Chicken and Swiss Stuffing Bake

I hugged Gayle. For the first time in fourteen weeks — ninety-eight days — I walked through her front door and put my arms around my mother and held her, and she held me, and neither of us said anything because the words would have broken the moment and the moment was already breaking on its own, under the weight of fourteen weeks of screen doors and porch plates and phone calls that were visits and visits that were not visits. She felt smaller. She felt thinner. She felt like a woman who has been alone too long, which she has, and the aloneness has cost her something I can see in the angles of her shoulders and the loose fit of her sweater and the way she held on a beat too long before letting go.

The decision to visit was mine. The cases in Nebraska are low. I have been careful. I am wearing masks on the road. The risk is not zero but it is lower, and the risk of Gayle being alone any longer is higher than the risk of the virus, and I have done the math, and the math says: hug your mother. The math says: bring her dinner and eat it with her at the table, not through the screen door, not on the porch, but at the table where Larry sat and where Darla sat and where the family has always sat, and the sitting is the medicine she needs more than any pill the doctor prescribed.

I brought chicken and dumplings — the thick kind, Gayle's recipe, flat dumplings rolled out like pasta. I cooked it in her kitchen, which I have not been inside for three months, and the kitchen smelled the same — coffee and dish soap and the faint ghost of Folgers — and the sameness was the most reassuring thing I have felt since March. The kitchen did not change. Gayle's kitchen does not change. The constancy is the prayer.

We ate at the table. Just the two of us. She ate a full bowl, which is more than she has been eating — the porch plates came back half-finished, and I noticed, and the noticing is why I am here. She needs to eat with someone. She needs the table and the company and the dumplings and the person across from her who is alive and present and not on a screen. She needs me. She will not say it. She does not need to.

Gayle’s chicken and dumplings are hers and hers alone — I know better than to try to write that recipe down for anyone else, because the recipe lives in her hands, not on paper. But if you’re looking for the same spirit, the same pull-up-a-chair, eat-a-full-bowl feeling that I was chasing when I walked through her door that afternoon, this Chicken and Swiss Stuffing Bake gets you there. It’s the kind of dish that fills a kitchen with smell before it fills a plate with food, and on a day when ninety-eight days of distance finally ended at a front door, smell was the first thing that told me I was home.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 slices Swiss cheese
1 package (6 oz) stuffing mix (chicken flavor)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup warm water
Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
Mix the sauce. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cream of chicken soup, sour cream, chicken broth, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper until smooth.
Layer the chicken. Spread the chicken pieces in an even layer across the bottom of the prepared baking dish.
Add the sauce. Pour the cream of chicken mixture evenly over the chicken, spreading it to cover completely.
Layer the cheese. Lay the Swiss cheese slices in a single layer over the sauce, overlapping slightly if needed to cover the dish.
Prepare the stuffing topping. In a separate bowl, combine the stuffing mix with the melted butter and warm water. Toss until the stuffing is moistened throughout, then spread evenly over the cheese layer.
Bake uncovered. Transfer the dish to the preheated oven and bake uncovered for 35 to 40 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the chicken is cooked through to an internal temperature of 165°F.
Rest and serve. Let the bake rest for 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh parsley if desired. Serve directly from the dish at the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken and Swiss Stuffing Bake — The Meal That Brought Us Back to the Table