Homemade Meat Pie Recipe: 3 Tips for Making Meat Pie
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Jul 1, 2022 • 4 min read
Meat pies are a triple threat in the culinary world: a popular appetizer, street snack, and main course. Learn how to make your own meat pie with our simple recipe, along with a few helpful tips.
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What Is a Meat Pie?
A meat pie is a savory pastry featuring a meat-based filling encased in a buttery, flaky golden-brown pie crust. Cooks may either bake meat pies in a pie dish or form them into individual hand pies. The filling can contain various dried fruits and vegetables in their gravy-like sauce and proteins, including beef, pork, lamb, chicken, wild game such as venison, and even seafood.
Depending on the pie style and meat choice, you may cook one or more components separately to ensure the correct final texture.
5 Types of Meat Pies
The term “meat pie” encompasses many dishes, some of which may not resemble a pie in the classical sense. Here are some of the most common meat pies:
- 1. Empanadas: Empanadas contain spiced ground beef filling in a doughy crust with a braided or crimped edge. You can prepare empanadas by baking or frying them.
- 2. Mince pie: Kiwi and Aussie-style beef hand pies are a fixture of the national cuisines of their respective countries, featuring minced beef, mushrooms, and gravy. Cooks often finish these single-serving pies with a swirl of ketchup.
- 3. Natchitoches: In Louisiana, natchitoches—which share their name with a Native American tribe from the area—are beloved. These crescent-shaped pastries feature ground beef and ground pork with onions, bell peppers, and garlic in a deep-fried shell.
- 4. Sfiha: These Middle Eastern meat pies feature a spiced meat mixture cooked atop a small piece of flatbread.
- 5. Tourtière: The French-Canadian tourtière is traditionally served on holidays and comes in two main formats: shallow, made in a standard pie dish, and deep-dish, which bakes in the Dutch oven-style pot that gives the pie its name.
3 Tips for Making Meat Pie
If it’s your first time making a savory pie, you should note that the dish features many of the same techniques as baking a dessert pie, except with an added eye towards excess moisture. Consider the following tips before preparing the dish:
- 1. Partially cook the meat beforehand. The key to making a great meat pie is to achieve a flaky, tender golden crust with a juicy, fully cooked—but not overcooked—filling. Partially or fully browning the meat before creating the filling helps render out much of the moisture, helping to prevent a soggy crust.
- 2. Use ready-made puff pastry or phyllo. Meat pies give you an opportunity to use homemade pie dough. However, if you’re short on time or craving a different kind of crust, consider using puff pastry (ultra-absorbent) or phyllo dough (ultra-delicate), like Greek kreatopita, which combines ground beef with feta wrapped in a flaky phyllo dough shell.
- 3. Seal with egg wash. For a burnished shine and edges that are least likely to leak, brush any seams or exposed dough with a little egg wash before baking.
Homemade Meat Pie Recipe
makes
1 to 9 inch pieprep time
20 mintotal time
3 hrcook time
1 hr 30 minIngredients
For the pie dough:
For the meat filling:
- 1
Combine the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add 1 of the eggs and the cold butter, and pulse to combine. With the motor running, drizzle the ice water and apple cider vinegar into the bowl and pulse just until incorporated.
- 2
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead it until it comes together in a ball. (It won’t be smooth but should hold its shape relatively well.) Divide the dough ball into two equal portions, pat them into a disc, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- 3
While the dough rests, make the filling. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the potatoes whole until you can easily pierce them with a paring knife, about 12 minutes. Drain, and allow them to cool. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, dice them into 1-inch cubes and set them aside.
- 4
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef, garlic, and onions, and stir to combine. Sauté until the beef has begun to brown, then add the cumin, cinnamon, dried oregano, and cayenne. Add the peas and cubed potato. Season the meat mixture with salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Add the beef broth or stock, bring it to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until the meat mixture has absorbed but is still juicy, another 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside.
- 5
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- 6
Remove 1 of the wrapped balls of dough from the refrigerator. Place it on a lightly floured work surface, and roll it out until it’s about 11 inches in diameter. Use the rolling pin to drape it over a 9-inch pie pan, and fit it to the edges. Place a layer of parchment paper down, and fill it with baking beans. Blind bake the pie until it turns a faint shade of golden brown, 10 minutes. Remove the baking beans and let the pie cool.
- 7
While the bottom crust cools, roll out the top crust. Fill the bottom pie crust with the meat mixture, and smooth it into an even layer. Top the dish with the remaining dough, and crimp (or pleat) the edges to seal. Combine 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Brush the top of the pie with egg wash, and place it on a baking sheet.
- 8
Return the pie to the oven and bake it for another 25 minutes, until the top crust is golden brown and flaky.
- 9
Let the pie rest for 10 minutes before slicing to help the juices set and thicken.
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