Wingin’ It: Buffalo Chicken Pot Pies for Bills vs. Patriots

Where there’s football, there’s food. There are many great options in the category of “traditional fare” but you might be in the mood for something different. Wingin’ It has you covered with a new Buffalo sauce-inspired recipe every week of the Buffalo Bills’ season. Get ready to win big in your kitchen as the Bills get ready for the New England Patriots!

It’s Patriot week and you know what that means! Cheating! We’re making Buffalo chicken pot pies but I’m only telling you how to make the pie crust. You figure the rest out. Actually, I get a little help this week as Rumbler WilliamShatnersPants gives us multiple ways to make a filling. Definitely check out his part of the recipe attached below.

Buffalo Chicken Pot Pies

Serves: 8-12
Active Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 2 - 2.5 hours

Pie Crust

2 cups flour, plus extra for rolling
2 sticks chilled and cubed, unsalted butter
1 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground red pepper (optional)*
¹⁄₄ cup cold water
¹⁄₄ cup hot sauce

Filling

Consult either the recipes here or go find one you like and go from there. Ha ha! CHEATING!

WilliamShatnersPants Buffalo Pie.pdf filling recipe.

You’ll need: Pie tin or cupcake pan, rolling pin, consider parchment or wax paper

Directions

1. Add flour and butter to large mixing bowl; sprinkle salt and garlic powder over the mixture.
2. Combine water and hot sauce together; add to mixing bowl.
3. Cut in ingredients using a fork being careful not to overmix. The result should be mostly uniform dough with some decent-sized chunks of butter visible**.
4. Cover and chill in refrigerator 30 min.
5. Roll out to about quarter-inch thickness on a floured surface, flipping several times as you roll—aiming for slightly larger than the pan in which you’ll be baking.
6. Fill with whatever filling you made, roll out a top layer of pie crust and cover the pie. You can rub water into the edges of the first crust to help seal the pie.
7. Pierce the top layer to allow steam to vent and bake according to the chosen recipe***.

Wingin’ It Tips

• *As is, this recipe will absolutely provide a “Buffalo” flavor but falls squarely in the mild category. If you want the flavor but low heat, omit the red pepper. If you want to add heat use the red pepper but DO NOT add more hot sauce (see below).
• **If you don’t mind getting dirty, this can also be done by hand much like kneading. The result should be very slightly sticky at room temperature.
• ***Rather than the usual golden brown for a pie, aim for a bit darker as this starts off a bit orange.

BONUS thing! Talkin’ pie crust

If there’s one thing I’m a food snob about it’s pie crust. I will cringe if you tell me you bought one because they’re so easy to make, don’t take much time, and are exponentially better quality. With pie season upon us let’s take the recipe above and convert it for use for any ole’ pie you might wanna make.

Pie crust should always include four basic ingredients: Flour, butter, water, and salt. And that’s it. If you stick to JUST this it will still be really good. For your base recipe every 1 cup of flour will yield one crust. Making pumpkin, which usually has an open top? 1 cup of flour. Apple pie with a top crust? Two cups.

For the rest of the ingredients just think “half.” For every 1 cup of flour, I need half that in butter. However much butter I use, I need half that in cold water. For the salt, most pies need a pinch because most pies are sweet and you want to enhance the flavor not alter it. For savory pies about a half teaspoon is good. Pumpkin pie? 1 cup flour, ¹⁄₂ cup butter, ¹⁄₄ water and a pinch of salt. Apple? 2 cups flour, 1 cup butter, ¹⁄₂ cup water, a couple pinches of salt.

For pie crust chemistry is important. My first trial of this used all hot sauce, no water and it made a grainy crust that fell apart when baking and tasted like spicy flour. It was a disaster. Do not go more than 50/50 for this and even then don’t expect a “pretty” pie. You can add big flavor with little tweaks though. Blueberry pie I’d add a ¹⁄₄ tsp vanilla and a tablespoon of sugar. Apple pie I always add about a ¹⁄₂ tsp cinnamon and that same sugar. You can even add a touch more sugar, roll it out and bake it without filling and make dessert nachos.