Heart Warming Chicken and Dumpling Soup

Like a cozy sweater on a cold winter day.

This soup is nothing but cozy, warm deliciousness. Light the fire, get your cozy sweater on, find your slippers and invite your family and friends over. Delight in the creation, the passion with which it was made and the joy it brings your family in sharing it.

You start by cooking a whole chicken, creating a rich stock. You then add a plentiful amount of chicken and carrots back to the stock. The finale is to add drop biscuits and cook them on a simmer until they start to disintegrate, creating a luscious, thickened stock. I like it even more the next day. I add more drop biscuits, cooking them until they are light and fluffy in my now thickened soup.

I use Otto’s local chicken, it’s extremely moist and full of impactful chicken flavor. Plus, you can’t beat using the local winter carrots. Their flavor is sweeter than summer carrots. As a protective measure against the cold and frost, carrots convert their starches to sugar. Flavor explosion! A true bite of sweetness. Thank you, carrots!

I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t always make biscuits from scratch, good old Bisquick did the trick. Feel free to take a little liberty and use Bisquick. I am excited to share it with you and hope you like it as much as I have and the many people I have shared it with on a cold winter night.

Course Main Course

Keyword Chicken, dumplings, soup

Servings people

Ingredients

Chicken Soup

4 lb Whole Chicken
14 cups Water
2 tablespoons Chicken Base
3 stalks Celery celery leaves are a great addition
4 Carrots
1/2 large Onion quartered
6 sprigs Fresh Parsley
4 cups Carrots cut into 1 inch pieces
½ teaspoon Celery Salt
½ teaspoon Celery Seed
Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

Dumplings

2 cups Flour
4 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Fine Salt
1 cup Whole Milk
3 tablespoons Chives chopped

Instructions

Chicken Soup

In an 8-quart stock pot or soup kettle, cover the chicken with water. Add the celery, carrots, onion and parsley. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes, covered.
Using a spider skimmer, remove the chicken and vegetables and place in a colander in the sink to drain. Use a fine mesh sieve to strain the stock into a large bowl. Return the strained broth to the soup kettle. Reduce heat to simmer and continue simmering the broth.
Pull the chicken off the bones and return to the soup kettle.
Add the carrots, celery salt, celery seed and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. You can do these steps the day before.

Dumplings

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.
Add milk and chives, stirring to combine. Let rest for at least 5 minutes.

Chicken and Dumpling Soup

Bring soup to a boil. Using a soup spoon, drop dumplings into the soup. Reduce heat to medium low and cover.
Cook for 15 minutes or until dumplings are fluffy. You can check for doneness by sticking a toothpick in a dumpling. It should come out clean.

Notes

Local Carrots:
Local carrots do not need to be peeled. You can scrub them under cold water.