What can I make with puff pastry?
Puff Pastry is the most-wasted item in most kitchens and one of the most useful. Recipes using puff pastry are below, organised from fresh to properly stale.
7 recipes with puff pastry
Chicken Pot Pie
Buttery pastry over a creamy chicken and vegetable filling.
American50m6
Tarte Tatin
Roll the pastry to a 3mm-thick round on a lightly floured surface and cut a 24cm circle, using a plate as a guide.
France4
Portuguese custard tarts
STEP 1 Roll the pastry Mix the flour and icing sugar, and use this to dust the work surface.
Portuguese4
Arnhemse meisjes
Take your puff pastry from the freezer and defrost.
4
Mutabbaq
1 Heat the frying pan and add in some oil.
Saudi Arabian4
Burek
Fry the finely chopped onions and minced meat in oil.
Croatian4
Mini chilli beef pies
step 1 To make chilli, heat oil in a pan and fry onion for 5 mins until soft.
Australian4
Best uses for puff pastry, fresh or stale
- 1Fresh: toast hard, rub with a raw garlic clove, and finish with good oil and salt.
- 2A day old: cube, toss with oil and season, and bake at 400F for croutons or a panzanella base.
- 3Properly stale: blitz into breadcrumbs and freeze them - they last months and rescue any weeknight dinner.
- 4Soaked in an egg-and-milk custard it becomes French toast or a savoury bake with almost nothing else.
What goes well with puff pastry
Puff Pastry is at its best with butter, garlic, olive oil, cheese, eggs and herbs. Any two or three of those, plus puff pastry, is already a dinner rather than an ingredient list.
Storing puff pastry
Keep puff pastry at room temperature in paper or a bread box for 2-3 days - the fridge makes it stale faster. For anything longer, slice and freeze it, then toast straight from frozen.
Substituting puff pastry
If you are out of puff pastry, look for something that behaves the same way in the pan rather than something that tastes the same. Match the moisture level, the cooking time, and the richness, and adjust the liquid slightly if your substitute releases more water. When in doubt, describe what you actually have in the chat and Mr. Chef will rewrite the recipe around it.
Puff Pastry recipes: common questions
- What can I make with puff pastry and not much else?
- Plenty. With puff pastry plus an onion, garlic, oil, and salt you already have the base of a skillet dinner, a soup, or a simple sauce. Add a starch - rice, pasta, bread, or potatoes - and it becomes a full meal. The recipes above are ordered so the ones needing the fewest extra items come first.
- What is the quickest puff pastry recipe?
- Look for the entries above marked 20 minutes or less. As a rule, anything cut small and cooked in a hot pan beats anything roasted whole, and one-pan recipes save more time in cleanup than in cooking.
- Can I substitute puff pastry?
- In most recipes yes, as long as the replacement plays a similar role - similar moisture, similar cooking time, similar richness. Swapping across roles (a watery vegetable for a starchy one, for instance) usually needs a change in liquid or cooking time too.
- How do I use up leftover puff pastry?
- Fried rice, a frittata, a grain bowl, a soup, or a quesadilla will absorb almost any leftover puff pastry without a recipe. If you want something specific, tell Mr. Chef exactly what is in the fridge and it will build a recipe around it.