Chicken and Dumplings

This is one of my oldest son’s favorite meals. I have been on a quest to learn how to make old fashioned comfort food from scratch and without processed ingredients. It often takes a few tries, but this one is really good and can be dairy free and the dumplings can even be whole wheat if you follow some simple modifications. I got this from my favorite farmer, Jerica, at shadygroveranch.net. Her recipes are always spot on.

*This is DAIRY FREE*

Ingredients

• 1 3-5 pound whole chicken , cooked, or cooked chicken breast, chopped or shredded
• 8-10 cups bone broth from the whole chicken, or chicken broth
• 5 carrots, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 bunch celery, diced
• 1 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme or Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper plus more to taste
• 2 tablespoons butter (or oil or ghee for dairy free)
• Salt to taste

Dumpling Ingredients

• 3 cups sprouted whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour (plus a little more for kneading)
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 4 tablespoons butter, (or lard, oil, or ghee for dairy free)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup bone broth

Directions

Day before: Cook whole chicken in crock pot, make bone broth with carcass. Chop or shred chicken.

Day of: Saute carrots, onion, celery and garlic in 2 tablespoons butter. Add 8 cups of chicken bone broth from crock pot (after straining).

Add thyme and pepper. Bring to a gentle boil.

Make Dumplings:

Stir together flour and salt in a medium bowl.

Cut in softened butter.

Add broth and egg and mix until combined.

Add flour if needed so the dough isn’t too sticky.

Once combined and the dough isn’t too sticky (it will still be slightly sticky), break off (or slice off using a dough cutter) small dime size pieces and drop into the boiling soup. Alternatively, roll out the dough and cut in small rectangles. The whole wheat version either needs pretty small size dough balls or a rolled out dough in order for them to cook through!

Boil for 2 minutes after last dumpling is dropped.

Add chicken.

Add more broth, depending on desired consistency.

Season with salt and pepper. I added an extra teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, but this will depend on taste and flavor of broth.

Enjoy!