There’s nothing like a hot and hearty soup to get you through the cold winter months. If you have the luxury of living somewhere warm, then a delicious bowl of Chicken and Dumplings is still the perfect meal! That’s right, if the idea of enjoying a savory bowl of fresh veggies and tender Halal chicken topped with homemade dumplings is appealing to you, then you’ve found yourself in exactly the right corner of the internet because all of this comes together to make what could be your new favorite recipe.
This is a great recipe for generous portions with only a little effort. After the veggies are prepped and the dough for the dumplings is mixed, you’re ready to get cooking in a large pot or Dutch oven. We used a mix of Halal chicken thigh and breast for ours. The mix of light and dark meat flavor is fantastic with the veggies, savory broth, and dumplings.
The bulk of the time spent on this recipe will be letting things simmer and letting all the flavors come together. So, when you start cooking the chicken, it only needs to be golden brown on the outside before you remove it. It will finish cooking later in the broth before getting shredded and simmering again so there is no need to overcook the chicken by cooking it to completion too early.
Afterwards, the veggies will go in, to soften, before simmering in the chicken broth with the chicken again. It’s a simple mix of carrots, celery, and yellow onion with some thyme and turmeric, but don’t let this simplicity fool you; there is no lack of flavor from these veggies, and they come together to make the perfect hearty and savory flavor combination. After a little bit of simmering, the chicken should be fully cooked and nice and tender, ready to be shredded and mixed back into the pot, so no bite is lacking in juicy and tender chicken goodness.
All that remains now is to top them with the dumpling dough before simmering again until it’s all done. But I’m getting ahead of myself, when you picture a dough, you might imagine a nice ball of self-contained dough, perfect for baking. This is not that, so don’t worry about trying to make it that. This is a loose blend of a few ingredients, but mostly flour, cornmeal, and half & half. This makes a loose, doughy mixture that’s perfect for dropping little spoonfuls on top of the simmering soup. After they simmer a bit, they’ll cook into dense little dumpling buns on top that are the perfect combination to pair with the rest of the soup. It’s a deliciously complete meal all in one bowl!
It's as simple as that, dear reader; a few key ingredients coming together in a big ol’ pot to give you a meal that’s greater than sum of its parts. This has everything you need, from fresh veggies to juicy and tender chicken, all simmering together in savory broth and topped with delicious little dumplings. It sounds too good to be true, but we promise it lives up to the hype so do yourself a favor and give this a try next time you need a hot and delicious meal. Share it with someone while you’re at it, and we hope to see you again next time with another great Halal recipe.
