The Best Chicken and Dumplings
The Best Chicken and Dumplings is a hearty blend of roasted chicken and plump dumplings in a perfectly seasoned creamy soup.
Soooo…. everyone has that one food item that will turn them off from the best of dishes, right? Some don’t like green peppers or don’t care for seafood …. or ….. don’t like anything that could possibly relate to ‘wet bread’.
Right?
And yet here we are talking about a recipe for The Best Chicken and Dumplings.
Yup, that’s me standing next to the people who avoid chocolate and macaroni and cheese. Go ahead and try to judge me now. Ha!
This being said, if you have been following my weekly trials and tribulations then you have read before my feelings on the wet bread issue. Can’t do it, won’t do it, not going to do it. My french toast had better be near burnt, my Thanksgiving Day stuffing should be have a crispy top and a big, bad Oh Hell NOOOO to dipping my French Dip into the au jus. Wet bread is truly my kryptonite.
Now let’s talk about The Best Chicken and Dumplings. I think we can all see where this is going so I will summarize my feelings on The Best Chicken and Dumplings in two words… no shot! As a girl raised in the South, I have had near bar fights break out over my opinions on this fine dish. Everyone already has a recipe, knows someone who has a recipe or has a Grammy who makes The Best Chicken and Dumplings this side of Fruitville Road and you had better not question THAT. People take their food very seriously around these parts and when you come out swingin’ on one of their favorites, you had better be able to back up your words.. or be able to buy the next round.
That works too.
So here I am in December with the weather cooling down and shorter days and I know it’s time to start thinking about a comfort food dish to warm up the house and the bellies within. Big Scary Mike LOVES Chicken and Dumplings so I start thinking .. and start researching … and start looking … and start writing up a recipe that sounds amazing on paper .. and then we get to the Dumplings. He likes big, fat, fluffy dumplings opposed to the flat ones so my brain is telling me that I can make this dish and even EAT this dish, I just need to take the dumplings out and I will be ok. He’s happy, I’m happy, life is back to right. Of course, knowing my long standing dislike for a dish I’ve only tried once before, he has to ask the magic phrase of a man who has survived way too many “experimental food nights”… Is there a back up plan to this dinner?
Yes, it’s called pizza delivery.
So I make the soup, the chicken , the seasoning is perfect and so far we are on a roll. Then comes time for the dumplings. I make the dough and I have no idea if it’s too wet or too dry because I am ‘dough making challenged’ anyways but I pull it together and when it’s time… plop! Plop, plop, plop!
…. and we wait …..
When I remove the lid of my dutch oven, there’s no explosion and there’s no single layer of dough and no floating little weird dough remnants to ruin my soup. There are just perfect little dumplings floating around, fat and poofy and happy…. and here we are with a big ol’ pot of The Best Chicken and Dumplings!
By the way .. I honestly couldn’t live without my dutch oven and I do think what you use to cook your soups and stews matters when it comes to the quality of food you prepare.
Plus mine is blue and it’s pretty. I ordered mine off of Amazon and when the weather turns cold, I honestly use it at least once a week.
But back to what we have been waiting for!!!! I tried them, I had to and I have to say that I actually ate more than one. I liked The Best Chicken and Dumplings, they had chew to them so it wasn’t a mouthful of mush. Then came the thumbs up from Mike and I knew we had a winner.
So the moral of the story is this… if this dish can convert ME then if you are already a Chicken and Dumplings fan, you will LOVE this recipe.
Just don’t tell your Grammy!
Enjoy!!
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The Best Chicken and Dumpling
Ingredients
- Chicken
- 2-3 lb chicken , breasts and thighs, bone in
- 1 tbl olive oil
- Salt and Pepper
- Soup
- 4 tbl butter
- 4 tbl flour
- 1 cup carrot , diced
- 2 stalks celery , diced
- 1/2 large onion , diced
- 5-6 cloves garlic , minced
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- 1 tbl sugar
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
- 1/2 - 1 tsp salt and pepper (to taste)
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 tsp parsley , chopped
- Dumplings
- 2 cups cake flour
- 1 tbl baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbl butter , melted
- 1- 1¼ cups full fat buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Rinse chicken and pat dry. Rub down with olive oil and sprinkle all sides liberally with salt and pepper.
- Lay chicken out on baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes.
- Add the butter to the Dutch oven and melt over medium-high heat.
- Once melted, add the carrots,celery and onion and stir to cook for 3 minutes.
- Sprinkle the flour on top of the vegetables and stir to coat. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil, whisking often so that the flour does not burn on the bottom
- Once it reaches a low boil, reduce heat to simmer and add in the wine, sugar and seasonings
- When the chicken is done roasting in the oven, add the whole chicken pieces to the soup and cover.
- Simmer for 20 minutes.
- To make the dumplings, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, butter and buttermilk in a medium sized bowl.
- Add more flour if dough is too wet and add more buttermilk milk if it's too dry. It should be thick but not too dense.
- Number One Rule!! .. Do not over mix the dough!! .. stir it enough to bring it all together and then leave it alone.
- Using a spoon, scoop out 2 inch dumplings and put them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
- After the 20 minutes of cooking, remove the chicken pieces from the broth and using a fork or tongs, pull the meat off the bone and shred into pieces.
- Add the chicken back to the soup and bring the heat back up to a simmer
- One by one, add the dumplings and try not to group them on top of each other, if possible
- Add the lid and cook them COVERED for 15-17 minutes. Do not remove the lid while the dumplings are cooking
- After they are done, stir in the heavy cream and parsley
- Check for seasonings and add salt and pepper to taste
- Serve immediately
