Easy Chicken & Dumplings
By Yankee Magazine|Jun 01 2013|
In this delicious recipe for easy homemade chicken & dumplings, the whole bird goes into the pot , then the meat is added back in at the end with some aromatics and the dumplings.
The word dumpling goes back to 17th-century England, but the practice of cooking little pieces of dough in soup or stew goes back much further, in both Europe and Asia. This dish, which we’ve adapted from our friends at The Old Farmer’s Almanac, is a wonderfully efficient way to use a chicken.
To make this dish easier, we made the dumplings by simply dropping them into the broth, rather than rolling them out and cutting them into strips. It’s also one of the most satisfying and comforting foods you can make, perfect for any rainy or snowy or otherwise grim and sniffly day.
Yield:
8 to 10 servingsIngredients
1 whole 4- to 5-pound chicken
5 bay leaves
4 tablespoons salted butter
1-1/2 tablespoons table salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 large carrots, sliced into half-moons about 1/2 inch thick
2 large stalks celery, sliced crosswise about 1/4 inch thick
1 large yellow onion, diced
Garnish: minced fresh parsley
Instructions
Wash the chicken and put into a large soup pot. Add enough water to cover completely and add bay leaves, butter, salt, and pepper. Cover the pot, set over high heat, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and gently simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 1 hour.
When the chicken is done, transfer it to a cutting board, leaving the broth and bay leaves in the pot. When chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat from the bone in small pieces and set aside (discard bones, skin, and other waste).
Did the chicken in crock-pot and then followed rest of the recipe, Great for when the guys came in from shoveling and plowing and no leftovers. Will definitely make often
I’m a finicky person when it comes to continuity. That being said, I noticed that when mixing the dry ingredients for the dumplings there appeared to be some sort of herb in the bowl. It wasn’t mentioned in the video, nor is it included in the recipe. Could it be thyme or parsley perhaps?
Again, there seems to be an extra bit of ingredient in the recipe. When reading the measurement for the flour there is included next to it. “”plus extra for work surface”. Did I miss a step?
In the video it is stressed that after dropping the dumplings into the boiling liquid (which wasn’t even at a simmer, by the way), the lid of the Dutch Oven must be replaced. The recipe states that the dumplings are to be cooked UNCOVERED.
There were other little conflicts within and between the video and the website recipe, but I think I worked through them.
This recipe for dumplings is both amazingly easy AND delicious. Thank you!
Hi Mrs. Madrigal – Thanks so much for your comment! The video was filmed with the goal of providing some dumpling-making visuals, but it may not follow an exact recipe on our site. We apologize for any confusion! Chopped herbs add wonderful flavor to dumplings, and we had some in the kitchen that day, so they went into the bowl. When we adapted the recipe for drop dumplings instead of rolled and cut, the extra flour for the work surface should have been cut from the recipe. Good eye! We’ve since removed it from the recipe. We’re so glad you enjoyed the final result!
I watched the video on how to make the dumplings, then read the recipe. In the video you said that it’s very important to cover the pot while the dumplings cook. In the recipe above you say to cook them with the pot uncovered. Am I missing something?
Thanks.
I made the dumplings and they were really dense and flavorless. Should I have sifted the flour? Should the cover be on while cooking them? I will appreciate any advice.
I grew up in Pennsylvania and my mother made pot pie as described above but she bought the egg noodles that were called Bot Boi. She also made the fluffy dumplings. We moved to Delaware and learned about slippery dumplings that were made with lard, but I just scoop some of the chicken fat off the broth and add flour and salt, never baking powder. Rolled very thin, less than 1/4 inch. Drop in boiling broth and cook till the flour taste is cooked out. Sometimes I use the Annie’s frozen slippery dumplings.