Mini Party Chicken Pies (Freeze Now, Bake From Frozen)
- Prep
- 1 h
- Cook
- 45 min
- Chill / rest
- 1 h 30 min
- Makes
- About 24 bite-size hand pies
- Oven
- 200C
Ingredients
servings
Base recipe: About 24 bite-size hand pies. Scaling changes quantities only; check tin sizes and bake times.
Shortcrust pastry
- 300g plain flour, chilled, plus extra for rolling
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 180g cold unsalted butter, 1cm cubes, frozen for 15 minutes
- 1 egg yolk
- 60ml ice-cold water, plus up to 15ml more if needed
Mini filling
- 15g unsalted butter
- 1 tsp neutral oil
- 250g boneless, skinless chicken thigh, 1cm dice
- 60g onion, very finely diced
- 15g plain flour
- 120ml chicken stock
- 40ml cooking cream, or evaporated milk
- 80g potato, peeled, 5mm dice
- 40g carrot, 5mm dice
- 40g frozen peas
- 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
- 1/4 tsp fine salt, plus more to taste
To finish
- 1 egg, beaten, for sealing and glazing
Method
0 of 9 steps ticked
01 Make and chill the pastry
Rub the frozen butter into the flour and salt with your fingertips until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Beat the yolk with 60ml ice water, stir it in with a table knife, and add more water a teaspoon at a time only if the dough will not hold when squeezed. Press into two flat discs without kneading, wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.
02 Cook the mini filling
Heat the butter and oil in a pan over medium-high heat and cook the chicken for 3 minutes. Add the onion and cook for 3 minutes, then stir in the flour for 1 minute. Stir in the stock and cream gradually, add the potato, carrot, white pepper and salt, and simmer gently for 8-10 minutes, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender and the chicken reaches 75C at the centre of the largest piece. Add the peas for 1 minute. The filling should be very thick, almost spoonable as a mound.
03 Chill the filling until cold
Spread the filling on a shallow tray, let the steam escape for 10-15 minutes, then cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or overnight, until completely cold. Never leave it at room temperature for more than 2 hours.
04 Roll and cut the rounds
Roll one disc of pastry between baking paper to about 2-3mm thick and cut 8cm rounds with a cutter or a glass. Lay them on a lined tray in the fridge while you roll the second disc. Press the scraps together, chill for 10 minutes and re-roll once. You should get about 24 rounds.
05 Fill, fold and crimp
Put a level tablespoon of cold filling (about 20g) in the centre of each round. Brush the edge with beaten egg, fold over into a half-moon, press out any air pocket around the filling and seal the edge firmly. Crimp with the back of a fork. Set the pies on a tray lined with baking paper, not touching.
06 Freeze, or chill to bake now
To freeze, put the tray in the freezer uncovered for about 2 hours until the pies are solid, then pack them into airtight freezer bags, label with the date and freeze for up to about 3 months. To bake on the day, chill the shaped pies for 20 minutes instead.
07 Bake fresh pies
Heat the oven to 200C. Brush the chilled pies with beaten egg, cut a tiny steam slit in each and bake on a lined tray for 18-22 minutes until deep golden, including underneath. The filling should be piping hot, 75C at the centre if you have a probe thermometer.
08 Bake straight from frozen
Do not thaw. Heat the oven to 200C, lay the frozen pies on a lined tray, brush with beaten egg, cut a steam slit and bake for 25-30 minutes until deep golden. Break one open or probe it: the centre must be piping hot, 75C. If the tops brown before the centres are hot, cover loosely with foil and keep baking.
09 Cool briefly and serve
Leave the pies on the tray for 5 minutes, because the filling is much hotter than the pastry feels. Serve warm within 2 hours, and refrigerate any leftovers promptly.
Kitchen-nerd tips
- Dice everything small: 5mm vegetables and 1cm chicken. Big chunks tear the pastry when you fold.
- Keep the filling cold and the pastry cold. If either softens while you assemble, put both back in the fridge for 10 minutes.
- Open-freeze before bagging so the pies do not freeze into one solid lump.
- Bake in two batches during a party so a hot tray arrives as the first one empties.
Why make mini chicken pies as hand pies?
Party food has one job: get from tray to mouth without a fork, a plate or a mess. A full-size chicken pie needs all three. A hand pie needs two fingers. Folding a round of pastry into a half-moon (the classic hand pie shape) also means no tins, no lids to cut and no fiddly unmoulding. Twenty-four pies fit on two standard baking trays, and the crimped edge gives everyone something crunchy to hold.
The pastry here is our all-butter shortcrust, scaled down. Shortcrust is the right choice for mini pies because it is sturdy. Puff pastry rises unevenly in small, folded shapes and tends to burst its seams. Shortcrust holds its crimp, survives freezing well, and stays crisp enough to be eaten by hand after sitting on a platter for a while.
What changes when you shrink a chicken pie?
Making a pie smaller is not just making less of everything. The proportions change:
- More crust per bite. A mini pie has much more pastry relative to filling than a personal pie. Season the filling a little more boldly, or the pastry wins.
- Smaller pieces. Chicken in 1cm dice and vegetables in 5mm dice. Big chunks poke through thin pastry and tear the fold.
- Thicker sauce. A mini pie has a short seam and no room for runny gravy. The filling should mound on a spoon. Runny filling escapes through the crimp and burns on the tray.
- Less filling than you think. A level tablespoon per pie looks stingy. Overfilled hand pies split along the seam in the oven.
Why bake from frozen instead of thawing first?
Baking from frozen gives you better pies and safer ones.
The pastry is the first reason. Frozen pastry goes into the oven with its butter rock-hard, so the crust sets before the fat can leak, and the crimp keeps its shape. Thawed raw pastry sits around getting damp: frozen filling releases water as it thaws, and in a humid kitchen the pastry picks up condensation too. The result is a softer, paler pie that can split.
Food safety is the second. Unbaked pies that thaw on a counter put cooked chicken filling into the warm zone for an unknown stretch. Straight from freezer to a hot oven skips that entirely. Frozen pies take 5-10 minutes longer than fresh ones, so always check one from the middle of the tray before serving: the centre must be piping hot, 75C if you have a probe.
If you are curious what freezing does to a chicken pie after it is baked, our freezing and thawing chicken pie experiment looks at that side of things.
What does a stress-free party timeline look like?
- Up to 3 months before: make, shape and freeze the pies. Label the bag with the date.
- The day before: check you have baking paper, two trays and space in the oven. That is it.
- About 45 minutes before guests arrive: heat the oven to 200C, egg-wash the first tray of frozen pies and bake.
- As the first tray empties: the second tray goes in. Fresh, hot pies arrive in waves instead of all at once and going cold.
No time to bake for a big birthday? Buying is a perfectly respectable plan, and this guide to party pies in Singapore works out how many personal and whole pies to order.
How do you keep party pies safe on the table?
Singapore heat is not kind to a buffet. Cooked food should not sit at room temperature for more than 2 hours, and on a hot day or at an outdoor potluck, sooner is better. Baking in batches is the easiest fix. Keeping trays warm in a low oven works for a short time but slowly dries the pastry. We compared approaches in serving chicken pies warm for a crowd.
Leftovers go into the fridge within 2 hours of coming out of the oven, eaten within 3 days and reheated until piping hot. Do not refreeze pies that have been baked from frozen and then reheated.
What can you substitute?
- Mini muffin tin: cut 7cm rounds for bases and 5cm rounds for lids. Bake fresh for 20-25 minutes, from frozen for 25-30 minutes.
- Puff pastry lids: use shortcrust for the base in a mini muffin tin and puff only for the lid.
- Curry filling: add 1 tsp meat curry powder with the onion for a pie that sits halfway to a curry puff.
- Leftover filling: cold leftover creamy filling works if you chop any large pieces small.
- Not baking at all: for a big crowd, there is no shame in ordering. The Don pie comes in personal and whole sizes, and our guide to where to buy a Don chicken pie has the outlets.
Mini pie troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Seams split open | Overfilled, or air trapped inside | Use a level tablespoon; press out air before sealing |
| Filling leaked onto the tray | Sauce too thin or edge not sealed | Thicker filling; egg-wash the edge and crimp firmly |
| Pale, soft underside | Tray too crowded or oven not hot | Space the pies out; fully preheat to 200C |
| Pies froze into one lump | Bagged before freezing solid | Open-freeze on a tray first |
| Golden outside, lukewarm centre | Baked from frozen for too short a time | Bake the full 25-30 minutes; check one from the middle |
| Pastry cracked when folding | Dough too cold or too dry | Rest the rounds 2-3 minutes before folding |
This recipe belongs to our chicken pie recipes from a Singapore home kitchen. Curious about the pie that started it all? Read the complete Don chicken pie guide, or explore chicken pie anatomy layer by layer.
