Super easy vegan pot pie with a gorgeous golden brown crust. This cheesy, veggie-packed savory pie is perfect for a special occasion.
Oh my! We are so impressed with this vegan pot pie.
Jaye was saying he had no idea it could be so easy to make a pie that looks (and tastes) as good as this.
A pot pie is usually a mix of vegetables and gravy topped with a pie crust. When I went looking around the web, I most often saw a version containing peas and carrots in a gravy. And honestly I just wanted to go with something a little different. And more exciting!
So we decided on a simple vegetable mix sautéed on the stove top and then mixed up with a cashew cheese sauce. This turned out to be the perfect pie filling. And that’s topped with a flaky golden brown pie crust.
It looks really fancy, yet the recipe is super simple. Always a good thing. This pie makes an excellent main for any special occasion and we love this for Christmas. Of course a vegan nut roast, or vegan meatloaf, vegan wellington or vegan lasagna are also wonderful options.
What You Need To Make This Pie
Ingredient Notes
Mushrooms – we used button mushrooms but cremini (portobellini/baby bellas) would also be great!
Zucchinis – we used 8 small zucchinis, which is equivalent to around 3 medium zucchinis or 2 large.
Nutritional yeast – this just adds a cheesiness to the cashew cheese sauce. If you can’t get hold of it then just leave it out.
Puff pastry – we took the easy option in using puff pastry for this pie and it worked so well! It must be puff pastry though and not phyllo pastry.
Vegan butter – this is melted and then brushed onto the crust before baking. Who needs an egg wash? Not us that’s for sure. Melted vegan butter creates the perfect crispy golden top for this pie. We tried it with just brushing on soy milk and it didn’t work nearly so well, so I highly recommend vegan butter. Any brand will do or a dairy-free margarine. Alternatively you can make your own homemade vegan butter.
How To Make Vegan Pot Pie
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Blend the cashew cheese sauce. Add all ingredients for the cashew cheese sauce to the blender and blend until smooth. Set aside.
- Sauté the veggies. Add onion and crushed garlic to the pot along with olive oil and sauté until softened. Add dried basil and soy sauce and stir in. Now add sliced mushrooms, zucchini and peas and sauté together. Cover the pot and let the veggies simmer together for a few minutes. They will become saucy due to the mushrooms releasing their water. Remove the lid and let the water cook off until only a little remains.
- Mix the sautéed veggies and cashew cheese sauce. Stir the cashew cheese sauce in with your veggies. Let it cool a bit and then transfer to a 9-inch round pie dish.
- Roll out the crust. Roll out your puff pastry so that it’s wider than your pie dish, with a little room to spare. Place the puff pastry over the top of your veggie filling and push the pastry into the sides of the dish, folding the pastry along the edges.
- Brush with melted vegan butter. Brush the top of the crust with melted vegan butter and cut a vertical line a couple of inches long, in the center of the pastry.
- Bake. Place the pie into the oven and bake for 25 minutes at 390°F.
Recipe Tips
Let as much water as possible cook off your veggies. It’s ideal for your filling to be nice and thick, so let as much water as possible cook off before you add the cashew cheese. Nobody likes a watery pie filling!
Let your sauce cool off for a few minutes before you put it into the pie dish and top with the pastry. It will be best if it’s not heating the heck out of the pastry from below before that pastry even starts cooking.
Let the pie cool for 10 minutes before serving. When your pie is all nice and cooked, let it cool for 10 minutes before dishing up. You want it nice and hot and flaky but at the same time, the sauce inside is HOT, better to not get third degree burns (it smells so good you’ll want to tuck in right away, but try to hold back).
Pie dish. Your pie dish should be 9-inches round and at least 2-inches deep as this is a fairly thick pie.
Make ahead option: You can definitely make the filling in advance and store it in the fridge for up to 48 hours. When you’re ready you can then assemble the pie. Add the filling to the pie dish, add the pastry on top as usual, brush with the melted butter and bake for 25 minutes. Easy.
Recipe FAQ
Puff pastry is usually vegan (check the labels of course) and comes in sheets.
It’s at its best when fresh and hot from the oven. However, leftovers are still good the next day eaten cold from the fridge, though the pastry doesn’t retain its crispiness overnight. So it’s best to eat as much of it on the day it’s made as you can. Which is usually not an issue at all!
It’s not ideal for freezing.
More Delicious Vegan Dinner Recipes
- Vegan Shepherd’s Pie
- The Best Vegan Lasagna Recipe
- Baked Vegan Mac and Cheese
- Vegan Pasta Bake
- Vegan Wellington
- Vegan Meatloaf
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Pot Pie
Ingredients
Cashew Cheese Sauce:
- 1 cup Raw Cashews (150g)
- ¼ cup Nutritional Yeast (15g)
- ½ tsp Crushed Garlic
- 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- ¼ tsp Sea Salt
- ¼ tsp Black Pepper
- 7 Tbsp Water
Sautéed Veggies:
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 Medium Onion White, Yellow or Brown, Chopped
- 1 tsp Crushed Garlic
- 1 tsp Dried Basil
- 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
- 5 cups Button Mushrooms (480g) Sliced
- 8 Small Zucchinis (600g, 4 cups) Sliced
- 1 ½ cups Frozen Peas (240g)
Pie Crust:
- 1 Sheet Vegan Puff Pastry
- Melted Vegan Butter for brushing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 390°F (200°C).
- Blend the cashew cheese sauce. Add all ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth. Set aside.
- Sauté the veggies. Add chopped onion and crushed garlic to the pot along with the olive oil and sauté until softened. Add the dried basil and soy sauce and stir in. Now add the sliced mushrooms, zucchini and peas and sauté together for a minute. Cover the pot and let the veggies simmer together for a few minutes. They will become saucy due to the mushrooms releasing their water. Remove the lid and let the water cook off until only a little remains (see notes*).
- Mix the sautéed veggies and cashew cheese sauce. Stir the cashew cheese sauce in with your veggies. Let it cool a bit and then transfer to a 9-inch round pie dish.
- Roll out the crust. Roll out your puff pastry so that it's wider than your pie dish, with a little room to spare. Place the puff pastry over the top of your veggie filling and push the pastry into the sides of the dish, folding the pastry along the edges.
- Brush with melted vegan butter. Brush the top of the crust with melted vegan butter and cut a vertical line a couple of inches long, in the center of the pastry.
- Bake. Place the pie into the oven and bake for 25 minutes until golden on top.
Video
Notes
- Cashews: We don’t usually soak the cashews first and if you have a high powered blender then there is no need to. If you don’t have a high powered blender, then add the cashews to a bowl, pour over boiling water from the kettle and let them soak for 15 minutes to soften before blending.
- Mushrooms: We used white button mushrooms but cremini (portobellini/baby bellas) would also be great!
- Zucchinis: We used 8 small zucchinis (see our ingredients photo for an idea of the size). An equivalent would be around 3 medium or 2 large.
- Nutritional yeast: This just adds a cheesiness to the cashew cheese sauce. If you can’t get hold of it then just leave it out.
- Puff pastry: We took the easy option in using puff pastry for this pie and it worked so well! It must be puff pastry though and not phyllo pastry.
- Vegan butter: This is melted and then brushed onto the crust before baking. We tried it with just brushing on soy milk and it didn’t work nearly so well so I highly recommend vegan butter. Any brand will do or a dairy-free margarine. Alternatively you can make your own homemade vegan butter.
- Pie dish. Your pie dish should be 9-inches round and at least 2-inches deep.
- Let as much water as possible cook off your veggies. It’s ideal for your filling to be nice and thick, so let as much water as possible cook off before you add the cashew cheese.
- Make ahead option: You can make the filling in advance and store it in the fridge for up to 48 hours. When you’re ready you can then assemble and bake the pie as usual.
- Storing: It’s at its best when fresh and hot from the oven. Leftovers are still good the next day though the pastry doesn’t retain its crispiness overnight. So it’s best to eat as much of it on the day it’s made as you can. It’s not ideal for freezing.
- This recipe was first published in December 2017. It has been updated with extra tips but the recipe itself is unchanged.
Love it, I’ve made it twice now! I couldn’t find any puff pastry the second time (it was sold out everywhere bc of the winter holiday season), so I had to use a frozen traditional pie crust instead. Still came out great!
So good! This recipe is a really good hearty meal with all the food groups in one spot! I personally do not think it tastes like the pot pie that I am used to but everyone still loved the unique flavour! I prepped this head of time to serve as part of thanksgiving dinner but the recipe makes way more than 1 pie. I decided to freeze half the filling so that it would not go bad. I have now taken it out of the freezer thawed it during the day and made another pie and it came out just as good as the fresh one! I think the key is to freeze the filling and pie crust separately and only put them together at the time of cooking. I also added a pie crust base to the bottom just because the pot pies I am used to always have a base. I loved it with the base crust which cooked perfectly with the rest of the pie! I used the store bought pie crust base and puff-pastry top (vegan of both are easy to find at the grocery store). I would recommend this addition a really authentic pot pie feeling.
Thanks for sharing Chris! A bottom crust addition sounds awesome too!
This recipe is a family favorite!! I haven’t been able to have a pot pie since becoming vegan so I was happy to find this recipe. I wasn’t expecting much considering it had mushroom and zucchini (I thought I’d miss the chicken) but WOW! I was very pleasantly surprised by how yummy this is. it’s so creamy and flavorful and I didn’t miss the chicken at all! now that fall is here, I’ll be making this quite a few times. already added it to my recipe book as well 😊
So happy to hear that Ashton! Thanks so much for posting!