Dutch Oven Chicken Pot Pie
Canned chicken, canned soup, and crescent rolls baked under coals until the top flakes.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 180 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Oil | 4 tbsp | |
|---|---|---|
| Canned chicken breast | 2 cans, 12 oz each | or 1.5 lb fresh diced, if the cooler is cold |
| Minced garlic | 2 tsp | jarred, or 4 cloves |
| Onion | 1, diced | |
| Potatoes | 4, diced small | small dice or they will not cook through |
| Powdered milk | 1/4 cup | plus 3/4 cup water |
| Flour | 1/4 cup | |
| Condensed cream of chicken soup | 2 cans | |
| Poultry seasoning | 2 tsp | |
| Mixed vegetables | 1 lb | carrots, corn, peas; frozen or canned and drained |
| Refrigerated crescent roll dough | 1 tube | the only thing here that truly needs the cooler |
Method
- Build a fire and burn it down to coals. You want a 12-inch dutch oven at roughly 375°F for the frying stage, which is most of the coals underneath.
- Heat the oil in the oven. Add the chicken and garlic and stir until the chicken is hot through, about 5 minutes for canned.
- Dice the onion and potatoes while the chicken heats. Add them and stir for 10 minutes, lid off.
- Shake the powdered milk, flour, and 3/4 cup water together in a bottle until no lumps remain. Pour it in.
- Add the soup, poultry seasoning, and vegetables. Stir and bring to a boil. Loosen with more water if it goes past gravy into paste.
- Unroll the crescent dough and lay it across the surface as one sheet. Pinch the seams shut.
- Put the lid on and rebalance the coals for baking at 350°F: most on the lid, a ring of about eight underneath. Check at 20 minutes, then every 5.
- Done when the top is golden and flakes when you push a fork into it.
This is a scout dutch oven recipe, mostly unchanged, because it was already built for a fire. Everything but the dough is shelf-stable: canned chicken, canned soup, canned or frozen vegetables, powdered milk. The potatoes and onion keep for a week in a crate without ice.
Two heat settings matter. The frying stage wants coals underneath so the potatoes actually soften, and the baking stage wants them mostly on the lid so the dough browns instead of scorching on the bottom. Move the coals when you put the lid on. The flour and milk slurry is what turns two cans of soup into gravy that holds a crust; add it as a liquid, never dry, or you get lumps you cannot stir out.
Packing
Cans, flour, milk powder, and seasoning travel in a milk crate. The crescent dough goes in the cooler and stays there until the filling is boiling, or it goes slack and tears when you unroll it.
Variations
- Swap the crescent tube for a dry biscuit mix dropped in spoonfuls if you have no cooler. Bake it 5 minutes longer.
- Instant mashed potato flakes stirred in at the end thicken it fast when the gravy comes out thin.
- Canned mixed vegetables save 10 minutes over frozen, since they need only heating.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/chicken_pot_pie-2173.asp