How To Make My Mother’s Chicken Soup with Dumplings for Cold and Flu Season!

It’s cold and flu season!!! YAY!!!! Not really, it’s horrible. I don’t like cold weather, but cold weather AND being sick is the worst! But I have the perfect chicken soup that you can freeze and heat up when you need it. I’m going to show you how to make your own chicken broth, and then how to make the actual soup as well as some fluffy dumplings that cook in the broth. It’s so good and I promise you, you’ll never have the canned version again!

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I remember my mother making this every time anyone in my family got a cold. It was so freakishly comforting. When she passed away, I realized that I didn’t know the recipe! I felt really horrible so I went on a mission to find anything that was similar to what my mother would have made. I found the broth and the soup recipe in a Betty Crocker book I own, and the dumplings were from the side of a Bisquick box! So I’m pulling three recipes here.

This soup takes some time to assemble (around 3 hours) so don’t put it off till you’re sick (or I guess you could send this to a friend to make for you), but I tend to make this ahead of time and freeze it. When you freeze it, it will have a layer of fat on top, but that will dissolve as you heat it up again. IF YOU’RE GOING TO FREEZE THIS, LEAVE THE DUMPLINGS OUT!!!! It just doesn’t work. When you heat it up, just get it to boiling and make the dumpling mix and drop them in.

Secondly, this post does contain a few affiliate links. If you click on one and buy something, I get a small commission. Thank you!

Okay now that we have that out of the way let’s get started. First thing is, we’re going to need to make the broth…The broth is where it’s at when it comes to all those nice healing abilities that chicken soup claims to have.

How to Make My Mother’s Chicken Soup with Dumplings for Cold and Flu Season! by autumnbecomes.me

Ingredients:

*3- to 3 1/2lb whole chicken with neck, backbone, and giblets (except the liver because that will make the soup bitter)

*4 1/2 cups cold water (more if you need it. I add enough to just barely cover the chicken.

*1 tsp salt

*1/2 tsp pepper

*1 medium stalk, celery with leaves, cut up

*1 medium carrot, cut up

*1 small Onion, cut up

*Two cloves garlic (crushed or minced)

*1 sprig parsley

*Cheesecloth

1.) Remove any excess fat from chicken. In 4-quart Dutch oven or stockpot, please chicken, giblets (except the liver) and neck. If you are working with a whole chicken, you’ll need to break it down. With a small sharp knife slice off the wings and thighs. The giblets should be in a bag which is pushed inside the cavity. Remove it, and keep everything but the liver which is a dark red looking organ. Add remaining ingredients; heat to boiling. Skim grey foam from the top of the broth (it won’t necessarily hurt you, but it will make your broth look cloudy); reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 45 minutes or until juice of chicken is clear when the thickest part is cut to the bone (170 degrees F for breasts, 180 degrees F for thighs and legs).

2.) Remove chicken from broth. Cool chicken about 10 minutes or just until cool enough to handle and take the meat off of the bones and put it in a separate bowl and keep it cool in the fridge. I like to use the vinal gloves listed below. Strain broth through a cheesecloth-lined sieve; discard vegetables.

3.) Remove skin and bones from chicken. Cut chicken into 1/2-inch pieces. Skim fat from broth. Use broth and chicken immediately, or cover and refrigerate broth and chicken in separate containers up to 24 hours or freeze up to 6 months.

***Since we’re making this soup right now, clean the pot you made the broth in and return the freshly made broth to it and proceed to the next step***

How to Make My Mother’s Chicken Soup with Dumplings for Cold and Flu Season! by autumnbecomes.me

Ingredients:

*The chicken meat and the broth you made above.

*2 medium carrots, sliced (1 cup) (I like to use a special mini veggie for bento boxes to make the carrots look like flowers…It’s the little things right?)

*2 medium stalks celery, sliced (1 cup)

*1 small onion, chopped (1/4 cup)

*1 tablespoon chicken bouillon granules

*2-3 cloves minced garlic

*Chopped fresh parsley, if desired

1.) Add enough water to broth to measure 5 cups.

2.) In 4-quart Dutch Oven, heat broth, carrots, celery, onion and bouillon granules to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 15 minutes or until carrots are tender.

***If you’re freezing this, add the chicken and simmer for another 7 to 10 minutes. Then put into freezer-safe containers. This soup lasts 4-6 months in the freezer according to StillTasty.

MAKE BISQUICK DUMPLINGS AS FOLLOWS:

*1 cup Bisquick

*1/3 cup milk

(stir together until a smooth paste form).

3.) Stir in chicken and heat to boiling.

4.) Drop the dumpling paste into the boiling soup by the teaspoon full. Cook 10 minutes uncovered and then an additional 15 minutes covered. Then serve!

So now you are ready to go the next time you (or someone else) isn’t feeling well! Another thing you can do to help yourself and those around you is to get a flu shot. I get mine at the pharmacy inside my grocery store and the shots are so well constructed I hardly feel them! Considering how much my husband travels and all the people we’re around in a big city and subways and stuff like that it’s essential we get our flu shots. However, shot or not, if you find you or someone you love is feeling under the weather, now you have this not so secret weapon to fight that flu! If you made this and have any questions, or you just want to talk about how it went, leave a comment below! If you want to show me how it turned out, tag me in your Instagram or Facebook post! If you want to keep up to date with my blog please SIGN UP HERE! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a wonderful (and healthy) day! – Heather Astaneh

How to Make My Mother’s Chicken Soup with Dumplings for Cold and Flu Season! by autumnbecomes.me