If there's one recipe in the whole wide world that reminds me of my childhood in Québec, it's tourtière. It's a traditional French Canadian meat pie that we make in bulk and serve for Christmas. I have fond memories of helping to peel potatoes, and the oven being on all day baking batch after batch of this delicious dish, which freezes really well by the way! It's hard to find a "traditional" recipe for tourtiere, because each family has its own little secret ingredient or twist! Some use veal, or pork, some use carrots, or allspice while others prefer cloves! Well here's my version of gluten-free tourtiere, meat pie from my childhood.
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Ingredients
Let's talk about what you need to bake this delicacy!
- Gluten-free pie crust: this is the recipe I use for my cottage bakery, and it's a pleasure to roll! It's tough enough you can use cookie cutters like I did with the maple leaf!
- Meat: I've had tourtiere with all types of meats but my family has always gone for a mix of beef and pork.
- Tourtiere spices: this gives you room for a lot of customization, and I'll elaborate on what I use in my recipe, but the do-not-pass-go spices are cinnamon and cloves! There's also commercial mixes available, this one is certified gluten-free and my sister uses it! It may not be available in your region though.
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
You should make gluten-free pie crust ahead of time, as it's best handled after four hours of refrigeration. Then you're almost there!
- Start by boiling water and cooking the potatoes until they are soft. Reserve a third cup or so of "potato water" as it's nice and starchy!
- Peel the potatoes, set aside.
- Cook the onion and garlic in a lightly greased pan.
- Add the meat, carrot, seasoning and bay leaf.
- Once the meat isn't pink anymore, remove the bay leaf.
- Add the mashed potatoes and reserved potato water.
- Roll out the bottom pie crust in a 9-inch disposable pan. You can use a larger pie pan, but I find the 9-inch has just the right ratio of meat to crust.
- Add the cooked filling and cover with the top crust.
- Decorate as you like, apply egg wash and bake!
Hint: I suggest making the recipe as-in once, and then you can make a lot of substitutions to your liking! We all have a different taste in spices.
Substitutions
The allergens for this recipe are milk and eggs. Thankfully, it's easy to make gluten-free tourtiere completely allergen-free!
- Dairy-free - follow the instructions in my pie crust recipe for the dairy-free version. You'll need to use vegan butter and coconut milk powder (or oat milk powder). I've also done it using a store-bought 1:1 flour, but the dough is just not as pleasant to roll and shape. Definitely do-able though!
- Egg-free - omit the egg wash! You can sub it out by brushing melted butter (dairy or plant based) on top, and adding just a tad of sugar to help brown the crust.
Variations
You can customize this gluten-free meat pie by experimenting with different spices. Every family has its own tourtière recipe that seems to be passed down from generation to generation. What never changes is that we all eat it with ketchup! If you're looking for other traditional French Canadian dishes, you should check out my gluten-free salmon pie!
Equipment
For a long time, I've used a glass 10-inch pie pan to make this gluten-free meat pie, and it was never quite right. And then I remembered my sister always used disposable pie pans, which aren't as high, and my goodness, it fixed the ratio of meat to pie crust and finally tasted just like my childhood! Having said that, you'll need:
- a 9-ich disposable aluminum pie pan (my local dollar store always has them)
- a pot
- a deep pan
- a rolling mat and pin
Storage
Keep any leftovers in the refrigerator, for up to two days. You can also freeze leftovers. In fact, my family always makes several meat pies at a time and freeze them once they are baked and cooled. Just wrap tightly in plastic, and cover in foil. Freeze for up to two months. When ready to eat, thaw in the refrigerator, and warm up in the oven on 300F for 20 minutes.
It's so easy to freeze and reheat that I made several batches, along with my gluten-free chicken pot pie, when I was close to the end of both of my pregnancies.
Top tip
In the recipe card, I have given you the proportions for ONE gluten-free tourtiere, but I encourage you to make two! Most of us buy meat by the pound, and making TWO meat pies will use a pound of pork and a pound of beef each. I personally don't love having opened meat packages in the refrigerator.
FAQ
Tourtiere is a type of meat pie that originates from Québec, and is made with ground meat (now usually pork, beef or veal but used to be wild game), potatoes and spices. Meat pie can describe a lot of different dishes, including tourtiere, Aussie meat pie, beef pot pie, and lots of other delightful dishes from around the world!
It's a classic Christmas Eve dish. It's when family get together and all cook and bake together, each bringing its own twist or special ingredient to the dish. However, tourtiere is so dang delicious that it should not be limited only to a Christmas dish!
Related
Looking for other gluten-free dinners? Check these out!
Gluten-Free Tourtiere (French Canadian Meat Pie)
Equipment
- 1 9-inch pie pan disposable
- 1 pot
- 1 Large pan
- 1 rolling pin and mat
Ingredients
Spice Mix
- ½ teaspoon onion powder please make sure all your spice selections are from reputable gluten-free brands like Morton and Basset
- ¼ teaspoon celery seed or celery salt
- ¼ teaspoon mustard powder
- ¼ teaspoon sage
- ¼ teaspoon thyme
- ¼ teaspoon savory
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt plus more to taste
Crust
- 2 homemade gluten-free pie crusts for a 9 inch pan
- 15 grams any 1:1 gluten-free flour for rolling the crust
Filling
- ½ potato medium
- 7 grams butter or oil
- ½ onion diced
- 1 garlic clove finely chopped
- 227 grams ground pork
- 227 grams ground beef
- 1 carrot peeled and grated
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 egg for the eggwash
Instructions
Spice Mix
- Mix all the spices together and set aside. *Hint: I usually make a large batch of the spice mix and use 4¼ teaspoon of it for 1 tourtière recipe.
Crust
- Follow the instructions in the linked gluten-free pie crust recipe. Make it at least four hours prior to rolling it out.
Filling
- Preheat the oven to 375 °F (191 °C)
- Boil water in the pot. Add the potato and cook until soft.
- Reserve 3 tablespoons of the starchy potato water for later.
- Drain the rest of the water and mash the potato. Reserve for later.
- Meanwhile, melt butter (or oil) in the large pan on medium heat.
- Add the onion and garlic. Cook until translucent, about 3 minutes.
- Add the ground pork, ground beef, grated carrot, bay leaf and spice mix.
- Cook on medium heat for 8-10 minutes, until the meat is no longer pink.
- Remove the bay leaf.
- Add the reserved mashed potato and potato water.
- Mix the pan content well until everything is well combined and the filling is thick.
- Remove from the heat and set aside. You can taste test the filling here, and add more salt to taste.
Baking the Pie
- Roll out a bottom pie crust and set it in the 9-inch pie pan.
- Add the filling (it's okay if the filling is hot, you can work quickly here to avoid melting butter)
- Roll out the top pie crust and cover the filling. Crimp the edges. Add decorations with extra dough if you like.
- Brush with egg wash. *Hint: place the pie pan on a baking sheet lined with foil, to catch any butter dripping.
- Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 °F (177 °C)
- Bake an additional 20 minutes for a total of 40 minutes, or until the crust is nice and golden brown.
- Remove the pie from the oven. Serve hot, with ketchup. Enjoy!
Naelle @ GlutenFreeDIYers
Traditionally a Christmas recipe yes... but my family makes it once a month because it's so yummy!
Corrine
Made a double batch of your wonderful puff pastry.
Made sausage rolls and apricot Danish both giant size.
Taste so good.
Where can I put tge pictures?
Naelle @ GlutenFreeDIYers
Hi Corrine! I'm so glad you enjoyed the gluten-free puff pastry!
You can absolutely tag those wonderful pictures on social media! My Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest links should appear on the top right corner of your browser. Ty for sharing!