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This easy recipe uses puff pastry dough to make homemade meat pies you can eat with your hands. Buttery dough is filled with tender, lightly spiced ground venison, then baked until golden.
These meat pies are made with freezer aisle puff pastry and ground venison. The deer meat is sauteed with yellow onions before adding spices and currants. Then we’ll wrap the meat filling in puff pastry and bake until golden. The end result is perfect pocket pies that you can eat with your hands. 🙂
Why You’ll Love This Meat Pie Recipe
- Easy. Just cook up some ground meat with onions and spices, then cut store-bought puff pastry into rectangles. Add meat filling to one end, then fold the pastry over, brush with egg wash, and bake.
- Flexible ingredients. If you don’t have ground venison, you can also use lean ground beef, ground turkey or even ground chicken. You can also sub the currants for golden or regular raisins.
- Packed with flavor. Sound unusual to have cinnamon in a savory recipe? Well, as I mentioned in this baked chicken thighs recipe, cinnamon brings a warm and flavorful dimension to meat dishes that is actually quite mouth-watering!
Ingredient Notes
The dough used to make these pies is store-bought, making them very easy to make as a last-minute meal. You can find a full, printable ingredient list in the recipe card below, but here are a few notes:
- Ground venison – You can also use ground elk, bison or lean ground beef. Ground chicken and turkey also work well.
- Mozzarella cheese – Choose a good quality, low moisture mozzarella to shred, or goat cheese. You can adjust the amount of cheese you use if you prefer a cheesier pie.
- Currants – You can also use raisins (regular or golden).
- Pine Nuts – These are optional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Use Ground Beef Instead?
Yes. This recipe will work with other types of ground meats like beef, ground elk, or ground bison. You can also use ground turkey or chicken. The flavors and texture of the pies will vary slightly depending on which meat you use.
Where Can I Find Ground Venison?
Depending on where you live, deer meat can be bought fresh when hunted in season. You can also find it frozen in some specialty shops and grocery stores. If you happen to live in proximity to a hunting community, the best place to source venison is from the hunters themselves, or from your local grocer.
If you live where venison is trickier to come by, you can look into ordering game meat online. In the US, I’ve had success ordering from Fossil Farms when I can’t find what I’m looking for locally.
Tips for Success
- Adjust the amount of cheese. The pies in this recipe aren’t super cheesy, with about one tablespoon per pie. If you’d rather have a cheesier hand pie, you can add up to three tablespoons of your choice of cheese. Mozzarella and cheddar are my favorites.
- Make the filling ahead. The venison mixture can be prepared up to two days in advance. Store it airtight in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. Then just proceed with the recipe as directed.
- Add veggies. You can add diced potatoes, carrots or peas to the filling. Saute any veggies with the onions before adding the ground meat and make sure they are cooked through. Meat pies are also a great way to use up any leftover cooked vegetables you may have in the fridge.
Serving Suggestions
These meat pies are perfect with a fresh green salad or soup as a light meal. For something a little heartier, you can never go wrong with a side of creamy mashed potatoes or buttermilk mashed potatoes.
How to Store and Reheat Extras
- Fridge: These meat pies will be at their best and flakiest on the day they’re baked. However, they will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- To reheat: When it comes to reheating hand pies, my preferred way to do it is in the oven as this will help revive the pastry. Wrap the pie in foil and place it in a 350 degree F oven until heated through, then remove the foil to let the exterior crisp up a bit for the last minute or two.
- Can I freeze it? The best way to freeze these venison meat pies is prior to baking. Follow the recipe as directed right up until you would normally bake them. Instead, place the baking sheet in the freezer and let the pies freeze until solid. Then just transfer the pies to a resealable freezer bag to store frozen for up to 2 months. Bake the individual pies straight from frozen, adding about 5-8 extra minutes to the baking time, or thaw in the fridge and bake as directed in the recipe.
More Game Meat Recipes
Ground Venison Meat Pies
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large Vidalia onion, minced
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 pound ground venison , or ground elk, or ground beef
- 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- 2 tablespoons currants, or small black raisins
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts, optional
- 4 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley, fresh, not dry
- 17 ounces puff pastry, 2 sheets
- 6 ounces Shredded mozzarella cheese, low moisture or goat cheese (use more if you want the pies to be cheesy)
- 1 egg yolk + 1 teaspoon water
Instructions
- Remove a puff pastry sheet from the freezer and set aside to thaw.
Make the filling.
- Over medium heat fry the onion in the oil until soft and golden, about 15 minutes. Add the meat, butter, garlic, and spices except for the parsley. Cook for about 5 minutes until heated through. Cook until the meat is no longer pink and the juices have reduced. Add a generous pinch of kosher salt, and a few shakes of black pepper. Continue to cook for 2 to 3 more minutes then taste and adjust salt as needed.
- Stir in the currants or raisins, pine nuts, and chopped parsley, then let the mixture cool.
Assemble the Meat Pies and Bake
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Cut each puff pastry sheet into 6 pieces of equal size. Roll each piece of dough out on a lightly floured counter, into a rectangle about 7 x 5 inches. (Be careful not to press down too hard, be gentle, otherwise, you’ll risk crushing the layers of pastry dough together.)
- When you’ve rolled each piece of dough, place filling onto one half of each rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch margin around the edges. Top with a sprinkle of cheese. I use about 2-3 tablespoons of filling and about 1 tablespoon of cheese but you can use more cheese if you like. Just make sure you can seal your pies.
- Brush the edges of the dough with water to make them stick together better. Fold the pastry over to cover the filling and create a square. Gently press the tines of a fork along the edges to seal and create a pretty pattern, then trim any superfluous pastry around the pie with a knife.
- In a small bowl, whisk together an egg yolk with 1 teaspoon of water.
- Place the pies on the prepared baking sheet and brush the tops with the egg mixture.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until puffed up and golden.
Delicious… added a little more salt than thought I would need, could be a little more explicit on size of pastry cuts
Thank you for sharing your feedback! Next time I make this I’ll try to make note of the pastry cut sizes. 🙂