Our Easy Chicken and Dumplings Recipe is finally here and we couldn’t be more excited! Our simplified and delicious version is so cozy, packed with so much flavor and makes fluffy biscuit-like dumplings. We make our own herb studded drop biscuit dough, making our dumplings so soft, fluffy and super tasty!
We can seriously eat this chicken and dumplings every week and it’s on regular rotation in both our households during fall and winter months. It’s the perfect cozy, chilly weather meal!
What are Chicken and Dumplings?
Chicken and dumplings is a slightly thickened chicken soup dish with the addition of dumplings simmered into it.
Types of Dumplings
There are a few different types of dumplings that are used for chicken and dumplings.
Rolled/Noodle Dumplings
A simple dough is rolled out, cut into short/wide pieces and added to the soup. These dumplings are flat, soft, dense, and hold together well. They’re considered the most common ‘old fashioned’ dumplings used in chicken and dumplings.
Biscuit Dumplings
Canned biscuits are most commonly used for this type of dumpling. The biscuits are separated, quartered and dropped into the soup. These dumplings puff up a bit, but aren’t really fluffy and can also be a bit dense.
Drop Dumplings
Drop dumplings, which is what we use in our easy chicken and dumpling recipe and also by far our favorite, are made with a thick batter that is scooped and dropped into the soup. It produces light and fluffy dumplings and we love the ease of making them.
How to Make Our Chicken and Dumplings Recipe
Soup Ingredients
Soup Process
- Place a large pot over medium-high heat and melt butter.
- Add diced onion, carrot and celery ribs and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes or until vegetables soften. Season with salt and pepper. Add thyme and continue to cook mixture for another minute.
- Sprinkle all purpose flour over mixture and stir together until mixture is well coated and no dry spots remain.
- Stir in chicken stock (or chicken broth) and lower heat to medium. Continue to stir together until mixture thickens and is smooth with no lumps of flour.
- Stir in milk, season with salt and pepper and gently boil until soup is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
- Fold in Chicken.
Dumpling Ingredients
Dumpling Process
- In a medium combine flour, chives, thyme, baking powder, and salt. Whisk together.
- Add butter and continue to stir together until mixture is crumbly.
- Stir in milk until mixture just comes together into a thick batter.
- Scoop 3 heaping tablespoon sized scoops of batter into the soup until all batter has been used. Cover pot and simmer for 12 to 15 minute until dumplings have puffed up and just cooked through. Uncover, season with salt and black pepper, gently stir, and top with thyme and chives.
Tools You Will Need
- cutting board
- knife
- mixing bowls
- dry measuring cups
- measuring spoons
- liquid measuring cup
- large pot
- 3 tablespoon cookie scoop
- wooden spoon
Tips and Tricks for Chicken and Dumplings Success
- Don’t over-mix the batter – which will cause your dumplings to be dense when they cook up. Make sure to just mix the batter until it just comes together, with no dry spots.
- Toothpick check for dumpling doneness – just like many baked goods, insert a skewer into the center of one of the dumplings. If the toothpick comes out clean then the dumplings are ready.
- Scoop and drop dumplings into pot – without handling them or packing them tightly. This will help achieve light and fluffy dumplings.
- Use an ice cream/cookie scooper – which is the easiest way to minimize handling the dumpling batter.
- Cover and don’t peek – because you want steam to build up in the pot so the dumplings cook up evenly and tender.
Make Ahead and Freezing Our Chicken and Dumplings Recipe
Make Ahead
This easy chicken and dumplings recipe can be made u to 3 days ahead of time. To make ahead, cool soup completely, transfer to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator. When ready to reheat, transfer soup to a pot and simmer over low heat, stirring constantly. It’s important to very slowly reheat the soup to prevent it from separating and becoming grainy.
Freezing
Cream based soups don’t generally freeze well because they tend to separate when frozen, making them grainy when reheated. To prevent this from happening, make the soup, but don’t add the milk before freezing. Add the dumplings as usual and simmer until dumplings have cooked through.
Cool soup completely and transfer to a freezer bag, removing as much air out as possible, before sealing. Place soup in the freezer for up to 2 months. To reheat, allow soup to thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Pour thawed soup into a pot and simmer until heated through. Stir milk into soup and continue to simmer for an additional 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings.
Variations
- Garnish the dish with fresh parsley instead of thyme and chives, for a more subtly flavored topping.
- Stir frozen peas, spinach or chopped kale into the soup mixture to add in a couple more veggies.
- Add a bay leaf and some thinly sliced garlic cloves to the soup for a subtle herbaceous and garlic flavor.
- We always prefer fresh herbs to dry ones, but if you don’t have any on hand you can substitute with a couple tablespoons of poultry seasoning in both the soup and the dumplings.
- While we use a mixture of both white and dark meat from the rotisserie chicken, feel free to use just the shredded chicken thighs and legs or shredded skinless chicken breasts for your chicken and dumplings based on personal preference.
More Delicious Soup Recipes You Will Love:
Easy Chicken and Dumplings Recipe
INGREDIENTS
soup
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 small onion diced
- 2 small carrots peeled and diced
- 2 celery stalks trimmed and diced
- 1 tablespoon minced thyme
- 3 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 cups high quality chicken stock
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 cups cooked and shredded chicken
- salt and pepper to taste
dumplings
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon thinly sliced chives
- 2 teaspoons minced thyme
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted and melted butter
- 2/3 cup milk
INSTRUCTIONS
soup
- Place a large pot over medium-high heat and melt butter.
- Add onion, carrot and celery and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes or until vegetables soften. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add thyme and continue to cook mixture for another minute.
- Sprinkle flour over mixture and stir together until mixture is well coated and no dry spots remain.
- Stir in broth and lower heat to medium. Continue to stir together until mixture thickens and is smooth.
- Stir in milk, season with salt and pepper and simmer until soup is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
- Fold in Chicken.
dumplings
- In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, chives, thyme, baking powder, and salt.
- Add butter and continue to stir together until mixture is crumbly.
- Stir in milk until mixture just comes together into a thick batter.
- Scoop 3 heaping tablespoon sized scoops of batter into the soup until all batter has been used. Cover pot and simmer for 12 to 15minute until dumplings have puffed up and just cooked through.
- Uncover, season with salt and pepper, gently stir, and top with thyme and chives.
- Ladle into bowls, top with more thyme and chives and serve.
NOTES
- Don’t over-mix the batter – which will cause your dumplings to be dense when they cook up. Make sure to just mix the batter until it just comes together, with no dry spots.
- Toothpick check for dumpling doneness – just like many baked goods, insert a skewer into the center of one of the dumplings. If the toothpick comes out clean then the dumplings are ready.
- Scoop and drop dumplings into pot – without handling them or packing them tightly. This will help achieve light and fluffy dumplings.
- Use an ice cream/cookie scooper – which is the easiest way to minimize handling the dumpling batter.
- Cover and don’t peek – because you want steam to build up in the pot so the dumplings cook up evenly and tender.
Did you make this recipe? We want to see!
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I’ve made this multiple times and it always comes out great. I tend to add some extra stock since the dumplings absorb a lot of it.
Very tasty! I added more broth and skipped the flour and milk in the soup so it would be more brothy. Made it according to the recipe otherwise, and it was great! Loved the dumplings!
How many dumplings are you supposed to end up with? That wording was mad confusing for me. It’s in the stove steaming right now, smells great, we’ll see. There was only enough batter for 4 dumplings.
This was wonderful- flavorful base and easy dumplings. Made for my mom who love chic & dumplings and my husband who had never had them before. Delicious. Fed 3 adults with little left- I’d double recipe (cook in 2 pots) to truly feed 6
Nothing beats a comforting bowl of homemade chicken and dumplings on a cold winter evening! Loved your recipe!!
Sounds yummy. Will try this.
The flavors were excellent and we liked it a lot. I followed the recipe exactly, and was left with very little “soup” and very minimal serving size for 6 based on the recipe. The chicken and dumplings soaked up most of the soup and the ratio of chicken was also very low. I think I will try again and triple all the soup ingredients except for the chicken which I think I would double, and hopefully have a more reasonable outcome. Not sure if something changed with the proportions or why mine didn’t turn out! Great flavor though and the dumplings were very good
this recipe is the perfect comfort food for a chilly night. I added a little bit of sage to my dumplings in addition to the thyme and also let them cook a little longer on a low heat and they turned out perfect. I will definitely be making this again.
Do you use fresh thyme or dried thyme in the dumplings?
Fresh!
Do you have any recommendations for a non dairy dumpling?
Awesome! And super easy
Chicken & dumplings soup with drop dumplings recipe. Can I brown the top of dumplings under broiler in oven to brown slightly?
Me and my husband both loved this, easy to follow and the dumplings were delicious! Perfect comfort food!
Hi! Do you think I can substitute almond milk? (We keep kosher and don’t cook milk and meat together)
I think that should be fine!
Awesome recipe! I had no idea it was this easy! So so comforting. Definitely a keeper and sharing it with everyone! Thank you:)
My daughter made your soup. It smelled so wonderful when I walked into her kitchen I knew it was a keeper. Thank you! I’m a follower now! ~iris
Yay! This makes me so happy!
I made this tonight and it was delicious and so easy to make it! Definitely a keeper :)
This was absolutely fantastic with wonderful flavors and easy steps–I halved it thanks to your serving calculator and otherwise made it exactly as is, and it came out perfectly. This will be my go-to recipe for whenever I’m craving chicken and dumplings!
This was absolutely delicious and will become a regular item for our Sunday Family Dinners. I will double the recipe for the soup since we had plenty of dumplings but would have liked more soup. The dumpling recipe made about about 15 dumplings so I think I made mine a little smaller but they came out light and perfectly cooked. I think using fresh herbs is really important too. Thank you for this recipe.
Nice blog to follow while preparing recipes.Thank you so much for sharing with us.
I made this dish this week, it was delicious!! Thank you for the awesome recipe!
This was so good, can’t wait to make it again!
I love the chicken and dumplings