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Lean ground chicken, potatoes, peas, and exotic spices. My Chicken Curry Hand Pies are a deliciously satisfying dinner or lunch on-the-go. Refrigerated dough makes it quick and easy!
Easy Chicken Curry Hand Pies – A Scrumptious Meeting Of East And West
Hand pies have been around for a long, long time.
Latin American empanadas, samosas from India, Italian calzones, England’s Cornish pasty – just about every culture and country has some version of a pastry stuffed with a savory filling of meat, vegetables, or fruit.
And that makes sense. Because not only are hand pies tasty and filling, they’re a convenient and practical solution for eating on the go.
My most recent inspiration to make hand pies came from a pre-theater picnic in the park.
Sure, I could have just slapped together some sandwiches. But that seemed so ordinary. I wanted something a little more elegant and special that would be easy to bring along. And I didn’t want to spend all day in the kitchen.
Using pre-made refrigerated dough to make some quick and easy hand pies seemed like a good place to begin.
Drawing inspiration from the Indian samosas to stuffing the pies with a savory curried chicken and vegetable filling seemed like genius – a simple and delicious meeting of East and West.
What You Need to Make Easy Chicken Curry Hand Pies?
Pizza, Pie, Biscuit or Pastry Dough
If you’re feeling the urge to make your own pastry dough, you can absolutely do that. I decided to make my life easy by using refrigerated, store-bought dough.
The dough needs to be cut into squares, so I went with Pillsbury pizza dough. Each tube easily rolls out to an approximately 12-inch square. I cut four 6×6 squares from each package to get enough dough for eight easy, sturdy Chicken Curry Hand Pies.
Using pre-made pizza dough gives a more bread-like casing for your hand pies. It was a good match for a hearty filling and stretched easily so that I could stuff lots of the yummy filling into each hand pie.
However, if you’d prefer a flakier casing that’s more like pastry, you could use two packages of refrigerated pie crust.
Another option is to use the “grand” sized refrigerated biscuits, rolling each biscuit out into a 6-inch circle. That’s what I use for my 5-Ingredient Ham and Apple Hand Pies, and it worked well.
Ingredients for the Filling
Lean ground chicken, onions, potatoes, peas, tomato paste, garlic, fresh cilantro or basil are the main ingredients for my chicken curry hand pies. For a vegetarian version, you could substitute a can of well-drained chickpeas for the chicken.
You could also substitute ground beef or pork, but I much prefer chicken. Its milder taste really lets the flavor of the spices shine through.
The spices include plenty of curry powder along with a good amount of cumin, fresh ground pepper, and salt. If you like a bit of heat in your curry, add a dash of cayenne to the spice mix.
Optional Dipping Sauce
To me, curry isn’t curry if it isn’t served with a side of chutney.
That’s why I decided to make a quick dipping sauce with equal parts of plain yogurt and peach chutney. It was really good!
I used some of the homemade peach chutney I canned last summer, but a store-bought mango chutney would be terrific too.
How Do You Make Easy Chicken Curry Hand Pies?
Making the filling is super simple.
You just fry the onions in oil until they are soft and translucent, then add the garlic and cook for another minute. Next, you’ll add the chicken to the pan and cook that before adding the remaining ingredients and spices.
Prepping the dough is easy, too, especially if you’re using a pre-made dough.
As I said above, there are several options. You can use pre-made pizza or pie dough, “grand” size biscuits, or make your own pastry dough. Circles or squares will work.
Just make sure you don’t roll the dough out thinner than about a quarter of an inch. Otherwise, the dough could break, and the filling might spill out.
Also, make sure you leave a good half-inch of dough around the edges of the filling. After folding the dough over the filling, fold the dough edges a second time and crimp to seal.
I like to dip my fingers into water and run them over the edge of the dough before folding and crimping. The water acts like a kind of glue and helps to ensure the dough is sealed so the filling doesn’t spill out during baking.
Meal Prepping Easy Chicken Curry Hand Pies
Chicken curry hand pies are wonderful served warm directly from the oven. They’ll also keep covered in the refrigerator for up to three days.
If you’d prefer to freeze extra for later, just brush fully baked and cool hand pies lightly with olive oil to prevent freezer burn and place them in a plastic zipper bag. They’ll store frozen for up to a month and can be reheated in the microwave or oven.
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Easy Chicken Curry Hand Pies – No Kneeding!
Ingredients
- 2 T olive or vegetable oil
- ½ medium onion, peeled and diced
- 1–2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 lb lean ground chicken
- 1 T tomato paste
- 2 T water
- 4–5 tsp curry powder
- 1–2 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp Kosher salt
- ¼ tsp fresh ground pepper
- *Dash of cayenne – optional
- 8 ounce boiled potato, diced
- ½ cup frozen peas
- 2 T fine chopped cilantro or basil
- 2 tubes of Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough (See post for other dough suggestions)
- Flour for rolling out dough
Optional dipping sauce:
- ½ cup plain yogurt
- ½ cup chutney
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425. Spray two rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray or oil.
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook onion for 5 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute.
- Add ground chicken to the pan along with curry powder, cumin, pepper, and salt. Use a wooden spoon to break up chicken and mix the spices into the meat, cooking until there is no pink left in the chicken.
- Turn heat to low. Add tomato paste, water, potatoes, peas, and cilantro or basil to pan, stirring gently to warm and combine the mixture, cooking until liquid has evaporated. Taste filling and adjust spices. Set mixture aside.
- Lightly flour a clean work surface. Roll packaged pizza dough out one at a time, into a 12-inch square. Cut dough into four 6×6 squares. Place 1/8 of filling into the center of each square. Fold dough over the filling and crimp the edges to seal. (See post for detailed instructions). Repeat with the remaining pizza dough and filling, creating 8 hand pies in total.
- Place uncooked hand pies onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes in preheated oven. Remove from oven. Allow to cool slightly before serving. Will keep covered in refrigerator for up to 3 days. (See post for instructions on freezing.)
