Instant Pot Country Chicken — Hattie Pearl’s Chicken and Dumplings, Made for the Days You Can’t Spend All Afternoon at the Stove

Homecoming week at the high school, which means the elementary school catches the energy like a contact high. The kids are buzzing. There's a parade on Friday that half the school will watch from the sidewalk, and the cafeteria decorated for "fall festival" with construction paper leaves and a cardboard scarecrow that Miss Franklin's first graders made that looks like it's having a crisis. I love it. I love all of it. Schools in October are the best version of schools.

I made chili for the fall festival lunch. Now, I know chili is not a Lowcountry dish. Chili is from Texas or Cincinnati or whoever wants to claim it this week. But children love chili, and I make a good one: ground beef browned with onion and garlic, kidney beans and pinto beans, diced tomatoes — canned, from the jars I put up in August, which means this chili has my garden in it — chili powder, cumin, a little cocoa powder (the secret that nobody believes until they taste it), and enough cayenne to give it warmth without making little mouths cry. Served with cornbread, which I make for everything because cornbread is the universal connector. Cornbread goes with chili. Cornbread goes with greens. Cornbread goes with soup. Cornbread goes with Tuesday. There is no meal that cornbread cannot improve.

Kayla drove home for the weekend. She's doing better in microbiology — she called last week to tell me she got a B+ on her exam and she said, "You were right, Grandma." I said, "I am always right. Write that down." She came home Saturday morning and we spent the day together. I taught her how to make chicken and dumplings — Hattie Pearl's recipe, the one with drop dumplings, not rolled, because rolled dumplings are a different dish and I don't want to have that argument today. The trick to dumplings is not overworking the dough and dropping them into simmering liquid, not boiling. Kayla got it right on the first batch. That girl has my hands. My cooking hands. Michael's daughter, cooking in my kitchen with my mother's recipe, and the chain goes on.

Earl watched us from the doorway. He didn't say anything. He just watched his wife and his granddaughter — his dead son's daughter — standing at the stove, shoulders touching, flour on their hands, laughing. And I looked up and caught his eye and he was crying. Earl Henderson, who has cried maybe four times in the forty years I've known him, was standing in the doorway crying. I didn't go to him. Some moments you don't interrupt. Some moments are doing exactly what they're supposed to do.

Now go on and feed somebody.

That afternoon, watching Earl cry in the doorway and Kayla laugh at the stove, I knew exactly what I was going to make us for supper—the same chicken and dumplings that started the whole thing, except I wasn’t going to stand over a pot for two hours, because some days you want the comfort without the labor. The Instant Pot gets you there, and it gets you there right. Here’s how we made it.

Instant Pot Country Chicken and Dumplings

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 4 thighs)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water (slurry)
• For the Drop Dumplings:
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions

1. Sear the chicken. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté. Melt the butter, then add chicken thighs skin-side down. Sear 3–4 minutes until golden. Flip and sear the other side 2 minutes. Remove and set aside. Do not skip this step — it builds the flavor the whole pot will carry.
2. Build the base. Add onion, celery, and carrots to the pot. Cook, stirring, about 3 minutes until slightly softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more. Season with thyme, sage, salt, and pepper.
3. Pressure cook. Return the chicken to the pot. Pour in the broth and milk. Secure the lid and set the valve to sealing. Cook on High Pressure for 15 minutes. Quick-release the pressure when done.
4. Shred and thicken. Remove the chicken. Pull the meat from the bones, discard skin and bones, and shred the meat into large pieces. Return the shredded chicken to the pot. Set to Sauté and stir in the cornstarch slurry. Let the broth simmer and thicken for 3–4 minutes, stirring gently. The broth should coat a spoon.
5. Make the dumpling dough. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in milk and melted butter until a shaggy dough just comes together. Do not overmix — lumps are fine, overworking is not. The dough should be thick and sticky, not smooth.
6. Drop the dumplings. Reduce heat so the broth is at a gentle simmer, not a boil. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough directly onto the surface of the liquid, spacing them slightly apart. They will puff and spread. Place the lid on the Instant Pot (on Sauté, vented) and let the dumplings steam 12–15 minutes without lifting the lid. They are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the tops look matte, not wet.
7. Rest and serve. Turn off the heat and let the pot sit, covered, for 5 minutes. Ladle into bowls making sure each serving gets broth, chicken, vegetables, and at least two dumplings. Taste for salt before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 415 | Protein: 31g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 620mg