The ultimate comfort food, this chicken and dumplings recipe is a hearty, cozy, and delicious recipe that comes together in a few simple steps. This recipe features homemade dumplings on top of a flavor-packed chicken stew made from scratch. Even better, most of the ingredients are kitchen staples, so you probably have all the ingredients to make this recipe.
Everyone always asks for seconds when I make this recipe at home, so I promise, this stew is a guaranteed hit! The juicy, tender shredded chicken mixed into a creamy and flavorful soup, topped with biscuit-like dumplings, will warm you from the inside out. While you can enjoy it year-round, I always love making it during the fall season when the chill starts to set in. If you want another nourishing and satisfying meal perfect for the season, try my chicken stew recipe, chicken pot pie recipe, or chicken cacciatore recipe.
What You Need to Make This Recipe
Chicken — I use bone-in skin-on chicken breasts for the best flavor. If you use boneless chicken breasts, you have to be careful not to overcook the chicken and dry it out.
Mirepoix — a key component in many stews and soups, a mirepoix is made of a mix of aromatics, such as onions, carrots, and celery. While onions, carrots, and celery seem like simple ingredients, they add a significant layer of flavor as the base flavor.
Flour — you’ll need flour to help thicken the soup and to make the dumplings. No need to be fancy, all you need is all-purpose flour.
Chicken stock — you can use homemade or store-bought chicken stock for this soup. It adds much more flavor than using water for the soup.
Baking powder — you’ll need a leavening agent to help the dumplings puff up into fluffy biscuits in the soup.
Milk — like chicken stock, milk adds much more flavor than water for the dumplings.
How to Make Chicken and Dumplings
1. In a large Dutch oven, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the chicken breasts skin side down. Cook without disturbing them until the skin has browned nicely. Remove from the pot.
2. Add the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook while stirring until the onions turn translucent.
3. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Sprinkle in the flour. Cook for 2 minutes.
4. Slowly stir in the stock, salt, and pepper.
5. Add the chicken breasts back to the pot along with the thyme. Partially cover and bring to a boil. Boil until the chicken is cooked through, about 30 to 45 minutes.
6. Remove the chicken and cool for a few minutes on a tray. Taste the broth and add more salt and pepper if desired. Shred the meat, discarding the skin and the bones. Stir the meat back into the pot.
7. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, thyme, salt, and pepper. Add the milk and melted butter and stir until well combined.
8. Using spoons or a spring-loaded scoop, drop about 2 tablespoon-sized balls of the dumpling dough into the pot. It will be crowded, but the dumplings should all fit in a single layer. Reduce the heat to low and then cover and cook for 5 minutes. Carefully flip the dumplings over using a spoon. Cover again and cook until the dumplings feel firm. Remove from the heat and serve the chicken and dumplings immediately.
Pro Tips for Making This Recipe
- Do not swap the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour will make your dumplings dense instead of fluffy.
- When making the dumpling dough mixture, do not overmix. Stop mixing once the flour has just combined, or you’ll overwork the mixture and have dense dumplings.
- Using a cookie scoop will ensure all your dumplings are uniformly shaped and cook evenly.
- The dumplings will expand as they cook. Make sure you don’t drop the dough too close to each other in the pot.
- For a thicker soup, you can add additional flour to the mirepoix.
- I highly recommend using fresh thyme for the recipe. However, if you do not have any fresh thyme available, for every 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme, you can swap for ¼ teaspoon of dried thyme.
- You can add additional vegetables to the soup, such as corn or peas.
- You can easily shred the chicken breasts with two forks. However, you can also add the chicken (with the bone and skin removed) to a mixer with a paddle attachment and let the stand mixer shred your chicken breast on low speed.
- Avoid constantly opening the lid of the pot while the dumplings cook. You will release the steam built up in the pot that essentially cooks the dumplings, causing it to take longer to cook through.
Frequently Asked Questions
Chicken and dumplings is a classic dish, but everyone has their own way of making it! This recipe uses drop biscuits, where you scoop the dough and drop them into the soup directly for steaming. Another type of dumpling is rolled dumplings, where you roll biscuit dough before cutting it into shapes and adding them to the pot. They are flat, dense dumplings. And finally, there are biscuit dumplings made with canned biscuit dough. You cut the canned dough and drop them into the soup.
You can keep leftover chicken and dumplings in the fridge for 3 to 4 days in an airtight container. You can reheat the soup on the stove or microwave.
You can freeze leftovers for 2 to 3 months in a freezer-safe container. However, I recommend you skip freezing the biscuits. They may fall apart when you thaw them. Instead, it’s best to thaw the soup when ready to enjoy and make a fresh batch of drop biscuits to serve with the soup.
It’s important not to stir the soup once you’ve added the dumplings to the pot, or they will fall apart. Additionally, if the pot simmers too fast or at a rolling boil, it’ll jostle the dumplings too much, leading them to fall apart. So, make sure the soup is just at a low simmer.
It’s up to your personal preference! This chicken and dumplings is a creamy soup, but you can add more or less flour to the recipe to help thicken or thin the soup.
If you love this recipe try these out!
If you’ve tried this Chicken and Dumplings recipe, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you!
Chicken and Dumplings
Equipment
- Dutch oven
- mixing bowl
Ingredients
- 2 bone-in skin-on chicken breasts (about 2 pounds)
- ¼ cup unsalted butter (57g)
- 1 yellow onion chopped
- 2 carrots diced
- 2 celery stalks diced
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour (30g)
- 6 cups chicken stock (1.44L/1360g)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
For the Dumplings:
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (210g)
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¾ cup milk (180ml)
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
Instructions
- In a large Dutch oven, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the chicken breasts skin side down. Cook without disturbing them until the skin is nicely browned, about 10 minutes. Remove from the pot.
- Add the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions turn translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Sprinkle in the flour. Cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Slowly stir in the stock, salt, and pepper. Add the chicken breasts back to the pot along with the thyme.
- Partially cover and bring to a boil. Boil until the chicken is cooked through, about 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken pieces. Remove the chicken and cool for a few minutes on a tray. Taste the broth and add more salt and pepper if desired.
- Shred the meat, discarding the skin and the bones. Stir the meat back into the pot.
For the Dumplings:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, thyme, salt, and pepper. Add the milk and melted butter and stir until well combined. Using spoons or a spring-loaded scoop, drop about 2 tablespoon-sized balls of the dumpling dough into the pot. It will be crowded, but the dumplings should all fit in a single layer.
- Reduce the heat to low, just to keep the soup simmering. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Carefully flip the dumplings over using a spoon. (Do not stir them in the pot or they will fall apart.) Cover again and cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until the dumplings feel firm. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.
Notes
- Do not swap the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour will make your dumplings dense instead of fluffy.
- When making the dumpling dough mixture, do not overmix. Stop mixing once the flour has just combined, or you’ll overwork the mixture and have dense dumplings.
- Using a cookie scoop will ensure all your dumplings are uniformly shaped and cook evenly.
- The dumplings will expand as they cook. Make sure you don’t drop the dough too close to each other in the pot.
- For a thicker soup, you can add additional flour to the mirepoix.
- I highly recommend using fresh thyme for the recipe. However, if you do not have any fresh thyme available, for every 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme, you can swap for ¼ teaspoon of dried thyme.
- You can add additional vegetables to the soup, such as corn or peas.
- You can easily shred the chicken breasts with two forks. However, you can also add the chicken (with the bone and skin removed) to a mixer with a paddle attachment and let the stand mixer shred your chicken breast on low speed.
- Avoid constantly opening the lid of the pot while the dumplings cook. You will release the steam built up in the pot that essentially cooks the dumplings, causing it to take longer to cook through.
