Skip to content
FriendsPantry

Canadian

Tourtière

Non-vegetarian

A double-crust French-Canadian pie filled with finely ground pork gently spiced with cinnamon, cloves and allspice, bound with a little potato. Traditional at Christmas Eve and New Year in Québec.

Tourtière is a Canadian pastry from Canada, ready in about 2 hours 30 minutes and made with ground pork and cinnamon. It serves 8 and is rated intermediate to cook.

Start cooking

No licensed photograph of this dish yet.

Prep
40 min
Cook
1 h 30 min
Rest
20 min
Total
2 h 30 min
Serves
8
Level
Intermediate
Calories
684

Plus 1 hour chilling the pastry and cooling the filling.

Ingredients

8 slices

Pastry

Filling

Glaze

Equipment

Method

  1. Step 1

    Rub the lard (opens in a new tab) and butter into the flour and salt until crumbly, add the ice water and press into two discs. Wrap and chill for 1 hour.

    • 10 min

  2. Step 2

    Cook the pork, onion (opens in a new tab) and garlic (opens in a new tab) in a wide pan over medium heat, breaking the meat up finely, until no pink remains.

    Food safety: Cook ground pork until no pink remains.

    Onions frying golden in a pan
    How it looks · Photo: Magda Ehlers on Pexels

  3. Step 3

    Add the stock, spices, thyme (opens in a new tab), salt and pepper (opens in a new tab) and simmer until almost all the liquid has gone. Stir in the mashed potato (opens in a new tab) and cool the filling completely.

    • 30 min
    • low heat

  4. Step 4

    Heat the oven (opens in a new tab) to 200 °C. Roll out one disc to line a 23 cm pie dish, fill with the cooled meat, cover with the second rolled disc, seal and crimp the edges and cut steam vents. Brush with egg (opens in a new tab).

    Dough being rolled out with a rolling pin
    How it looks · Photo: Katerina Holmes on Pexels

  5. Step 5

    Bake 15 minutes at 200 °C, then lower to 180 °C and bake until deep golden, about 35 minutes more. Rest 20 minutes before slicing.

About this dish

Origin
Québec, Canada · Well documentedMore food from Canada
Dish
Lunch · Dinner · Pastries · Main courses
Cooking method
Oven-baked, Simmered
Taste
savoury, aromatic / warmly spiced, buttery
Diet
No nut ingredients · High-protein
All labelsNon-vegetarian · No nut ingredients · No added sugar · Alcohol-free · Beef-free · High-protein
Worked out from the ingredients. How labels work
Good for
Festive & celebration · Freezer-friendly · Make-ahead
Cook more with
Ground pork · Cinnamon · All-purpose flour · Lard · Unsalted butter · Onion
Techniques
Baking · Simmering

Allergens

  • Contains: Milkfrom unsalted butter
  • Contains: Eggsfrom egg
  • Contains: Wheatfrom all-purpose flour
  • Contains: Glutenfrom all-purpose flour
  • May contain: Celeryfrom chicken stock

Based on typical versions of these ingredients and not verified allergen-free. Brands differ and cross-contact happens, so always check labels. For severe allergies, follow your clinician’s advice.

Nutrition

684 kcal per serving

Calculated

1 serving ≈ 266 g · recipe makes 8

Where the energy comes from

  • Protein 14%
  • Carbohydrate 26%
  • Fat 60%
Nutrition per serving and per 100 g
NutrientPer servingPer 100 g*
Energy684 kcal257 kcal
Protein24.2 g9.1 g
Carbohydrate43.3 g16.2 g
Net carbohydrate41 g15.4 g
Sugars——
Added sugars0 g0 g
Fibre2.2 g0.8 g
Fat45.3 g17 g
Saturated fat19.5 g7.3 g
Trans fat——
Cholesterol135 mg51 mg
Sodium770 mg289 mg
Salt equivalent1.9 g0.7 g
Vitamins & minerals per serving
Potassium
517 mg
Calcium
43 mg
Iron
3.6 mg
Magnesium
40 mg
Vitamin A (RAE)
98 µg
Vitamin C
7 mg
Vitamin D
—
Vitamin B12
0.8 µg
Folate (DFE)
153 µg

How these numbers were made

  • Calculated from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy) per-100 g values and the listed quantities.
  • *Per 100 g of combined raw ingredients; the cooked dish may weigh more or less.
  • “—” means the value isn’t known for enough of the ingredients; it is never zero by default.
  • Values are estimates for guidance, not for medical dosing. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. fdc.nal.usda.gov.

Good to know

Tips

  • The filling must be cold before going into the pastry, or the bottom crust turns soggy.

Serve with

  • Serve with ketchup, fruit chutney or pickled beets, as is common in Québec.

Food safety

  • Cool the cooked filling in the fridge, not on the counter, before filling the pie.
  • Reheat slices to 74 °C in the centre.

Storage

  • Refrigerate up to 4 days. Freeze unbaked or baked pies up to 3 months.

Reheating

  • Reheat covered with foil at 175 °C for about 25 minutes.

Variations

  • Tourtière du Lac-Saint-Jean: A deep pie of cubed meats and potatoes slow-baked for hours, from the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region.

Original editorial recipe · FriendsPantry editorial · Not yet independently reviewed · Added · Updated

Recipe DNA

How this dish is built

Built from the recipe’s own sections. Each band’s width is its share of the dish by weight. Choose a component to see what it does.

The body of the dish

Glaze

  • Egg, beaten1 piece · 50 g
Used in step 4

Baker’s notes

Customise in Bread & Bakery

Timeline and readiness cues

  1. Mix and knead · about 55 min

    Knead until smooth and soft; it should feel like an earlobe.

  2. Rest · about 1 h

    Covered so it doesn't dry out; relaxed dough rolls and shapes without springing back.

  3. Bake · about 50 min at 180 °C

    Puffed with golden-brown spots on both sides.

  4. Cool · about 20 min

    Cool on a rack before slicing — the crumb is still setting; cutting hot bread makes it gummy.

  5. Start to finish: about 3 h 5 min. Times are a guide — warmth changes everything; follow the cues.

If something goes wrong

  • Pale crust

    Likely causes

    • Oven too cool
    • Too little sugar or no milk/egg for browning
    • Over-fermented (yeast ate the sugars)

    What to do

    • Check the oven with a thermometer
    • Brush with egg wash or milk
    • Shorten the fermentation
  • Burnt bottom

    Likely causes

    • Tray too close to the heat
    • Dark tray absorbs more heat
    • Too much sugar in the dough

    What to do

    • Bake on the middle shelf
    • Double up trays or use a light-coloured one
    • Lower the temperature 10–15 °C and bake a little longer
  • Crust too hard or thick

    Likely causes

    • Baked too long at too low a temperature
    • No steam at the start

    What to do

    • Bake hotter for a shorter time
    • Add steam for the first 15 minutes (tray of boiling water, or a covered Dutch oven)
    • Cool under a tea towel for a softer crust

Reviews & corrections

Reviews come from signed-in cooks and appear after a moderator checks them. We never show made-up ratings.

You might also like