheat: we heated one pie in a preheated oven at 170C for 20-30 minutes until piping hot, as the control.
- Fried egg pie: we reheated a pie in the air fryer and topped it with a crispy-edged fried egg with a runny yolk.
- Pie-topped soup: we reheated a pie, broke the crisp lid into shards over a bowl of hot soup and spooned the hot filling in.
- Pie on rice: we reheated a pie until piping hot, then broke the pastry and filling over hot rice with a little chilli sauce on the side.
- Pie toastie: we scooped the filling out of a chilled pie, heated it in a pan until piping hot, spread it between buttered bread and toasted it in a sandwich press until golden, crisping the leftover pastry in the oven alongside.
- Salad plate: we served a reheated pie, halved, next to a big salad with a sharp dressing.
- We checked every hot component for 75C at the centre and reheated each pie only once.
What happened
Proper reheat
Still the best way to taste the pie as the baker meant it. A day-two pie reheats very nearly as well as a day-one pie.
Fried egg pie
Double egg: half a boiled one inside, a fried one on top. The runny yolk worked as a sauce. Absurd and excellent.
Pie-topped soup
Crisp lid shards softened slowly in the broth like croutons. Great with a clear soup. The pastry turned claggy fast in anything thick.
Pie on rice and pie toastie
Pie on rice was comforting and slightly ridiculous. The toastie was the crew favourite: crisp bread, hot creamy filling and no soft pastry to worry about.
Salad plate
The lightest option. The sharp dressing made the pastry taste richer by contrast.
Observations are qualitative: what a cook can see, hear and taste. We do not publish thermometer readings or scores we cannot stand behind. Your oven will differ, so run it yourself.
Verdict
Toastie for the win
Our opinion: Our favourite day-two move is the pie toastie, with the fried-egg pie a close second. If you only have ten minutes, though, a proper reheat still beats any trick.
Some people buy exactly as many chicken pies as they will eat. We have never met these people. Most households end up with a pie or two on day two, sitting in the fridge, looking a little less magnificent than yesterday. This experiment is about giving that pie a second act.
What happens to a chicken pie overnight in the fridge?
A chilled pie is a different material from a fresh one, and knowing how it changed tells you what to do with it.
- The pastry softens. Moisture drifts from the wet filling into the dry pastry overnight, so the lid and base lose their crunch.
- The filling sets. As the gravy cools, its starch and any gelatine from the chicken firm up into something closer to a spread than a sauce. The potato goes dense.
- The fat firms. Cold fat makes the pastry taste waxy and heavy until it is melted again.
Most leftover ideas fail because they ignore one of these. The good ones use them. A set filling is easy to scoop and spread, which is exactly what you want for a toastie. Pastry that has been re-crisped in a hot oven breaks into perfect crunchy shards. Our five-way reheating experiment covers the science of bringing pastry back in detail.
Is it safe to eat chicken pie the next day?
Yes, if it was handled properly. The maker’s current guidance is that the pies keep chilled for up to 3 days. That assumes the pie went into the fridge within 2 hours of buying, covered, and has stayed cold since.
Three rules make every idea on this page safe:
- Reheat once. Take out only what you will eat and reheat it once. Do not reheat a pie, put it back, and reheat it again tomorrow.
- Piping hot all the way through. 75C at the centre if you have a probe thermometer. For the toastie, heat the filling until piping hot before it goes into the bread, because a sandwich press browns bread long before it heats a cold filling through.
- Three days, then it goes. If you cannot remember when you bought it, that is your answer.
A pie that sat out on the counter overnight is not a leftover. It is a lesson. Bin it. Our post on how long chicken pie lasts in the fridge covers the full timeline.
Which day-two idea is worth the effort?
| Idea | Effort | What it fixes | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proper reheat | Low | Everything, if done right | The baseline, and still excellent |
| Fried egg pie | Low | Adds a sauce and extra richness | Breakfast of champions |
| Pie-topped soup | Low | Turns soft pastry into croutons | Best with clear broth |
| Pie on rice | Low | Stretches one pie to feed more | Comfort food, slightly unhinged |
| Pie toastie | Medium | Bypasses soft pastry entirely | Our winner |
| Salad plate | Low | Balances the richness | The responsible choice |
How do you make a chicken pie toastie?
This was the runaway favourite, so here is the method in full.
- Cut the lid off a chilled pie and scoop the filling into a small pan. Slice the egg if it is in one piece.
- Heat the filling over medium heat, stirring gently, until piping hot all the way through. Add a splash of water if it is too thick to spread.
- Butter two slices of white bread on the outside.
- Spread the hot filling on the unbuttered side of one slice, top with the other, buttered side out.
- Toast in a sandwich press, or in a pan weighed down with another pan, until both sides are deep golden.
- Meanwhile, put the empty pastry case in a hot oven or air fryer for a few minutes to crisp, and eat it as the world’s best side dish.
Add cheese if you like. We do not judge. Chilli sauce on the side is strongly recommended: our sauce and pairing line-up explains why.
Can you turn leftover chicken pie into fried rice?
Yes, and it is better than it sounds. The filling brings chicken, potato, vegetables, egg and seasoning in one go, and the pastry crisps up in the wok into crunchy bits. We wrote it up as a full recipe: leftover chicken pie fried rice. Use day-old cooked rice that has been kept in the fridge, and make sure everything is piping hot before serving.
How to reproduce this at home
- Keep your leftover pies covered in the fridge and use them within 3 days.
- Pick an idea from the table and reheat only the pie you need.
- Check that every hot component reaches 75C, or is steaming hot right through.
- Eat it straight away. No second reheats.
What would we change next time?
- Try a pie congee. Crisp pastry shards and hot filling over plain rice porridge might be the ultimate sick-day food.
- Test the Curry and Black Pepper pies. A curry pie toastie sounds dangerous in the best way. The stronger fillings may suit bread better than the Original does.
- Make a pie jaffle with cheese. A sealed jaffle iron would trap the filling neatly, though it would also trap steam, so the bread might lose some crunch.
EXP-07 is one of our chicken pie experiments, run on the Don chicken pie. For the settings without the story, use the chicken pie reheat calculator; for the pie itself, start with the Don chicken pie guide.
