Chicken and Dumpling Soup

My way. Easy. This is my adaptation of many other (more difficult) recipes. The cream of _____ soup can be any kind (except the cheese types) you like. For veggies, I use about a cup and a half of mixed frozen veggies (as well as some fresh). In this case, some peas & carrots and some green beans. For the dumplings, I use a non-flakey pre-made biscuit dough, rolled into small pieces. Very easy! The chicken can be leftovers or a chosen especially for this dish. (er...bowl)

Ingredients:

1 TBS butter
1 small onion, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
handful baby carrots, diced
chicken breast, diced
pepper
3 cans low sodium chicken broth and 2 cans of water
1 to 1/2 cups mixed frozen veggies (peas, carrots, green beans, etc)
prepared biscuit dough (store bought canister non-flakey variety)
1 can of cream of ______ soup (any flavor you like except the cheesy type)

This basically starts out as a stir fry.

Melt the butter in a large pot on low heat. Add 1 small diced onion and sweat it a bit. When the onion is almost (but not quite) translucent, add the chicken. When the chicken is partially cooked (still a little pink), add the diced baby carrots and diced celery. Let this cook until the chicken is almost cooked. (if you use leftover chicken, just cook until the fresh veggies are a bit tender)

Add 3 cans low sodium chicken broth, 2 cans of water, some pepper, and bring to a boil (cover on). Let this simmer for about 10-15 minutes on low to medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add your frozen veggies cook (slow boil) another 5-10 minutes on low heat.

Add your biscuit dough: break off pieces and roll into little balls with your fingers and gently drop into the simmering broth. (I use about 3-5 biscuits). Stir the soup a bit. After about 5-10 minutes, (or whenever the biscuit dough is cooked, it will be soft but not raw), add the cream of _____ soup and stir gently (I used cream of celery this time). Let this mixture cook a minute or two until hot (but don't boil!).

That's it.

Yum! This is a simple and quick way to comfort food. There are so many ways to make this soup, but this way works for me. I always make a little extra so I can bring it to work the next day or so.

There's another picture here.

Two things to note... adding prepared biscuit dough adds a lot of fat to this soup. So once it's been refrigerated a while, you can skim that extra fat off the top. And, when you reheat the leftovers (if there's any), do so on very low heat. High heat will disintegrate the dumplings. The soup will still taste great, but it'll be much thicker (if the dumplings dissolve).