Frozen Chicken Pot Pies

My family was trying to kick a serious cold/flu/bug. So, I made a big pot of chicken soup. Normally, I would freeze the leftover soup. But, for a little switch-up, I decided to turn the soup into Chicken Pot Pie -- and put THAT in the freezer instead.

We all love homemade Chicken Pot Pie --

I decided to make SEVERAL pies -- so I needed to add more stuff to the soup, and thicken it.

Filling:
I chopped a bunch of carrots, celery and onions and sauteed them in a separate pan. I added them to the soup, along with a can of corn, and a can of condensed cream of chicken soup. It was a REALLY BIG POT of deliciousness now -- but still a little thin for a pie filling. So I added a flour/water slurry to thicken it.

It tasted great....and it's nice and thick.  But now -- it doesn't have enough chicken.

So, I shredded an entire rotisserie chicken into the gigantic pot of deliciousness.

I declared the filling PERFECT.

Pie Crust:
As the filling was cooling -- I rolled out four pie crusts (Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts) and blind baked them for 10 minutes.  Lilly loves to put the parchment paper in, then add the marbles/rocks to keep the crust from bubbling up.

Freezing:
If I add the top crust -- it will make them very fragile in my freezer. So, I covered the one-crust pies with plastic wrap and placed them in the freezer overnight (in a single layer). The next morning, I was able to stack them neatly in a corner. (and I double-bagged them)

I ended up with such a LARGE POT of filling -- I made FOUR huge pot pies for the freezer!!

 Baking:
I put the frozen pot pie (covered with foil) in a 375 oven for an hour. I took it out, made sure the filling was completely hot...then replaced the foil with a newly-rolled-out-top crust and popped it back in the oven. The top crust was golden brown in about 15 minutes...

AND THE CHICKEN POT PIE was perfect.

...with a little help from my friends...