Easy homemade chicken and dumplings!

This is my mom's recipe and one of my most favorite things to eat. The dumplings in the dish are the doughy, chewy kind. They're easier to make and stay together better. :D

This recipe also uses a whole chicken, which is cheaper. You won't need to buy expensive sodium-laden chicken broths for this. No sir!

This recipe does take a while to make (about 2 hours), but most of it is time spent simmering so you can do something else during it... like make homemade chocolate cream pie. Which is exactly what we did. Full instructabilization here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Chocolate-cream-pie/

You can also use this recipe to make chicken noodle soup - just up the veggies and add egg noodles at the end instead! Hooray!

Step 1: Ingredients

For soup:

• 3 stalks of celery + leaves
• 2 carrots or a couple handfuls of baby carrots
• 1/4-1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 small to medium onion
• 3+ cloves of garlic (to taste)
• 3 lb. whole fresh chicken
• salt, pepper and parsley to taste

For dumplings:

• 6 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• pinch of dried or fresh parsley and dried sage
• bit of salt, pepper and garlic powder
• 2 tbsp of broth to make a wet dough

Hardware:

• a pan large enough to fit the chicken and a considerable amount of dumplings
• knife
• cutting board
• measuring cups
• mixing bowls
• a table spoon

Comments

[TheDailyNail]

I made this last night, and I was SO delighted with how it turned out! I didn't have celery or peas in the house, so I added fresh corn and diced green beans, and it was fabulous! (this is saying a lot coming from me- I don't like vegetables much, and I inhaled two bowls of this!)

Thank you for this awesome recipe- I'll surely be making it TONS!

[jessyratfink]

Yay! So happy you liked it. :D

[Doctor What]

I've been looking for a good chicken dumpling recipe!  I should've figured it would come from you!

[kica]

looks delicious! I can smell the wonderful aroma all the way from here!

[NachoMahma]

. Take a way the garlic and this is a lot like what Grandmother and Mom used to make. Yummy! Puts the canned stuff to shame.

[zascecs]

_{...but garlic is good..}

WAH!

[NachoMahma]

. I didn't say garlic wasn't good, just that dear ol' Mom and Grandma didn't use it in their C&D.
. It's the love that makes it so delicious, anyway. Mom's peanut butter sandwich is better than anything Emeril can cook up. :)
. Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

[jessyratfink]

It's true! I honestly don't know how anyone can eat the canned stuff after having the real deal. :D

[zascecs]

I love this stuff!

[SoapyHollow]

Yum! Nicely done! I'll just pop over to your house for dinner then, shall I? ;)

[jessyratfink]

Hahaha, you and all of my coworkers!

[SoapyHollow]

Sweet! Party at Jessy's house! I'll bring dessert! :)

[zascecs]

I'll bring the Iced Tea!
=)
Nice Recipe, by the way!

[lemonie]

Super, I've not had egg-dumplings (unless they go by another name?) L

[jessyratfink]

I'm not sure what all they go by, honestly. To me these are just regular dumplings! :)

[lemonie]

To me regular dumplings (of the grandmother variety) are SR flour and suet. Dropped into beef stew they're pure "stodge" in meaty-gravy. It's a language difference I guess? L

[BigCommieNat]

This looks amazing... like... there is some pretty noteworthy Pavlovian response going on right now. This is pretty similar to the goulash my grandmother (from Hungary) made when I was a child... instructable forthcoming!

[jessyratfink]

Mmmmmm, goulash. Let me know when you post that one!

[TheJovialOne]

Very well documented. I'm a firm believer that tons of pictures make life a lot easier. I just finished moving into my new house in Pittsburgh, PA and have been itching to test out my new stove. I think I'll make this for dinner tonight. Alfred, ready the Jovialmobile. I'm going to the market! -drives off-

[jessyratfink]

This would definitely be a good recipe to test the burners on top. :D

[sophmae]

I have always wanted to make this soup... but I always chicken out when I think about dealing with the raw meat. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the photos. I think I can actually do this :)

[jessyratfink]

You can do! It's very easy. The raw meat bit can be gross, I admit, but it's so tasty that it doesn't matter in the end. :D

[caitlinsdad]

Yummo, what is your preferred method of dealing with the foamy flotsam and jetsam when making the stock? I like the Pennsylvania Dutch style of dumplings where the dough is rolled out and cut into fancy strips with ends on the bias. You should do the variant on making Matzoah Ball soup but they all help cure a cold.

[jessyratfink]

Honestly, if there's a lot of nasty bits floating on top and a lot of fat, I'll turn the heat off for a bit. As the broth cools, all that stuff forms a skin. So I'll skim all of that out and continue. Takes a little extra time, but you get a lot more of it that way. :D