chicken soup | Alaska Knit Nat

Chicken and dumplings is a meal I have only ever had as an adult. Growing up, my family would enjoy matzo ball soup once a year and that was as close as I got to this comforting wintertime stew.

When my best friend Kelly and I started cooking dinners together, she introduced me to her version of chicken and dumplings. Creamy, chicken soup with veggies and thick noodle-like dumplings made with biscuit dough.

Over the years we’ve made this dish several times without paying attention to how we prepare it. After making chicken and dumplings this week an Instagram fan asked for the recipe. I figured it was about time I wrote this down.

Creamy Chicken & Dumplings

Serves 6

Cooking/prep time: about 1 hour

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. butter or olive oil
2 Tbs. flour
½ onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
3 carrots cut into small chunks
1 pound of chicken (I like the breast tenderloins), cubed
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1.5 cartons chicken stock (about 48 oz.)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried parsley (or 2 Tbs. fresh)
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
Salt and pepper to taste
Your favorite biscuit dough recipe

Directions:

Melt butter in a dutch oven. Add onions, celery, carrots, chicken and flour and cook till onions are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the cream of chicken soup, chicken stock and herbs. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat and simmer while you prepare the biscuit dough.

Make biscuit dough according to instructions. Roll out dough to ¼ inch thick and cut into 2-inch rectangles (doesn’t have to be exact).

Drop the dough into the soup, cover, and cook for 30 minutes or until dumplings are cooked through.

Add the peas and simmer for a few minutes until they are heated through. If the soup is too thin, create a slurry of ¼ cup milk and two teaspoons of flour, pour it in the pot and simmer for another minute or so.

Serve on a cold day.

Making your own chicken stock is actually pretty easy and far more delicious than store bought stock.

I like to make the most of a Costco rotisserie chicken. I can stretch it for three meals.

1. Chicken with stuffing and glazed carrots

2. Chicken pesto lasagna roll-ups

3. Chicken noodle soup

The secret to tasty chicken stock is in the bones. By crushing the chicken bones you release all the marrow and yummy goodness into the stock. You know you have a good stock when it’s like Jell-o in the fridge — that means the bones really got into the stock. I do cheat a little bit by adding a can of store bought stock just to boost the flavor, but it’s not necessary.

Whenever I’m done with a Costco chicken, I’ll take apart the carcass, crush the bones and freeze them until I have enough to make stock with. Then just follow the recipe below, no need to thaw the bones first.

Ingredients:
2-3 leftover rotisserie chickens
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
handful of fresh parsley
2 fresh rosemary sprigs (optional)
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 bay leaf
6+ cups water
1 can chicken stock (optional)
salt and pepper

Directions:
Remove all the edible meat left on the chicken and store in the fridge (in case you’d like to use it for chicken noodle soup later).
Using a mallet or a big pair of pliers, crush that carcass so that all the bones are broken up.

Heat the oil over medium high in a large soup pot. Add the onion, celery and carrots and cook for about five minutes. Add the chicken, parsley, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf and cook till onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add pepper to taste. Fill the pot with water, cover and simmer for three-eight hours. Salt to taste.

Set a fine-mesh strainer over a large liquid measuring cup and carefully strain the stock to remove bones, veggies and other flavor enhancers. You may need to do this in batches. Toss the solid ingredients. Store stock in jars. You can freeze the jars but make sure not to fill them all the way to the top to allow stock to expand when freezing (science!)