Thursday, January 5, 2012

Chicken and Dumplings - Gluten Free Crock Pot Recipe

Gluten Free Chicken and Dumplings















A warm pot of Chicken and Dumpling is sure to warm your soul even on the coldest of winter days.  With temperatures that have plummeted to below freezing, it’s all good when you have this to look forward to for dinner.  

And as the crock pot simmered away, I was able to go about my daily routine without having to worry about tending to the meal.  The gluten free Bisquick made it effortless to produce light fluffy pillows of dough that you’ll just want to dive right into.  Truthfully the best part about this one was the huge smile on my daughter’s face as she arrived home from school.  She was beaming as she exclaimed how delicious dinner smelled.  Then she rushed off to do her homework but not before inquiring when it would be done.  I smiled too.  It’s always nice when the kids actually like what you’ve made for dinner.      

Ingredients list:
·         2 large chicken breasts or 3 boneless skinless breasts
·         1 medium onion, diced
·         1 medium potato peeled and diced
·         2 cloves garlic, minced
·         1 ½ cups carrots, cut into large pieces
·         1 cup celery, sliced
·         4 cups water
·         4 chicken bouillon cubes, gluten free
·         1 bay leaf
·         12oz low fat evaporated milk
·         1 cup peas
·         salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the Dumplings:
·         1 ½ cups gluten free Bisquick
·         2/3 cup milk
·         2 eggs
·         ¼ cup melted butter
·         1 tbsp parsley
·         1/8 tsp salt

Video Tutorial:



Instructions:
1.      Add the potatoes, onions and garlic to the bottom of a 4-6 quart crock pot. 
2.      Add the chicken breasts and season with salt and pepper. 
3.      Add the carrots and celery then add the water, bouillon cubes, evaporated milk and bay leaf to the pot. Cover and cook on high for 6-7 hours or low for 8-10 hours.
4.      Remove the chicken and bay leaf from the pot then stir and taste it to see if it needs more salt and pepper.
5.      Add the peas, cover and allow the pot to return to a boil while you shred the chicken before returning it to the pot.  
6.      For the dumplings if you were cooking your stew on low switch the crock pot to high before starting the dumplings.
7.      In a medium bowl mix the milk, eggs, butter, parsley and salt together until well combined then add the Bisquick and stir until just combined.
8.      Drop the dumplings by rounded spoonfuls into the pot.  I used an ice cream scoop with about a ¼ cup measure.  Cover and cook on high for 30 minutes or until the dumplings appear light and fluffy then it’s ready to serve.

Notes:  I’ve also tried the dumplings flavored with lemon zest, dried thyme, and grated Parmagiano Reggiano each producing a uniquely spectacular results. 

24 comments:

  1. Oh, that looks so good! I've been craving chicken and dumpling for some reason. I have never made them -- ever. But I might have to give it a try.

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  2. I haven't made them in years. We had a recent cold spell that had me craving something warm and substantial. I hope you try it out.

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  3. Hi Anne...

    I tried this and followed the recipe exactly. I checked the crock pot about an hour into cooking and it was horrible. My evaporated milk seemed to clump. I started off on high and I think I should have started on a low setting and switched to high toward the end. I'm going to try it again. I love your recipes....Darlene

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    1. I’m actually dairy free as well andI used oat milk as opposed to evaporated milk and mine didn’t clump at all. There are a lot of recipes where the alternative milks almost work better especially in soups.

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  4. Hi Darlene,

    Thanks for commenting. Your input will certainly be helpful to the other readers. I am a bit worried now about posting other crockpot recipes. I’m wondering if my extremely cheap crockpot might not be as powerful as the average crockpot on the market. Both when I made this recipe and the slow cooker split pea soup I had the pot set on high and in both instances the liquid in the pot did not even begin to boil or simmer until close to the three hour mark. The clumping milk that you described could even have even been coagulated chicken blood if your pot was at a rapid boil after only an hour. It would have a white appearance and could easily look like clumping milk. You mentioned that you turned your pot down to low so I am assuming it was at a rapid boil at that point. I will seriously need to rethink the crockpot series in light of your input. When I made this I was more worried that people might have problems with the dumpling themselves which did not seem as sturdy as the ones I used to make before being gluten free. Thanks again for your feedback.

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  5. I'm so excited I found this site. I tried making gf dumplings out of bisquick and did not succeed. Can't wait to try this receipe.

    Thank you!

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  6. Hi Annette, I hope they turn out well for you. I found them to be slightly more fragile than the old dumplings I used to make before being gluten free. Once the dumplings were finished I found it helpful to spoon out all of the dumplings first and set them aside before dishing out the stew so they wouldn't break apart while I was serving the dish.
    If you are making this in a crockpot you might also need to cook it on low instead of high like I cooked mine. But then be sure to turn it to high before you put in the dumplings. My crockpot is a cheap model and might not be as powerful as most on the market. Another reader found the pot rapidly boiling after an hour while mine was not even boiling until close to the 3rd hour set on high. Let me know how you make out with it.

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  7. Hi Anne...thnaks for the reply. Now that you mention it, I do think it was the coagulated chicken blood. My crockpot does cook very fast on high, after just an hour. Please continue to do recipes in the crockpot, I personally love them and thank you taking the time to introduce us to some new and exciting recipes. I will for sure try this one again and start off on cooking it on the low setting. You're the best Anne!!!

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  8. I finally made this today and it was awful.. My dumplings were not dumplings, they were absolute mush.. So disappointed that it turned out this way. My milk clumped as well.. dumplings were not dumplings... it just made everything gross. I'm sorry. I was so excited to have dumplings. I miss dumplings but this just didn't work. I'll make it again and just serve over gluten free noodles. I love bisquick gf mix for pancakes however.

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    1. Hi Annette,

      I'm glad to have your feedback even if it is negative. I'm sorry that the dumplings didn't work out for you. These dumplings were more fragile than the old ones I used to make but mine didn't fall apart.

      Just last week another gluten free channel on YouTube uploaded a gluten free bisquick chicken and dumplings recipe, so after reading your comment, I looked it up to see how different they might be. But the recipes are essentially the same. She did use 1/2 quantities of all the ingredients that I used and no parsley. She also had a much smaller pot on the stove and not a crock pot. Here's the link to her video so you can see if there is anything different that she did that I failed to instruct upon.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZpOOJlTm2w

      I'm trying to be very careful writing slow cooker recipes since that first negative feedback I got on this recipe. I'm sticking with soups and stews.

      I know how disappointing it is when a recipe fails. Especially when the recipe is tested.

      Please accept my apology again. ~Anne

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  9. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make it sound like it was awful.. the receipe itself was good and what was awful was the way the dumplings turned out. so imagine a whole box of biscuit mix just dumped into this and it didn't form.. It totally ruined the rest... as i said i will make again and then I will just use noodle.

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    1. Hi Annette, I can only imagine how upsetting it must have been. If the dumplings just fell apart into an inedible mushy mess it's just a dinner disaster. I'm not sure what might have happened but I'm sorry the dumplings didn't turn out.

      When you wrote to me in January to let me know you were going to try this recipe, I wrote back with a few tips that I used when I noticed how fragile the dumplings were. I found it helpful to spoon out all of the dumplings and set them aside before dishing out the stew so they wouldn't break apart while I was serving the dish.

      Unfortunately, I didn't reply correctly so my comment, although addressed to you was in with the general comments so I'm not sure if you ever read it.

      But truthfully it sounds like that advice wouldn't have helped anyway. If the dumplings just broke apart everywhere and never formed I'm not sure what happened.

      Still trying to get to the bottom of it, I was researching dumplings in general today and a few people say that the liquid in the recipe needs to be reduced on humid days but I just don't know.

      What I do know is that you can't go wrong with noodles. They're a great alternative. And since the gluten free Bisquick is like twice the price of regular Bisquick, you really feel the pain when a recipe fails.

      Again I'm sorry. ~Anne

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    2. Hi Anne, don't apologize.. This is why I don't try receipes on my own. I just can't afford to as a single parent working two jobs. Most of the time I just do without. Sorry, no I didn't see the information you provided before. In all honesty I made the dumplings in the morning. I didn't read that it was a crockpot receipe so I started at night, turned it off and restarted in the morning. I had my daughter add the dumplings while I was at work.. this could have been why it didn't turn out. :) thank you

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  10. Annie,

    My Mom and I decided to make some chicken and dumplings. Your recipe stuck out to us as we were surfing the web. We followed your instructions exactly. The outcome was DELICIOUS! I had a newly purchased box of Bisquick flour which helps, I think. In addition, we grow fresh herbs and used our garden parsley!

    I really enjoyed going through your blog and I am looking forward to trying more of your recipes.

    I've been gluten free for health reasons for over 7 years. It has made a huge difference in my life. I had lots of hip pain and bloating and YUCK... A few months after I started really working at it (when I was done crying about pizza crust) I felt an amazing difference.

    Merry 2012 Christmas!

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    1. And a Very Merry 2012 Christmas to you too.

      Truthfully when I opened my email and saw "New comment on Chicken and Dumplings" my heart sunk.

      This is the recipe that has garnered the highest number of negative comments of all my recipes. I was almost ecstatic to so that you'd had a good outcome.

      I'm sure that your fresh herbs and garden parsley must have sent this over the top.

      I hope you and your family have a very happy holiday.

      ~Anne
      PS: I'm still crying over pizza crust sometimes. ...and bread, how I miss a good crusty loaf of bread.

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  11. The important part: this tastes GREAT! Your ingredients are simple, inexpensive (esp if you make your own GF "Bisquick"), and tasty.

    I had the same problem as BookWorm--my evap milk clumped. But I like to try recipes the way they're written first, then adapt as needed after. I'll be making this again, but think that my crock pot might be more powerful than yours, too.

    My solution this time was to push a ladle in and let the clumpy/liquid bits drain into the ladle. I put that in a mason jar then put a heaping TBSP of GF flour into the jar, screwed the lid on, shook the bejujus out of it... and when that didn't work, put my immersion blender in the jar and really ground it to a thick goo.

    I put that back into the pot. I think I did this three times. The chunks are nearly gone and it looks more uniform.

    I think next time I'll do the following:
    --Put everything but peas, dumplings in, as you wrote, AND I'll reserve the Evap milk.
    --cook on low until 2 hrs before I plan to serve.
    --2 hrs before eating, raise to high
    --make dumplings.
    --put dough in to refrigerate for an hour
    --pull chicken out to shred, shred, and return
    --40 min before eating put dumplings in to cook*
    --10 min before serving, pull dumplings out
    --put evap milk in and stir in, turn crock pot to "warm"
    --right before serving put dumplings back in (gently) to re-warm

    *the other option would be to reserve 2C of water/bouillon cubes or 2C of boxed chicken stock and cook the dumplings in that on the stove top where I can get a real "boil" going--kind of like making matzo balls.

    Just my two cents, but the thing tastes GREAT and I never would have thought of cooking the chicken bone-in, then pulling it to shred... but I'll be doing that for many recipes from now on. Cheaper. Better. Tasty!

    And thank you!

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    1. Thanks for your kind words. I really appreciate that you took the time to add your two cents here. You made a lot of awesome suggestions. Your tweaks should greatly help all of the future visitors of this post.

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  12. I followed the recipe and it came out great! Thank You!

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  13. I had been craving chicken and dumplings and came across your recipe. We had it for supper tonight and it was DELICIOUS!

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    1. Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you liked it Dawn.

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  14. I think the size of chicken breasts has changed dramatically since Julia Child's day, which could account for some of her shorter cook time. Techlazy.com Crazyask.com Howmate.com

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  15. I am crazy about my crock pot, I use it several times a week! I will be bookmarking this page and trying out some of these recipes because I;m sure my family is getting sick of the same ones over and over.
    Joseph Donahue

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