Easy Chicken and Dumplings

Last week we opened a can of chicken the wife and I canned a couple years ago. We did that to show you that home canning does have its place in long term food storage even though I would not recommend keeping your food for that long.

Today I will show you one of my favorite recipes for using canned chicken as well as a tip for making EASY chicken and dumplings that I learned from my mother.

Ingredients:

Chicken
Either you can boil a whole chicken and pick the meat off, or you can use chicken you canned at any amount you desire
Chicken Stock
Flour Tortilla Shells
Cream of Chicken Soup
Salt and Pepper
Cheese (if desired)

Equipment:

Stock pot
Ladle

Procedure:

1.Fill pot 2/3 full of Chicken stock and bring to a boil
1.If you using chicken you have picked from a whole chicken use the water you cooked it in, otherwise use the water from your canned chicken. Add additional water to fill pot to desired level.
2.Add chicken
3.Add soup
4.Rip (or cut depending on your levels of neatness) several flour tortillas into pieces approximately the size of a business card.
5.Drop tortilla pieces into the boiling water until the surface is covered with tortillas. Let cook 20 seconds or so before pushing them under the water with your ladle.
6.Repeat step 5 until you reach your preferred “dumplings” to chicken ratio.
1.Remember that tortillas will swell as they cook.
7.Add seasonings if desired
8.I like to add cheese to the mix, as it cooks, but you can throw some on the top of each bowl or leave it out entirely.

Alternatives:

Sometimes I use cold stock to make dumplings by mixing in All Purpose flour and stock until I get a dough and then dump spoonfuls of the dough into the coiling water.

I also make a lot of chicken and rice by cooking the rice in the stock instead of adding dumplings.

At my house I make this a lot and then eat it at work. A big pot lasts me a week.