Wholesome Ham & Cheese Pie | Easy Family Friendly Dinner | Everyday Gourmet 2026

It's amazing where you get inspiration for recipes, and this one's a perfect example of that. Many years ago, when I was in Florence, I was in a paninoteco, which is kind of like a sandwich shop, and I had the most incredible pie, not a sandwich, but a pie there, that had a combination of beautiful double-smoked ham, lots of cheese, like ricotta and parmesan, and the key to this is onions, slow-cooked onions. So this is going to be a little bit different to that, but it works a treat. We'll start with the base of the pie. So I've got about a 20-centimetre tart tin here with a flexi base. I've just sprayed it with some oil. I'm using some store-bought puff pastry, and we'll take that plastic away, and we're just going to line the tart tin. So just pressing in like so. I like to use shortcrust pastry for this because I don't want it to be too flaky. It's really trying to emulate what I tried at the paninoteco. I feel like it was a cross between focaccia and a flatbread. It was just absolutely delicious, the way that they compacted the onions and the ham and the cheese together. So after you've pressed that in, we're just going to use the palm of our hand just to tidy that up. And I will leave it as is for now because I'm going to marry that up with another piece of pastry in a moment. To ensure that we get a lovely crisp base, I'm just going to dock the pastry. So just with a fork, just pierce that. I'm going to give it a bit of a French twist here with some Dijon mustard. I love the savoury flavour of the Dijon mustard. So brush that on the base of the pastry. And we start with the ham because the ham is also going to act as a protector of the pastry. So double-smoked leg ham. And this one's very thinly sliced, which is what we're after. It's the perfect size for this. So we're just going to just overlap them slightly so they're covering the mustard completely. Next layer is the onions. Now, what I've done with the onions is just fried them in a pan over a low heat. You could add some bay leaf, a little bit of salt. What it needs, though, is time to cook down. So cook them low and slow. I haven't got too much colour on them. They're almost jammy. And the longer you cook these, the sweeter they're going to be. So we've got salty ham, sweet onions, perfect combination. So a layer of our onions go in. And I'm just using a fork just to drain the excess liquid. And a thin layer of that, really ensuring we're coating all of the ham there. Now, these onions are going to cook down quite a lot. So this is about three onions, finely sliced. If you wanted to cut this step out, I will allow you to cheat. You can use some store-bought onion jam. It also works really nicely. OK, next step is the cheeses, some parmesan. We'll just place that over the top. Some ricotta that I'll just crumble over. And a pinch of nutmeg. And to make this extra decadent and cheesy, some mozzarella. So you can grate this if you like. I'm actually just going to slice it. You don't want to be using a buffalo mozzarella for this because it'll be too watery. You want something dry like this. And thinly slice the mozzarella. Dot that around. That's looking good. OK, we need some glue to bind all these flavours together. So three eggs. I'm going to crack these eggs into a bowl. And I'm going to give this a really quick whisk. Don't need to add any cream to this at all. You don't want to pour all of this over because I'm going to do another layer of this. So we just want a drizzle of the egg just to fill in the gaps there, coat the top of this. It's looking good. And leave the other half to the next layer. I will add some pepper, but no salt required. The ham and the cheese is salty enough. Now we continue the layer. So a few more slices of our double-smoked ham, onions, cheese, and then we can put the top on. That is enough for the layering. You don't want it to be too full because it will expand slightly as it cooks in the oven. We'll just grab another piece of our shortcrust pastry. And we're just going to place that straight on top. I'm going to press into the side so it glues in with the other piece of pastry. And look how neat and tidy that is. It's a really easy way of making a pie. Now, what I like to do is just grab a knife and just make a little incision in the centre just to allow some of that trapped air to escape. And I'll brush this with some excess egg wash. Just being careful not to overdo it. If you like, you could decorate it with some black sesame seeds or some white sesame seeds. I'm going to keep it as is. This goes onto a tray and then into the oven. Now, my trick to ensure that we get a really lovely flaky cooked base is to place this on the bottom shelf of the oven. Even better, if you can put fan force on and then the bottom element, you'll ensure you get a beautiful crispy base and then it'll be golden on the top. Alright, the pie has come out of the oven. And now just to take it out of the tin. I always like the idea of just putting a ramekin upside down. This is the safest way to do it. Oh, look at that. Come straight off. And then getting an offset spatula, we'll just take it off the disc on the bottom there. So I'll just place that underneath it. And we'll just carefully slide that off. This is fantastic eaten hot or cold. It's going to cut into it because we really want to see the inside of it. Nice, big, chunky wedge. Oh, have a look at that. So happy with that. See the layers of that double-smoked ham? Place that onto a plate. Serve that as is or with a salad. It's really all about those flavours. Double-smoked ham, sweet onions and loads of cheese.