Meals · Soups & stews

Chicken and dumplings

Name: Chicken and dumplings
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 7 thighs chicken thigh; 3 tbsp butter; 1 yellow onions, diced; 2 mature carrots, sliced; 2 stalks celery, sliced; 1/4 cup all-purpose flour; 5 cups chicken broth; 3/4 cup cooked frozen green peas; 1/2 tsp dried thyme; 1 1/4 tsp salt; 3/4 tsp black pepper; 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour; 2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp salt; 3 tbsp butter, cold, cubed; 2/3 cup whole milk

The Southern hug in a pot: chicken stewed in gravy-broth under pillowy drop dumplings. Grandmother technology, unimproved for a century because it can't be.

Time: 65 min (20 prep + 45 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 453 kcal
Protein: 30 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

Stew

7 thighs chicken thigh700 g
3 tbsp butter45 g
1 yellow onions, diced150 g
2 mature carrots, sliced150 g
2 stalks celery, sliced100 g
1/4 cup all-purpose flour30 g
5 cups chicken broth1200 g
3/4 cup cooked frozen green peas120 g
1/2 tsp dried thyme1 g
1 1/4 tsp salt7 g
3/4 tsp black pepper2 g

Dumplings

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour180 g
2 tsp baking powder8 g
1/2 tsp salt3 g
3 tbsp butter, cold, cubed40 g
2/3 cup whole milk160 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Brown the thighs in the butter, remove, and soften the onion, carrot and celery in the drippings.
Flour in for a minute, then whisk in the broth. Chicken back in; simmer 20 minutes, then shred it into the pot with the peas, thyme, salt and pepper.
Dumplings: rub the cold butter into the dry ingredients, stir in the milk until it *just* comes together. Overmixed dumplings are sinkers.
Drop spoonfuls onto the simmering stew, lid ON for 15 minutes and no peeking — dumplings steam, and every peek lets the steam go.

Why this score

solidly filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

27% of kcal

75% water

8 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 2720 kcal goes into the pot, 2896 g of ingredients comes out as ~2200 g of food → 124 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 124
Protein: (27%); 8 g
Fat: (41%); 6 g
Carbohydrates: (32%); 10 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 475 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.