Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and dumplings is a classic comfort food and this version benefits from the slow, even heat and hands off nature of crock pot cooking. This comes together easily and makes a huge batch with leftovers that take well to freezing, assuming you have any after a day or two. Whenever I make this for my family it tends to be the leftovers that disappear before they make it to the freezer. Falling apart chicken in a stew with tender dumplings–what’s not to like?

This dish is in no way to be considered “healthy,” despite the suggested use of low fat/no fat/low sodium soup and lean meat. Most of this is due to the biscuit dough and total lack of vegetables in the recipe itself. There’s not too much way around that, but this is definitely worth making once in a while when time is short and picky eaters are at hand. That said, you can definitely add some veggies to the recipe in the form of some baby cut carrots, chopped celery, sliced mushrooms or frozen peas (add peas at the end of cooking) in whatever quantities you like, or serve a scoop alongside something like frozen broccoli or a salad. I would recommend against adding potatoes to this mix, they don’t go so well with the dumplings. As an alternative, you can cook the chicken stew without the biscuits and use it to top egg noodles or toast for a quick weeknight dinner.

This recipe is taken directly from my other site, Kitchen Scraps.

Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings

Ingredients:
4-6 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup (low fat/no fat versions are fine)
1/4-1/2 can water
1 cube chicken bouillon (such as these, not the Wylers-type little pebbles)
2 small or 1 big roll of refrigerated biscuits (low fat version at your own risk here, they aren’t nearly as good)
Salt & Pepper

Directions:

Empty the soup, water and chicken bouillon into the crock, stir together until smooth. Add the whole chicken breasts to the pot and stir to coat them with soup mixture. Set crock pot on low and leave covered for 8-10 hours or overnight/all day. Chicken is done when it falls apart easily when pulled apart with a fork. Remove chicken from crock and set aside in large bowl or plate. Set crock pot to high. Cut biscuits into bite sized pieces while crock is heating up. Dump biscuit pieces into crock and stir briefly to break up and coat with the soup. Put lid back on crock and allow dumplings to cook 20-30 minutes until cooked through. While dumplings are cooking, shred chicken with forks. When dumplings are finished cooking, return shredded chicken to the crock and stir to incorporate. Taste for salt and pepper, adjust seasonings as desired.

Note: I make this in a 4 quart crock, which is on the small end but there are crocks made that are even smaller. If you’re using a small crock you might want to start by halving the recipe or plan on cooking the dumplings on the stove and finishing the dish in that pot instead of the crock due to size limitations.