Leftover BBQ Pork Hand Pies with Potato and Apple 

A hand holding a hand pie with a bite taken out of it.
Jon and Aubrey taking a selfie in nature.
Jon and Aubrey taking a selfie in nature.

Jonathan Moore and Aubrey Janelle

28 & 26, Portland, Oregon

Jon is a commercial and documentary photographer, Creative Director at The Beans and Rice, and advocate for environmental responsibility. Aubrey Janelle is a lifestyle photographer living in Portland, Oregon, with a passion for journalism and creating narratives. Jon and Aubrey toured the Blue Ridge Mountains in a Thor Motor Coach Class B.

A Taste of Wild - Blue Ridge Mountains

Jon and Aubrey return back east to visit Jon's family in North Carolina, cooking up all of his favorite Southern-inspired meals from his time growing up in the South.

Leftover BBQ Pork Hand Pies with Potato and Apple 

Alright y’all. You know what’s easy, delicious, and super stinkin’ cute? These hand pies. Our pulled pork BBQ recipe always leaves us with tons of leftovers. Add some fresh apples, raisins and potatoes and you have everything you need  to turn those leftovers into a lunch nobody can resist. Jon and I love having these around for hikes or on-the-go meals.

Two hands peeling an apple.
One way to make peeling apples fun: see if you can peel the entire thing in one unbroken piece. 

You may be more familiar with sweet hand pies, the kind you can grab in drive-thrus or at gas stations, coast to coast. I’m partial to savory hand pies, something that tastes like a whole meal but is convenient enough to pack and eat at the top of a mountain (if you’re so inclined). What’s better than an on-the-go savory pastry? One that’s made with last night’s leftovers. 

When you’re RVing, every inch of space counts. There’s not a lot of room for leftovers to languish in the fridge, or specialty ingredients to take up valuable pantry space. The situation is similar, in a way, to my Southern ancestors, who knew how to use up every last bit of food and extend the life of a meal, even back before refrigerators were around. Hand pies are so useful that they show up again and again in cultures all around the world by a bunch of different names. 

Cutting pastry dough into equal squares on a cutting board.
Your puff pastry is ready when it still has a slight chill to the touch, but isn’t brittle and stiff.
Placing leftover pulled pork on pastry dough to make hand pies.
Spoon dollops of your leftover BBQ mixture onto the puff pastry.

Here, we’re making the most of leftover BBQ pulled pork from our sandwich recipe, adding some diced apples for sweetness and some potato for texture. Instead of forming the dough into a traditional half-moon shape, just cut pastry sheets into rectangles. You won’t waste any dough or have to roll out rapidly warming scraps. Because you’re using leftovers, you may find that these hand pies are so simple to make, they become a staple in your kitchen. They’re easy to adapt with whatever ingredients you have on hand, and would be just as tasty with ham and eggs as they would with sauteed mushrooms and greens. Truly, the sky is the limit. Or, we should say, your freezer space is the limit. Only you know how many packages of frozen puff-pastry dough you can fit.

Cutting slits into folded hand pies before brushing with egg wash.
Don’t forget to cut slits in the top of your pastry. This allows the steam to escape, and of course, makes it story-book pretty.
Leftover BBQ Pork Hand Pies with Potato and Apple 

Leftover BBQ Pork Hand Pies with Potato and Apple 

Yield: 8 hand pies

Prep: 10 minutes Cooking: 12-15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 2 sheets store-bought puff pastry dough, thawed
  • Leftover BBQ pulled pork
  • 1 Honeycrisp apple, peeled, cored and diced
  • 1 small russet potato, diced and boiled
  • 1 egg, whisked
  • ¼ raisins

Cooking Tools

  • Medium bowl
  • Cutting board
  • Knife
  • Fork
  • Pastry brush
  • Dutch oven
  • Aluminum foil
  • Tongs

Method

  1. Light a campfire and let it burn down until it’s mostly hot coals. 
  2. Make sure your puff pastry sheets are fully thawed. If not, unfold them on a cutting board and leave them to soften for fifteen minutes. 
  3. Mix 2 cups of leftover BBQ pulled pork with the chopped apple and potato. 
  4. Cut the puff pastry sheets into 4 equal squares. On each square, drop BBQ  pork filling onto one half.
  5. Brush the edges of the filled half with egg and fold the bare half over to form the top crust. The egg will help hold the edges together. 
  6. Use a fork to crimp the edges of the pastry securely. Cut slits in the top crust and brush with egg wash.
  7. Line your Dutch oven with aluminum foil. Place the pastries inside the Dutch oven and over with the lid. Place the Dutch oven over hot coals and add a few coals to the top of the lid to create even heat. Bake for 4 minutes, then flip the pastries and bake for another 5-8 minutes until golden brown.

Jon and Aubrey made their latest trip in a Thor Motor Coach Class B.

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