THEY are Britain’s biggest family and fund their lavish lifestyle with their pie-shop business.
But now the Radfords – helmed by mum Sue, 49, and dad Noel, 53 – have revealed exactly how they make their award-winning pies and what goes into them.
In a video on their YouTube channel, Noel said: “Good morning, everyone.
“Well, another day back at work, a Monday morning, so I thought we could show you the process of making one of our award-winning chicken pies.”
The dad-of-22 panned round their Radford’s Pie Company’s kitchen, which is based near their 10-bedroom home in Morecambe, Lancashire.
The family-run business creates a host of pie different flavours, from peppered steak to creamy mushroom, and sets shoppers back around £3.95 for individual pies and up to £18.50 for a family size.
Noel walked fans through the process to create a chicken pie and showed how they first cook all the meat in a big machine.
He shared: “Once the chicken is cooked, we take it out and strip the chicken by hand.
“We pull it all apart by hand, which we will show you.
“Then, we turn the chicken stock in the pan into the sauce.”
Noel chuckled as he refused to share the ingredients in the sauce, and said: “We won’t show you exactly how we make that because, obviously, it is our trade secret, but that’s what happens.”
Once the sauce was done, Noel and 28-year-old daughter Chloe added the cream and stock to the shredded chicken.
The busy dad added: “Chloe will mix up, and then we’ll start to fill the pies themselves.
“Chloe is busy over there filling the pies, and I am going to start cutting out the lids for the pies.
“The chicken pies are filled and lidded.
“Chloe now just has to egg wash them, and then they will go in the oven.”
After the tasty-looking pie was cooked, Chloe sliced it open to reveal the inside.
Noel praised their creation, saying: “Look at that perfect pie and the inside, yum.
“We are really proud of our chicken pies.
“These have a proper chicken taste, and the chicken and gammon pie is to die for.
“It’s probably one of the most popular ones.
“So there you go, that’s how we make our chicken pies.”
He added how the chicken pies are a “firm favourite” with his bumper brood, along with their award-winning chicken and gammon pie, which won a bronze award in 2016.
Fabulous did a taste test of the pies against high street favourites to see if they really are ‘whoppers’.
Sue and Noel are parents to Chris, 35, Sophie, 30, Chloe, 28, Jack, 27, Daniel, 25, Luke, 23, Millie, 22, Katie, 21, James, 20, Ellie, 19, Aimee, 18, Josh, 16, Max, 15, Tillie, 14, Oscar, 12, Casper, 11, Hallie, nine, Phoebe, seven, Archie, six, Bonnie, five and Heidie, four.
Sadly the couple’s 17th child Alfie was still born on July 6, 2014.
Their pie shop business means they don’t have to rely on benefits and can support their lavish family life.
The Radfords like to take their kids on numerous adventures, and have done at least 18 holidays in the past 12 months alone.
While they regularly pile their kids into their £40,000 luxury motorhome for UK jaunts, the Radfords love jetting around the world too.
Sue has also defended their extravagant trips in recent years to Disneyland parks, Lapland, New York, Legoland, Centre Parcs and the Maldives.
Sue previously launched an extraordinary rant at a troll on Instagram after she was accused of using “taxpayer money” to fund the family’s frequent holidays.
And she previously added: “We work hard but we’re not millionaires!
“The nastiness is upsetting though. We just want to be able to give our children the best possible life.”
Fabulous Senior Writer, Abigail Wilson, shares her impressions of Radford's famous pies.
After Noel revealed on his family’s famous show, 22 Kids & Counting, that he’d made a staggering £2.5million from his pie business, I thought I’d better give them a try.
As a big pie lover, I was beaming when I made my online order.
I bought the ‘chunky’ chicken pie from Radford’s Pie Company, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t call it a whopper.
I was really excited to try this iconic pie – especially after waiting over two weeks for it to arrive (yep, you heard that right).
It was a good size for an individual pie, and it made your bog-standard Pukka pie look tiny.
However, the insides of this pie were not appetising at all – although the Radfords described this pie as ‘chunky chicken’, I have to say, it was more like stringy chicken in my books.
Also, to make matters worse, the gross jelly-like appearance was not a bit of me.
Whilst I often see Noel’s cooking videos online, and am pretty impressed with some of his speedy dishes, I think I’ll be giving his famous pies a miss.
