These EASY from scatch homemade dumplings make ANY soup recipe a hearty meal!

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One of the things we all love to have for dinner is a big pot of chicken stew with old-fashioned homemade dumplings. Drop them in a pot of bubbling soup and about 10 minutes later you’ll have big fluffy homemade dumplings. Trust me on this one, they’re a family favorite, everyone loves this homemade dumpling recipe.

This is an easy recipe for truly homemade dumplings, big, soft and fluffy like grandma used to make, pure comfort food. Mixed up quickly from just a few humble pantry ingredients these drop dumplings come out perfect just about every single time. That is: fluffy and steamed to perfection!

What kind of dumplings are these?

As far as I’m concerned there are two types of dumplings with MANY variations. There’s the kind of dumplings made flat from dumpling wrappers and filled with various dumpling fillings. Sometimes they’re Chinese, or Japanese, but there are even Eastern European versions too. These are some of my favorite foods and we all love them.

And then there’s the other type of dumplings, drop dumplings or flat dumplings. Drop dumplings are big soft fluffy dumplings made from dough and either dropped in soup. I like to make drop dumplings because they’re easy. For flat dumplings, you may need to use a rolling pin to roll them out or use a pizza cutter or pastry cutter to cut dough. Either way, they’re dropped into the fresh soup over medium heat or medium-high heat and let it do its magic. The results are a creamy soup full of fluffy dumplings.

There’s a third variety that I do not buy into and that is the buy canned biscuit dough and drop them into the simmering broth. I don’t think biscuits make great dumplings but it may be the easiest way to make dumplings. I have not done it, have you?

Dumplings From Scratch

If you’re looking for a chicken and dumplings recipe may I direct you to my Old-Fashioned Chicken and Dumplings? It’s a full soup recipe with everything you need to make a big happy pot of soup. OR if you’ve got leftover turkey here’s a recipe for Turkey and Dumplings, you won’t be disappointed!

You can even use canned broth and shredded rotisserie chicken to make EASY homemade chicken and dumplings. But if you’re here for JUST an Old Fashioned Dumpling Recipe and you’ve got the soup part under control well then you’re in the RIGHT PLACE!

But if you’re here for JUST an Old Fashioned Dumpling Recipe and you’ve got the soup part under control well then you’re in the RIGHT PLACE!

Now it may seem that these dumplings don’t have a lot of seasonings and you’re right but remember they’re steamed in a super flavorful soup so they’re soaking up all that flavor. And they do need a sprinkle of salt and pepper on top of them before you steam them, a sprinkle of fresh parsley is always nice too. The flavor can’t be beaten!

What do I need to Make Dumplings for Soup?

a large pot of soup that needs dumplings (most important!) if you need a soup try the recipes I mentioned above
All-purpose flour
baking powder
milk
oil OR melted butter
salt, pepper, and optional fresh parsley
large or medium bowl
fork

Soft Fluffy Dumplings From Scratch

You can make soft fluffy dumplings from scratch just follow these EASY tips for the BEST homemade dumplings!

Lighten your flour so you don’t add too much flour to your homemade dumplings, that will kill them, to lighten flour simply run a spoon through it several times
stir together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside
mix the liquid ingredients
pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and stir with a fork
stir ONLY until the dumpling dough comes together and then stop
make sure your soup is JUST on the verge of boiling and reduce the heat slightly
drop by fork fulls into the soup, salt and pepper them, cover and leave covered while cooking, stay around in case the pot starts to boil over and remove it from the heat slightly to keep it from boiling over
once the cooking time has passed open the lid and use a fork to open a dumpling if it’s cooked enough the outside will be soupy and tender while the inside is steamed soft and fluffy

What Can Go Wrong?

What can go wrong with homemade dumplings?? Oh, so many things!

If you’ve made dumplings before and had a few problems I CAN HELP. Because I’ve MADE a lot of bad dumplings in my life. If your dumplings were hard, tough, fell apart in the soup, or were just plain bad read on!

if your dumplings were hard or tough then you over-mixed them, you should mix the dough until it JUST comes together
NEVER roll the dumplings with your hands it compacts the dough and makes for hard dumplings
if your dumplings come apart in soup it was at a hard boil when the dough was dropped in
if your dumplings fell apart in the soup then the soup wasn’t just almost boiling when you dropped them in, it must be on the verge of boiling, then the heat must be reduced a bit so you can cover them with a lid to cook them WITHOUT them boiling over(this sounds tricky but it’s not!)
Another reason dumplings fall apart is that they were slightly undermixed when you added them to the soup, stir until combined and the mixture forms a ball in the middle of the bowl