Seafood
Phyllo-Topped Fish Pie 🐟🥧
Prep
15 minutes
Cook
40 minutes
Yield
6
This delicious, comforting Fish Pie is made with a creamy, flavorful filling, flaky white fish, and a crispy phyllo topping.
This cozy fish pie is comfort food with a twist. It has a creamy, herby filling, and a gorgeously crisp, golden phyllo topping. This Fish Pie is made with tender whit fish, leeks, potatoes, peas, and some horseradish and dill for flavor. It’s easy enough for a weeknight dinner but also impressive enough that you can make it for a dinner party.
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Fish Pie
- Comfort Food: I love a pot pie in the winter months. It can be a great way to use up leftovers, or just an excellent way to make something easy, but impressive for a busy weeknight dinner.
- Fancy but Easy: This Fish Pie is an easy recipe to pull together with only a 15-minute prep time, but it looks fancy, and you can easily serve this for a dinner party or potluck.
- Flavorful: This dish is full of flavor from the mix of dill, lemon zest, and a touch of horseradish that keeps it fresh, zippy, and delicious.
🍲 Ingredients
Fish – This recipe uses cobia fish. Cobia is a mild, firm white fish with a buttery texture and slightly sweet flavour, making it really versatile and perfect in this cozy pie. I make sure to purchase BAP-certified fish because it comes from farms that meet strict standards for environmental responsibility, food safety, animal welfare, and social accountability. So you can feel good about what you’re serving your family.
Leeks – Leeks are part of the onion family, but they are much milder and sweeter in flavor. They are perfect to add richness to soups, stews, and savory pies because when they are cooked down, they become tender and buttery.
👩🍳 How to Make Fish Pie
- The night before making the pot pie make sure to remove the phyllo dough from the freezer. Thaw in the fridge overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 375F and grease an oval or rectangular baking dish or braiser – let me know what kind of dish to use.
- Add the extra-virgin olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. (You can also use the dish you’re baking the pie in if you can cook it on the stovetop).
- Once the olive oil is hot, add the thinly sliced leek, chopped green onions, diced yellow onion and diced potato. Cook for 5-7 minutes until everything is starting to soften.
- Add the minced garlic, kosher salt, white pepper, chili flakes and ground nutmeg. Stir and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant.
- Add 3 tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Then, add the flour and stir to coat everything in the pan – let it cook for 2 minutes.
- Add the milk and stir until combined. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce starts to thicken.
- Add the horseradish, lemon zest and fresh chopped dill and stir to combine.
- Add the frozen peas and grated cheddar cheese and stir until the cheese is incorporated into the sauce, cooking for about 1-2 minutes.
- Finally, gently stir in the pieces of fish and cook for 2-3 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper if desired
- Remove from the heat.
- Transfer the mixture to the baking dish OR leave in the dish you’re using if you’ve cooked in a dish that can go in the oven.
- Melt 7 tablespoons of butter.
- Divide the butter between the sheets of phyllo dough, lightly brush a bit onto each sheet.
- Use your hands to gently scrunch each piece of buttered phyllo to sort of look like a flower. Cover the entire pie with these phyllo flowers, using 7 sheets of phyllo dough.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until the pie is bubbling and the phyllo is golden brown on top. Note: Phyllo can brown quickly; if the phyllo topping is browning too quick, cover lightly with foil for the remaining cooking time.
🪄 Tips and Tricks
- Thaw Phyllo: Move it from the freezer to the fridge the night before so it’s pliable and easy to work with.
- Keep Phyllo Covered: While assembling the topping, drape a slightly damp kitchen towel over the sheets you’re not using to prevent them from drying out.
- Don’t Overcook: Allow it to gently poach in the sauce for a couple of minutes before baking.
- Watch the Phyllo: Phyllo will brown quickly, so if it starts to get dark before the filling bubbles, cover it with foil loosely to finish baking.
🗒 Variations
If you like this Fish Pie, try one of my other comforting pie recipes:
🗒 Best served with
👝 How to Store Leftovers
Store leftovers of this Fish Pie in an airtight container for up to 3-4 days in the fridge.
🤔 Common Questions
Yes! You can use any white, flaky fish like cod, haddock, or halibut. You can even mix other seafood like shrimp or scallops.
Yes! You can prepare the filling a day in advance and store it in the fridge, then assemble the phyllo topping just before baking to keep it crisp.
Any deep, oven-safe baking dish will work. An oval or rectangular dish about 10–12 inches wide is ideal.
Phyllo-Topped Fish Pie
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large leek, white and light green parts only, halved and then thinly sliced
- 4 green onions, white and light green parts, chopped
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 white potato, peeled and chopped into ½ inch pieces (about 1 1/2 cups)
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp ground white pepper (or sub black pepper)
- ¼ tsp chili flakes
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- 10 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
- 3 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 ½ cups whole milk, room temperature or slightly warmed
- 1 tsp horseradish
- 1 tsp fresh lemon zest
- ¼ cup fresh chopped dill
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese
- 1 lb (425 grams) BAP cobia fish, skin removed, cut into 2 inch pieces
- 7 sheets phyllo pastry (defrosted if frozen)
Instructions
- The night before making the pot pie make sure to remove the phyllo dough from the freezer. Thaw in the fridge overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 375F and grease an oval or rectangular baking dish or braiser – let me know what kind of dish to use.
- Add the extra-virgin olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. (You can also use the dish you’re baking the pie in if you can cook it on the stovetop).
- Once the olive oil is hot, add the thinly sliced leek, chopped green onions, diced yellow onion and diced potato. Cook for 5-7 minutes until everything is starting to soften.
- Add the minced garlic, kosher salt, white pepper, chili flakes and ground nutmeg. Stir and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant.
- Add 3 tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Then, add the flour and stir to coat everything in the pan – let it cook for 2 minutes.
- Add the milk and stir until combined. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce starts to thicken.
- Add the horseradish, lemon zest and fresh chopped dill and stir to combine.
- Add the frozen peas and grated cheddar cheese and stir until the cheese is incorporated into the sauce, cooking for about 1-2 minutes.
- Finally, gently stir in the pieces of fish and cook for 2-3 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper if desired
- Remove from the heat.
- Transfer the mixture to the baking dish OR leave in the dish you’re using if you’ve cooked in a dish that can go in the oven.
- Melt 7 tablespoons of butter.
- Divide the butter between the sheets of phyllo dough, lightly brush a bit onto each sheet.
- Use your hands to gently scrunch each piece of buttered phyllo to sort of look like a flower. Cover the entire pie with these phyllo flowers, using 7 sheets of phyllo dough.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until the pie is bubbling and the phyllo is golden brown on top. Note: Phyllo can brown quickly; if the phyllo topping is browning too quick, cover lightly with foil for the remaining cooking time.
Video
Notes
- The phyllo topping can brown quickly; if the phyllo topping is browning too quick, cover lightly with foil for the remaining cooking time.
- If you can’t find cobia fish, you can try mahi-mahi, grouper or red snapper.
