Make full-flavored, fresh-tasting chicken pot pie without spending all afternoon in the kitchen.

You can make the filling ahead of time, but remember to heat it on top of the stove before topping it. Mushrooms can be sautéed along with the celery and carrots, and blanched pearl onions can stand in for the onion. If you don’t want to make a pastry topping, make the related biscuit recipe, stamp out 8 rounds of dough, arrange dough rounds, over warm filling and bake as directed.

To make sure that the breasts cook at the same rate, purchase two similarly sized whole breasts (not split breasts) with skins fully intact. Whole chicken breasts weighing about 1 1/2 pounds work best because they require a cooking time long enough to ensure that the skin will brown and crisp nicely. If you do not own a broiler pan, use a roasting pan fitted with a flat wire rack. This recipe can easily be increased by 50 or 100 percent. If you do increase it, just make certain not to crowd the chicken breasts on the broiler pan, which can impede the browning and crisping of the skin.

basic chicken salad mix

It’s hard to make this look good, but it is extremely tasty. The trick is not to let the outside get too dark before the chicken is done.