Roast Chicken In A Dutch Oven & Chicken & Dumplings

This wasn’t even a very large chicken but it made us 2 huge dinners with leftovers for me for lunch too but the best thing of all everything was so delicious! Home cooked nutritious foods are the best! I love roasted chicken and I love chicken and dumplings so two of our family favorite recipes and we bought this chicken roaster for about $5.00. We always have carrots, onions and celery, flour, and spices in stock. We own two crock pots and several cast iron pans so this was very economical and easy.

I love chicken so if you do too then we are like-minded and this post is for you!

First I cut the wings, legs, thighs, and breasts off of the chicken and placed them in the dutch oven to cook just about all day at around 260 degrees for about 6 hours. It turned out so delicious and then I put in the crock pot some thickly sliced carrots, onions, celery, and potatoes with about 2 C. of frozen chicken broth and all I seasoned them with was salt and pepper. This was a super easy dinner that I served with some dollar whole wheat rolls. It was a great meal!

The next meal was a little more involved but it was Chicken & Dumplings and we all know it is worth the extra work.

Basically you take the rest of the chicken, the chicken neck, liver and any gizzards, chop carrots, onions and celery finely, 1/3 C. dehydrated corn and 4 to Cups of water and throw it in a crock pot all day for about 8 hours.

When I got home the house smelled heavenly but the tough part was ahead of me which was picking all the bones that had disintegrated (almost) out of the broth. If you don’t know eating broth that has been boiled down from bones without added chemicals and preservatives is so good for you. This is comfort food at its finest. This took a while you will have to find your own way of doing this but you should be left with a broth mixture in one pot and a meat and veggie mixture in another pot.

Then I take a cast iron skillet with 2 TBSP. butter and 1/4 C. flour and whisk together to make a rue and then I slowly stirred in the broth.

Pour into a pot and add 2 tsp. of dried parsley and add a little more pepper to the broth wait on adding salt until you see how you like the taste after you add the dumplings.

Next I made the dumplings while that pot of broth slowly turns into gravy and starts bubbling.

The Dumplings:

1 cup All Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
2 tablespoons Butter (cut butter in with your pastry cutter)
1/2 cup Milk

Mix all of the dumpling mixture together. Take spoonfuls of dumpling mixture and place it in the boiling chicken, veggie, gravy mixture and toss spoonfuls into the boiling mixture.

Let cook uncovered for 10 minutes simmering and then uncover for 10 minutes.

And then your wonderful Chicken & Dumplings will be ready to eat! YUM! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

(These are not the healthiest BUT they were a big hit if you are only going to make them once a year then I say go for it…however I am going to find a healthier recipe to make next time) But my guys loved them!

Hope you are all having a wonderful week and I wish you well!

Fondly,