‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond’s Ham and Egg Hand Pies Are a Perfect Breakfast Idea

Ree Drummond makes an easy and portable breakfast recipe featuring a shortcut ingredient that elevates the entire dish. The Pioneer Woman star’s cheesy ham and egg hand pies come together easily and bake up perfectly.

Ree Drummond’s easy breakfast hand pies start with scrambled eggs

Drummond demonstrated how to make the easy breakfast on an episode of The Pioneer Woman. She heated butter in a skillet and added beaten eggs to the pan to make scrambled eggs, seasoning them with salt, pepper, and chives.

The Food Network host cooked the eggs over medium heat, stirring until they were scrambled, about 2 minutes. “I was noticing when they were scrambling just how beautiful and fluffy they look,” she said. “There’s something about scrambled eggs with chives that’s a weakness of mine. I just love them.”

Drummond put the eggs in a bowl and added diced ham. “I didn’t want to add the ham to the skillet because I didn’t want to contribute to everything being hot, hot, hot,” she explained. “And the ham is already cooked so the ham’s going to kind of help cool things down.”

She added shredded cheese to the bowl and stirred everything together.

‘The Pioneer Woman’ star uses an easy shortcut ingredient for the pastry

For the hand pie crust, Drummond used an easy shortcut ingredient — puff pastry. She cut the pastry into squares and placed a spoonful of the egg mixture in the center of half of the crusts.

The Pioneer Woman star brushed egg wash around the rim of the pastry then placed the second square of pastry on top, pulling it slightly to stretch it. Drummond pressed the top piece down on the bottom pastry, forcing out air bubbles and forming a seal around the edge. She used a fork to crimp the edges and placed them on a parchment-lined sheet pan.

Drummond brushed the hand pies with egg wash and sprinkled poppy seeds over the tops. She baked them in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 minutes.

The full recipe is available on the Food Network website.

Ree Drummond’s breakfast hand pies recipe earns glowing reviews

The recipe gets rave reviews on the Food Network site. “A big hit for brunch! I used cooked breakfast sausage instead of ham,” one reviewer noted. “Didn’t have poppy seeds so substituted za’atar and everyone loved them.”

Another person shared, “These were awesome and easy to make. We like extra cheese in our family, so I upped the cheese amounts … I topped them with everything bagel seasoning instead of poppy seeds. Yummy!  Making another batch to freeze!”

Other reviewers mentioned how perfect the hand pies are for using up leftover Easter ham, while others made the hand pies for Easter brunch.

“I hadn’t decided on Easter brunch plans/reservations so this episode the day before was perfect,” one person commented. “Everything was already in our fridge/freezer! Like Ree, had extra mix leftover. The dogs will be happy, but maybe next time 5 eggs and 3/4 cup each of cheese/ham.”