Slow Cooker Chicken & Dumplings

Few things beat coming home to a slow cooker full of hot, ready-to-eat food. And this chicken and dumplings recipe is one of my favorites for exactly that reason.

You get tender shredded chicken, soft vegetables, and fluffy dumplings all swimming in a thick, creamy broth. It’s comfort food at its best.

The slow cooker does most of the work here. The only hands-on step is adding the biscuit dough toward the end so the dumplings cook up nice and puffy.

This is the kind of meal that works great on a busy weeknight or a lazy weekend. Simple ingredients, minimal effort, and a result that everyone at the table will enjoy.

Let me walk you through how to make it step by step.

What Makes This Recipe So Good

True Comfort Food With Almost No Effort – The slow cooker does all the heavy lifting here, turning simple chicken breasts, veggies, and broth into a rich, creamy soup that tastes like you spent hours in the kitchen when you really just dumped everything in and walked away.

The Chicken Comes Out Perfectly Tender – Slow cooking the chicken breasts low and slow means they practically fall apart when you go to shred them, so every spoonful has juicy, flavorful chicken mixed right into the creamy broth.

The Broth Gets Incredibly Rich – Because the chicken slow cooks for hours in a mix of chicken broth and cream of chicken soup, the liquid turns into this thick, velvety sauce that coats every bite and makes the whole dish feel really hearty.

It Feeds a Crowd on a Budget – Two pounds of chicken, a tube of biscuit dough, and basic vegetables stretch into a big pot of food that can easily serve a family of four to six without any expensive or hard-to-find ingredients.

Ingredients

• 2 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 4 cups Chicken Broth
• 10.5 oz Cream of Chicken Soup (1 can)
• 1 medium Yellow Onion, diced
• 3 medium Carrots, peeled and sliced
• 3 stalks Celery, sliced
• 3 cloves Garlic, minced
• 1 tsp Dried Thyme
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
• 16.3 oz Refrigerated Biscuit Dough (1 tube)
• 1/2 cup Frozen Peas
• 2 tbsp Fresh Parsley, chopped

Directions

Step 1

Place the chicken breasts in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add the diced onion, sliced carrots, celery, and minced garlic around the chicken.

Step 2

Pour in the chicken broth and cream of chicken soup. Add the dried thyme, salt, and black pepper. Stir gently around the chicken to combine the liquid.

Step 3

Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours or on high for 3 to 4 hours, until the chicken is fully cooked and tender.

Step 4

Remove the chicken, shred it with two forks, and return it to the slow cooker. Stir to combine with the soup.

Step 5

Tear each biscuit into 3 to 4 rough pieces and drop them on top of the simmering soup. Add the frozen peas.

Step 6

Cover and cook on high for 1 to 1.5 hours, until the dumplings are puffed and cooked through in the center.

Step 7

Gently stir, ladle into bowls, and garnish with fresh chopped parsley before serving.

Pro Tips

Don’t Lift the Lid While Dumplings Cook

Once you drop in the biscuit pieces and cover the slow cooker, do not open the lid for at least an hour. Every time you lift the lid, you lose a ton of built-up steam and heat that takes a long time to recover.

That trapped steam is doing most of the work cooking the tops of the dumplings. If you keep peeking, you’ll end up with dumplings that are still gummy and raw in the middle even after the full cook time.

Check them once at the one-hour mark by pulling one apart with a fork. If the center still looks wet and shiny, cover it back up for another 20-30 minutes.

Tear the Biscuits Into Rough Pieces

Don’t just plop whole biscuits on top of the soup. They’re too thick and the centers will stay raw and doughy even after an hour of cooking. Tearing each one into 3-4 uneven chunks gives them way more surface area so they cook all the way through.

Drop the pieces across the entire surface of the soup so they aren’t all clumped together in one spot. They expand quite a bit as they cook, so spacing matters.

Don’t push them down into the liquid either. They need to sit on top and steam from below to get that fluffy dumpling texture.

Make Sure It’s Simmering Before Adding Dumplings

Before you drop in the biscuit pieces, your slow cooker needs to be on high and the soup should be bubbling around the edges. The steam is what cooks the dumplings from the top while the hot liquid cooks them from the bottom.

If you cooked the chicken on low, switch it to high after you shred and return the chicken. Give it about 15-20 minutes to get up to a good simmer before adding the dumplings.

Related Recipes

• Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
• Instant Pot Beef Stew
• Instant Pot White Chicken Chili
• Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup
• Instant Pot Chili

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I add the peas earlier with the rest of the vegetables?

It’s better to add them when the recipe says to – along with the dumplings near the end. Frozen peas are tiny and delicate, so if they cook for the full 6 to 7 hours they’ll turn mushy and lose their bright green color.

Dropping them in during the last hour gives them just enough time to heat through while keeping a nice texture and a little pop when you bite into them.