Air Fryer Ground Beef Hand Meat Pies

Air fryer ground beef hand meat pies with vegetables or baked in the oven are easy. Savory you can fill as air fryer chicken hand pie squares too for delicious grab and go meals kids love. A great way to use leftovers with a sauce and a flaky puff pastry crust your family will go crazy over.

Air Fryer Meat Hand Pies

We are sharing a Shepherds Pie hand pie version here but there are TONS of options once you get the technique down pat. Dinners can include all sorts of meat, vegetable, sauce combinations. While making Puff Pastry Breakfast Recipes are even easier. With a can of pie filling, just fill and bake a tasty treat too.

We have made this with fresh meat as well as making them as one of our Leftover Meatloaf Recipes too. In that case I don’t add the diced beef until the very end since it just needs to be warmed. Once the russet potato pieces are fork tender I throw those into the sauce and I’m good to go.

Below is a homemade filling a bit like our Beef Stew Without Wine we’ve made in the past. That one uses stew meat but the same idea really. Veggies, taters and meat all cooked together with a thick gravy. Instead of enjoying it as is right out of the pot we cool and spoon it into the middle of the thawed crusts sealing it in between 2 pieces. We used;

Beef Hand Pie Filling

• Butter or olive oil
• Minced garlic
• 1 small onion diced
• Carrot peeled and diced
• Celery diced
• 1 lb ground beef of your choice like beef sausage or turkey
• 3/4 tsp salt and pepper
• 1.5 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tbsp soy sauce or worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• Beef broth
• Potato peeled and diced
• 1 tsp thyme and rosemary
• 1/4 c frozen peas
• 1 package puff pastry pie dough is what we are using, defrosted

The 1 egg whisked is to be brushed on to the outside of your savory hand pie so it can make it browned nice and flaky crispy too. You could use melted butter too but that tends to burn a bit faster and you don’t want that to happen.

How to Make Ground Beef Hand Pies

• In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Add the garlic, onion, carrot and celery. Cook until the vegetables start to soften, about 5 minutes.
• Then break apart the ground beef into the pan. Season with the salt and pepper. Stir and cook the meat and veggies together until no more pink is seen in the ground beef.
• Add rest of the seasonings, soy sauce and tomato paste. Stir together until combined. Add in the flour, pour in the beef broth and diced potatoes. Stir together. Let cook.
• Then add the peas, thyme and rosemary.
• Stir everything once again and cook on medium low heat for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and the sauce has thickened. Let cool completely.

If you wanted to use another mixture in the center instead then you would prepare that instead and skip these first steps. Let’s say you wanted to make a dessert style you would make the sweet filling as in our Pumpkin Hand Pies but with the same later techniques of this!

Hand Meat Pies in the Oven

• While your filling is done being prepared and cooling you want puff pastry to defrost on the counter and preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  
• Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Once thawed and the shepherd’s mixture has cooled, prepare the hand pies.
• Place on a sheet of the puff pastry on a clean surface. Roll out slightly with a rolling pin. Cut six rectangular squares out from the sheet.
• Use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to follow the indentations already in the puff pastry sheet. Then cut evenly in half perpendicular to the initial cuts.
• Fill the center of each rectangle with the meat filling, with half an inch of space from the edge of the sheet. In a small bowl whisk an egg together for the egg wash. Brush around the meat filling.
• Roll out of the other pastry sheet. Place on top of the meat filling and press the corners together. Then press the sheet down between each hand pie cut section. Repeat the cutting process of the pastry sheet, following the first sheet as a guide.
• Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Crimp the edges of each pie and with the egg wash brushed on to the top.

If you want to make a dessert version to cook on another tray I suggest our Blueberry Hand Pies, made the same way.

Air Fryer Hand Meat Pies

Place in the oven and let bake for about 20 minutes or until puffed up and are a beautiful golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool for about 10 minutes. OR in preheated air fryer bake at 340 F for 7-8 minutes until golden brown.

Hand Pie Recipes

When making Boiled Shredded Chicken Breasts I typically will make it in bulk to serve inside tacos one night, in a soup another, and make these another. All you have to do is warm the meat + 1 cup cream of chicken or mashed potatoes + frozen mixed vegetables together to make a sort of pot pie filling. Cool and then proceed with filling the dough and sealing!

Like I said, we have filled these things with many different things. Below is one idea but my girls love filling with our Sloppy Joe Recipe 3 Ingredients too!! Okay my husband and I are fans of this too. 😉 You can use poultry too if you prefer though…..

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