Healthy Chicken & Dumplings

Courtesy of The Foodie Physician (my new favorite cooking blog!)

Phew, as you can tell, it's been ages since I've been able to update the blog. Travel between work and personal life has kept us extremely busy for the last couple of months. It has felt amazing to be back in the kitchen this week and able to cook again! I wanted to try out some new recipes, and my husband was randomly craving chicken and dumplings. My Mom makes incredible chicken and dumplings, but I didn't have the recipe on hand, so I did some research and found a lighter version, which still included homemade dumplings. It was a bit of work to prepare everything, but was very tasty! The only modifications I made was that I baked my own chicken breasts (rotisserie chicken is just a bit too greasy for me), and I added a bit more lemon juice. I also used all purpose flour for the entire amount. Below is my version. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped (about 1 ¼ cups)

4 stalks celery, sliced

2 cups diced carrots

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 tablespoons flour

½ teaspoon dried thyme (or 1½ teaspoons fresh)

1 bay leaf

6 cups low sodium chicken stock

3 cups shredded chicken

¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped

2 tablespoon lemon juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Dumplings

½ cup white whole wheat flour

½ cup all purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup buttermilk*

1 large egg

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium heat and add the onion, celery, carrots, and garlic. Sautè the vegetables until they start to soften, 4-5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour on top and stir to combine. Cook 1-2 minutes, then add the thyme, bay leaf and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer until the vegetables are cooked, about 10 minutes. Stir in the chicken, parsley, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

To make the dumplings, whisk the flours, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. Stir the buttermilk, egg and parsley together in a second bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold until just combined.

Using two spoons, drop balls of the dumpling dough into the simmering soup (you should have about 18 dumplings). Each dumpling should be about two teaspoons big- they will expand a lot in the soup. Cover the pot and cook until the dumplings are fluffy and cooked through, 10-12 minutes. Garnish with chopped parsley and plenty of black pepper.