Chicken & Dumplins

Not everything has to be made completely from scratch to taste like home. This chicken and dumplings uses a couple of smart shortcuts, like cream of chicken soup and Bisquick, to get you to that thick, creamy, dumpling-studded bowl in under an hour.

A whole chicken gets boiled with whatever herbs you love (sage, basil, rosemary, garlic), then deboned and stirred back into the broth with cream of chicken soup, milk, and a generous hit of lemon pepper. The dumplings are dead simple: just Bisquick and milk dropped by the spoonful into the simmering pot.

Five minutes covered, five minutes uncovered, and dinner is done. Fair warning: it comes out screaming hot, so give it a minute before digging in.

Pro Tips

• Be generous with the lemon pepper. It cuts through the richness of the cream soup and adds a citrusy brightness that keeps the whole pot from tasting flat.
• Drop small spoonfuls for the dumplings. Smaller dumplings cook more evenly and give you a better dumpling-to-broth ratio in every spoonful.
• Season the boiling water like you mean it. The herbs you add while boiling the chicken become the flavor backbone of the entire dish. Don’t hold back.