Old-Fashioned Chicken & Dumplings with Easy Short-Cut Hacks

“Old-Fashioned Chicken & Dumplings” is one of those iconic comfort foods which still has a place in modern day meals. The dish is savory and soothing; I especially enjoy it when I’m in the mood for a “mellow” meal. I have made countless versions over the years and am pleased with my latest recipe which is all about taking short-cuts. It starts with a savory homemade broth — which is one of the keys to the recipe. But that’s not difficult because I use either leftover rotisserie chicken or home roasted chicken to make the broth. The second short-cut “hack” comes with the dumplings. I use flour tortillas rather than making “old-fashioned” homemade dumplings. This saves time and makes things much easier. My rendition is somewhere between a soup and a stew. Nevertheless, it is mighty tasty!

Easy Recipe Using “Short-Cut” Hacks

My recipe for “Old-Fashioned Chicken & Dumplings” is one for using leftovers which makes this dish suprisingly easy to cook. This is a reco[e which I often make when we purchase a rotisserie chicken or roast a whole chicken for meals at home. For our small family; we usually have half of the chicken left over. I remove the meat from the chicken breast and dice the meat to add to the chicken and dumplings.

The caracus from these rotisserie and home roasted chickens makes the best savory chicken broth. The seasonings from the roasted chicken flavor the broth perfectly. It tastes much better than any purchased chicken broth or stock. Since the chicken is already seasoned and cooked, it doesn’t take much time or effort to make the broth. It is easy to pull the remaining bits of chicken off the bones. Then, boiling the caracas for 30 minutes to 1 hour is plenty to achieve a flavorful broth.

Using flour tortillas for dumplings is my second “short-cut” recipe hack. Just cut the tortillas into strips and drop them into the boiling broth. All kinds of dumplings can go into the broth to make this recipe including drop biscuit-style dumplings and rolled flour dumplings. I actually like both kinds of dumplings! However, my goals was a quick and easy recipe and you can’t beat the flour tortillas for this feature.

Making Homemade Chicken Broth

Making the chicken broth is easy. The rotisserie chicken is already cooked; so the broth really just has to simmer on the stove for about 30 minutes to one hour. First I remove as much of the leftover meat as possible from the bones and set this meat aside. Then I add the whole caracus to the pot filled along with 6 cups of water. For seasonings, I add an onion, celery, carrots and a bay leaf to the pot.

Let this simmer on the stove. Then strain through a fine sieve. Done! I try to sort out the carrots and save them. Otherwise, discard the bones, onions, celery and bay leaf. Return the broth to the pot along with enough water to equal 3 cups.

Finishing the Recipe

The other ingredients in this recipe are chicken, carrots and flour tortillas. Many chicken and dumpling recipes add include butter plus some sort of milk; half and half, evaporated milk or cream of chicken soup to thicken and flavor the soup. All these additions are great. Next time, I might try adding a little milk, butter and flour for thickening!

To finish the “Chicken and Dumplings,” return the leftover, diced chicken meat and carrots to the large pot along with the broth.

The last step is to add in tortilla strips which are substituting in as “dumplings.” Cut the tortillas into strips. When the mixture in the pot is boiling, gently add the strips and stir.

Cook about 10 minutes.

Fresh parsley also adds a bit of “brightness” to this dish. Parsley is a cold weather plant. I planted this little seedling last December. It survived through our feezing temperature and is perking along. It is so rewarding to go out my back door and pick a few springs for a recipe.

That’s it! This dish is somewhere between “soup” and “stew” in consistency.

The key to this recipe is really the savory, homemade chicken stock made from leftover rotisserie chicken. It is the best. The chicken meat and carrots, a little fresh parsley plus the flour tortillas are the only other ingredients. And, you may never know that the flour tortillas are the “dumplings” — they are just fine in this recipe.

Sometimes I will thicken the stew with a slurry of flour, a tiny bit of butter and milk. This step makes the “Chicken and Dumplings” more like old-fashioned homemade ones.

This is such a soothing recipe. Enjoy!