Chicken Soup With Dumplings (Traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Soup)

Step 1

Start with a whole chicken, a rotisserie chicken works well. Remove the meat and set aside.

Step 2

Make the broth: cover the chicken carcass in a large dutch oven with water. Add salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic powder and a pinch of dill and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. You will want to strain the broth and reserve it in a large bowl and discard the chicken carcass.

Step 3

In the same dutch oven sautée very finely diced carrots, celery, and onion with salt and pepper. Mix in the chicken and then cover with the reserved broth.

Step 4

Drain the cans of corn, add it in along with hard-boiled eggs cut into bite size pieces.

Step 5

Mix the flour, beaten egg, and milk well. I add a few teaspoons of the broth and chopped chives, too, just for flavor.

Step 6

Once the mixture is very well blended, use a fork to drop very teeny balls into the soup; be sure that broth is boiling. They are not supposed to be pretty, so don't worry about rolling them or making them uniform! You can add some broken thin noodles instead if you want to skip this step.

Step 7

Continue stirring over a boil for about 5 minutes. The dumplings should have a dough texture. Add more salt & pepper as needed, and water, if necessary.

Step 8

Add fresh chopped parsley or chives.