Here’s a hug of a meal for you! Mmm, a nourishing chicken casserole packed full of veg, as good for the soul as a classic chicken soup, and topped with soft, pillowy dumplings. What’s not to like?
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It’s a lighter version of a beef stew with dumplings, and if you really wanted to, you could leave off the dumplings and just eat a gorgeous chicken casserole. I don’t understand why anyone would do this though, the dumplings are the best part.
Chicken Casserole with Parsley Dumplings – The Ingredients
This is one of those brilliant meals where the flavour comes from some super simple and relatively cheap ingredients. Here’s a little breakdown:
- Chicken thighs – you’ll want skinless and boneless ones. I’d recommend using thighs rather than breast here (bonus – they’re usually cheaper!) because they have more flavour and breast has a tendency to dry out in a dish like this.
- Onion, carrot, celery and fennel – this is where the majority of your flavour will come from. You could switch the fennel for leek, if you like, but you’ll miss out on that delicious hit of aniseed.
- Chicken stock – I’m a big advocate for making your own stock when you’ve had a roast dinner. If you don’t have any hanging around, though, you can use a good chicken stock cube mixed with 600ml boiling water.
- Bay leaves and thyme – these herbs go perfectly with chicken. Use fresh if you can. You could also add some rosemary.
- Button mushrooms – I used button mushrooms because I love coming across the sweet little whole mushrooms in a casserole. You could switch for chestnut mushrooms (cut them into quarters) or leave them out.
- Self- raising flour, suet and parsley – these ingredients are for the dumplings. You can pick either beef or vegetable suet – both will work. Make sure you use self-raising flour! If you don’t fancy parsley, you can leave it out and have plain dumplings.
Making the Casserole
I find making a chicken casserole quite a calming experience. It is simple, logical, and you end up with a wonderful reward at the end of it! Here are some tips for making this casserole:
- At the beginning, you just need to brown your chicken, not cook it all the way through. It will get plenty of cooking time later on, but at this stage if you cook it too much it will go tough.
- Don’t worry if the casserole is a little watery when you get it out of the oven to add the dumplings. It’ll thicken up during the rest of the cooking time.
- Make sure you add the water to the dumpling dough slowly. You want the dough to just come together. If you add too much water, the dumplings will be sticky.
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Chicken Casserole with Parsley Dumplings
February 28, 2024Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 460 g chicken thighs skinless and boneless
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 4 celery sticks
- 1 fennel bulb
- 10 g flour
- 600 ml chicken stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 sprig fresh thyme
- 150 g button mushrooms
- 200 g self-raising flour
- 100 g beef or vegetable suet
- 1 handful fresh parsley chopped
Instructions
- Chop the chicken into bitesize pieces. Heat the oil in a large casserole dish and add the chicken. Brown briefly (don’t cook all the way through), then remove from the pan.
- Tip the chopped onion, carrot, celery and fennel to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring often, then return the chicken to the pan. Stir in the flour, then pour in the stock. Add the bay leaves, thyme and mushrooms, season, and bring to the boil.
- Put a lid on the dish and pop in the oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.
- For the dumpings, tip the self-raising flour, suet and parsley into a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add cold water a little at a time – you’ll probably need 150-200mls total – until it forms a pliable dough.
- When the casserole has been in the oven for 20 minutes, take it out (leave the oven on). Form little balls (about 1.5 inches in diameter) with the dough and place evenly spaced on top of the casserole. This mixture made 14 dumplings.
- Put the lid back on and return to the oven for another 25 minutes. Yum!
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