Chicken n’ Dumplings
Other than thinly sliced roast beef sandwiches on white bread with mustard (and putting skittles on ice cream…8 year old me loved that combo and it’s a good way to break a tooth), chicken n’ dumplings is the food I have the most childhood memories of.
The other week Andrew felt like cooking something “scoopable” (his favorite type of food), so he whipped up a batch of chicken n’ dumplings and I was reminded how good it is.
There are numerous ways to make chicken n’ dumplings, but this recipe is our preferred version. To save some time, it uses a rotisserie chicken, so if you’re someone who dislikes handling raw meat…this may be the recipe for you.
Andrew and I are divided on the preferred dumpling shape. I like the dumplings more square and uniform, while he prefers to pinch the dumpling dough into randomly sized pieces and throw it into the soup. Either way they taste great. Sometimes when we make this we’ll increase the dumpling recipe by 50% so it’s more dumpling heavy. Again, either way it tastes great. Andrew would like his soup a bit more creamy and adds a splash of milk, but I prefer mine a little more brothy. Again, either way it tastes great.
When we’ve served this to Jojo she hasn’t touched the dumplings and I’m like, “Jo you’re missing the best part!” Haha.
If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Also, I shared a fun little video for this recipe on Instagram. I’ve been taking baby steps and learning to animate some of my girl paintings and it’s been really fun for me!
Chicken n' Dumplings
Yield: serves 4-6
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 90 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Ingredients:
soup
1 yellow onion
2 large carrots
4 celery ribs
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp black pepper
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 rotisserie chicken
3 bay leaves
dumplings
1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
Dice onion, carrots and celery into similarly sized pieces. In a heavy bottomed pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add in vegetables and sauté until soft, about 10 minutes. Add in pepper, salt, rotisserie chicken, and bay leaves. Pour in 5 cups water (or enough water to cover the majority of the chicken). Cover and bring to a simmer for 20 minutes.
While simmering, make your dumplings. In a bowl, use your fingers to combine all of your dumpling ingredients (flour, butter, baking powder, salt). It'll resemble a sandlike mixture and will then continue to come together into a dough. If your dough is too dry, add milk one tablespoon at a time. Place dough in the fridge in a ball until you're ready to roll it out.
Using tongs and/or forks, remove your rotisserie chicken from the soup and shred the chicken off of it. Return chicken meat back to the soup. Also, fish out your bay leaves at this point and discard.
Now, roll out your dumpling dough into 1/4"-1/2" thick sheet. Cut dumpling dough into your desired dumpling shape. Toss dumplings into the soup and return to a simmer.
Simmer for at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours. The longer it simmers the thicker and better it gets.
Makes excellent leftovers. It gets better and better and thicker and thicker as it sits in the fridge.
