I was always intimidated to try making Chicken and Dumplings from scratch because my Mom’s were always SO GOOD that I thought it must be a lot of work. A few years ago I watched her make it and I was like, “Wait, that’s it?!” And I have been making it ever since! My boys love this meal and I love that it can be a super quick meal if you play your cards right!
Chicken and Dumplings
Ingredients:
1/2 onion, chopped
about 6 carrots, pealed and chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced (or two if you like garlic like I do)
2 tbs butter
celery if desired (my family does not like celery so I leave it out)
1 pound cooked shredded chicken
2 (32 oz) cartons of chicken broth
1 tsp chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste
2 1/4 cup biscuit mix
2/3 cup milk
In a large pot, melt butter over medium high heat. Mix in chopped onions, carrots, garlic and celery. Saute for a couple of minutes. Basically just to get the flavors blended and cook down the veggies a bit.
Add shredded chicken,*See note below* broth and seasonings.
Heat through until it comes to a light boil.
(Basically at this point, you have chicken soup. Add cooked noodles for chicken noodle soup. Or rice. Or nothing!)
To make dumplings, add the biscuit mix *See note below* and milk and stir until it makes a soft gooey dough. Drop into the soup. Don’t worry, the dumplings might sink at first. But they will come back up! Cook uncovered for ten minutes. Put a lid on and cook covered for ten more minutes. You can check the done-ness of the dumpling by splitting one open. If it’s fluffy and does not have a gooey center, it’s done!
**Here is where I say you can make this meal quick. I like to use chicken that has already been cooked and shredded from my freezer. This saves me a ton of time. I will also sometimes plan to cook my chicken in the crock pot and then use the broth left over right in the soup I’m making that night. If you do not have any on hand, you can still easily make this meal without a ton more effort. Just place some chicken in a pot of water and boil it. Once it’s cooked through you can shred it up. You can use some of the water as broth as well. Or take it a step farther and cook it low and slow all day with veggies and herbs right in the pot with the chicken to make a broth from scratch. For the biscuit topping, I like to make my own biscuit mix so making the dumplings is quick and easy. You could also just mix together any biscuit recipe together and use that. I like the consistency of the Bisquick dumplings. So I use my homemade version and follow the recipe for dumplings from their box.**
Enjoy!
This post linked to:
Southern Fairytale’s Mouthwatering Monday
Beauty and Bedlam’s Tasty Tuesday