Creamy Vegetable and Halloumi Pie
This Creamy Vegetable and Halloumi Pie is the ultimate comfort food dinner. Crispy shortcrust pastry, a luxuriously creamy sauce, plenty of colourful vegetables, and soft, golden chunks of salty halloumi cheese… it’s hearty, indulgent, and absolutely delicious – the kind of dinner you’ll want to make again and again.
This halloumi pie is packed with a generous mix of vegetables (carrots, mushrooms, asparagus, peppers, peas, and sweetcorn) all coated in a rich white sauce and encased in golden, crispy pastry. It’s also a fantastic fridge-clearer, so don’t worry too much about using exactly the vegetables listed. Use whatever you have, and it’ll always taste amazing!
🧀 What is Halloumi?
If you haven’t cooked with halloumi before, you’re in for a treat! Halloumi (sometimes spelled haloumi) is a firm, salty cheese originally from Cyprus, and it behaves very differently from most other cheeses when heated. Rather than melting into a puddle, it holds its shape, which makes it perfect for frying, grilling, or, in this case, baking inside a pie!
The chunks of halloumi get beautifully soft and squidgy inside the pie, while still keeping their satisfying squeak. It’s an incredible addition to a creamy pie filling, and if you’ve never tried it before, this recipe is a brilliant place to start.
You could also try…
How to Cook Halloumi Perfectly
Homity Pie (Cheesy Potato and Leek Pie)
Creamy Vegetable Bake
🥗 Ingredients
- Shortcrust pastry. Two sheets of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry makes this recipe super simple – just roll it a little thinner before using it.
- Halloumi – the star of the show! Cut into generous chunks so you get nice bit pieces to chomp on.
- Vegetables – I used a mixture of onions, carrots, mushrooms, asparagus, peppers, peas and sweetcorn… but really, you could use whatever veggies you have on hand.
- Butter, plain flour, and milk – to make the simple white sauce.
- Dried oregano and black pepper for extra flavour. You probably won’t need extra salt, as halloumi is usually quite salty already.
🔁 Variations
Feel free to put your own spin on this recipe. As long as you’ve got halloumi and some veggies inside some pastry… you’ve got vegetable and halloumi pie.
- Mix up the vegetables – this pie is really flexible! Leek, broccoli or spinach would all work brilliantly in place of any of the vegetables listed.
- Add some extra cheese – stir a handful of grated cheddar or parmesan into the white sauce for an even richer filling.
- Make it with puff pastry – if you prefer a flakier, lighter pastry, puff pastry works well as a lid (though it’s a bit trickier to use for the base, so sometimes a combination of the two works well).
- Make a pot pie version (if you’d prefer to skip the bottom layer of pastry altogether).
- Make individual pies – use the same filling to make smaller individual pies in a muffin tin (just reduce the baking time accordingly).
🔪 Equipment
I like to use a loose bottomed springform cake tin for homemade pies. It works really well because:
- The clip on the side and the loose bottom make it so easy to remove the pie from the tin.
- It gives a nice thick pie, rather than a flat one – I think it looks so much better.
- The metal heats up nicely and helps to crisp up the pastry beautifully.
Here’s a perfect one on Amazon, which has great reviews:
🖨 Printable Recipe
Creamy Vegetable and Halloumi Pie
If you’ve cooked this recipe, don’t forget to leave a star rating!
Print Pin Comment(if you suffer from allergies, please double check all ingredients before eating)
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 carrots, diced
- ~ 10 medium mushrooms, diced
- 250 g asparagus (~ 15 spears), sliced
- 1 bell pepper, diced (I used yellow)
- 140 g (~ 1 cup) frozen peas
- 160 g (~ 3/4 cup) tinned sweetcorn
- 450 g halloumi cheese, diced (~ 3 cups when diced)
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp plain flour (plus more for dusting)
- 400 ml (~ 1 1/2 cups) milk (plus an extra 2 tsp for brushing)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- Black pepper
- Spray oil
- 2 sheets ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
Instructions
- Heat a dash of oil in a large pan, and add the diced onion and carrots. Cook over a medium heat for a few minutes, then add the mushrooms, asparagus, pepper, peas and sweetcorn. Cook for another 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the vegetables are fairly soft.
- Meanwhile, add the diced halloumi to a separate frying pan (you don’t need any oil), and spread it out into a single layer if possible. Let it cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until it has released its liquid, and the liquid has been cooked off. Allow the halloumi to turn golden brown all over, and add to the cooked vegetables.
- In the same pan as you cooked the halloumi (or a new pan if you prefer), melt the butter over a low heat, and add the flour. Mix well to form a roux, and cook for 1 minute. Add the milk a little at the time, stirring constantly, and allowing the mixture to come together into a smooth paste each time before adding more milk. When you’ve added all of the milk and your sauce is smooth and creamy, add the oregano and plenty of black pepper (you probably won’t need any salt, as the halloumi cheese is salty). Mix the white sauce in with the vegetables and halloumi, and set aside to cool.
- Lightly spray an 8-inch springform cake tin with oil (or grease with butter).
- Roll out the pastry with a little flour (even if you buy ready-rolled, it’s nicer if you roll it just a little thinner). Lay one of the sheets loosely over the cake tin, and slowly ease it into the tin, pressing gently into the corners. Prick the bottom of the pastry several times, and blind bake for around 15 minutes at 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F), until slightly golden. Leave to cool.
- When the pastry case and the creamy filling are both mostly cool (a small amount of residual heat is okay), add the filling to the case. Lay the other sheet of pastry over the top, and crimp around the edges. Trim any excess pastry, and use the trimmings to create a pattern on top of the pie if desired. Make a small hole in the top of the pie so the steam can escape.
- Brush the top of the pie lightly with milk, and bake at 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F) for around 45 minutes, or until the pie is golden brown and crispy all over.
- Carefully remove the pie from the cake tin, and serve. For neater slices, allow the pie to cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
I absolutely love this recipe! I make it all the time and my family love it
Great to hear, thanks Tess!
Hi Becca, this pie is far too big for one person … is it possible to halve the recipe?
Absolutely! Though to be honest I’d be tempted to do it more as a pot pie, with no crust underneath, otherwise I wonder if you’ll end up with more pastry than filling.
Canyon break down to smaller pies? Can i freeze it??
Thanks.
You could make smaller pies if you like, you’d end up with slightly more pastry for the same amount of filling though. And I haven’t tried freezing, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work :)
Can you prepare ahead and freeze .
I haven’t tried it but I don’t see why not!
Seriously, seriously good! Kids love it, but it is also unusual enough to be a dinner party centre-piece. I’ve cooked this 5 times so far.
Oh wow, praise indeed! Thanks Col!
I have made a similar pie before which I created but I used cheese sauce. Yours sounds delicious, so I’m going to try yours tomorrow as love halloumi and have so much veg needs using. I can’t wait and my mouth is drooling already!
I’ll let you know the results and in the meantime, I’ll happily search your other veggie recipes! This is going to be fun!
Thanks again!
Thanks Vanessa, hope you enjoyed it! :)
Absolutely fantastic. Skipped the mushrooms as not fond of them generally, and possibly the tastiest veggie pie I’ve ever had.
Lovely to hear, thanks Guillaume! :)