We recently saw the recipe for Chicken and Dumplings from Today Show host Natalie Morales. It looked great, but she did it in a slow cooker, which she said would take 4 hours.

We decided to see if we could speed this up using our Instant Pot pressure cooker. Her recipe uses chicken stock and cream of chicken soup. We decided to eliminate those, since we can make the chicken stock in the pot, and thicken it using cornstarch and add a little cream. We also used chicken thighs, because we wanted the bones to make the stock. We also added a leek, and made our own dumplings without using the dreaded Bisquick.

We started by cooking the thighs for 15 minutes using the Poultry pot setting on the trivet over a cup of water. Then we released the pressure and cut the meat off the bones and put it in a bowl, and tossed the bones and any scraps back into the pot, leaving the trivet in place so we could lift them out later, and added vegetables and water, and pressure cooked for 25 minutes.

Then we discarded the bones and vegetables, removed the trivet, and added new veggies cut into bite sized pieces and pressure cooked for 10 minutes. Then we thickened the broth, added cream and the chicken, brought it to a boil using the Saute function and put the dumpling batter on top. We cooked it covered using the Saute feature to cook the dumplings, and then served it, with the dumplings in one bowl and the chicken stew in the other.  Absolutely delicious.

The only change we’d make next time would be adding less water, as the stew was thinner than we had wanted. We had added 6 cups. Probably 4-1/2 to 5 would be more than enough, since there was already a cup in there from cooking the chicken. Also with that much liquid, the sauté function was not able to heat the stew to a real rolling boil when the dumplings were added, but would probably work better with a bit less water.

• 6 chicken thighs
• 1 cup water
• 3 carrots, cut in half
• 3 stalks celery, cut in half
• 1 washed leek, cut in several pieces
• 5 sprigs of parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 1 tsp salt

1. Remove the skin and place the thighs on the trivet in the Instant Pot.
2. Add 1 cup water and cook under pressure for 15 minutes. The Poultry button works fine for this.
3. Release the pressure, remove the thighs, cut the meat away and set aside in a bowl. Refrigerate when cool.
4. Place the thigh bones and any scraps back on the trivet, and add the vegetables and spices.
5. Pressure cook for 25 minutes using the Manual setting. Release the pressure, and discard the bones and vegetables.

• 4 cups water
• 3 carrots, peeled and sliced into small pieces
• 3 stalks celery, sliced into small pieces
• 1 cup corn (any of these can be frozen)
• 1 cup beans
• 1 cup peas
• 8 oz mushrooms, sliced
• 1 onion diced
• 3 potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

6. Add the water and toss in the vegetables
7. Cook under pressure for 10 minutes.

• 4 Tb cornstarch, dissolved in ½ cup water
• ¾ cup light cream

Dumplings

• 1 ½ cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 Tb shortening
• About ¾ cup milk
• 2 Tb chopped chives

8. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder
9. Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender of 2 forks
10. Add the chives
11. Stir in the milk to make a slightly sticky batter
12. Add the cornstarch solution and cream
13. Add the chicken back in.
14. Bring the stew to a boil until thickened. Use more cornstarch if needed.
15. Drop the dumpling batter by spoonfuls on top of the boiling stew.
16. Cover the pot and cook the dumplings for 15 minutes.

Serve the stew and dumplings right away in two bowls.

Overall, this recipe took about 75-80 minutes. You could speed it up, of course, by just using canned chicken stock and skipping steps 4-5. Either way, this is definitely worth it and way faster than using the slow cooker approach, which doesn’t seem to add any real advantage.

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