Our Family’s Chicken Stew Recipe

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Our Family’s Chicken Stew Recipe

Submitted by southernplate on Friday, October 3, 200830 Comments

I am going to start this post off by asking a favor of you all.

Please make this chicken stew.

Its that good. Its so good that it actually bothers me to think that some of you might only look at the photos, read the tutorial, and never make it. Its so good that if I could, I would seriously arrange a time and place for all of us to meet up under a tent somewhere in the middle of the country just to serve you this chicken stew. Its just……..its…..well folks, its just so good!

My mother got this recipe out of a 1974 issue of Good Housekeeping. There was a photograph of a little old lady next to the title and Mama said “She just looked like her food would be really good”. Since then, I cannot even begin to tell you how often we make it. Everyone in my family makes this and loves it. My in laws are coming in from Georgia this weekend for the Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddler’s Convention as they do every year and this stew is always a request for their first meal. Tonight I’m serving it with Dixie Cornbread.

This stew refrigerates well, freezes well, and can easily feed a crowd simply by adding more potatoes. I always try to make a double batch and my family happily eats it whenever they need a quick meal all week long!

Once you make this a time or two, you’ll have no more need of the recipe. It will be ingrained on your heart, your taste buds, and your stomach.

If you have a Southern Plate Cookbook, I think this recipe is on page 31 in there. I know it is in there, I just don’t have a cookbook handy right now to double check!

You’ll need: Potatoes, A chicken, Crushed tomatoes, corn, and onion! You’ll also need a bit of salt, pepper, sugar, and margarine. Exact sizes and quantities are at the bottom of the page.

Cover chicken with water and cook over medium heat until done. When chicken is done, remove from broth and set aside to cool a bit. Reserve broth.

If you prefer to use boneless skinless breasts for this, just add some chicken bouillon cubes to your water to make sure your broth is rich enough.

Peel and dice potatoes. Also peel and dice your onion.

Add potatoes to broth.

Add diced onion as well. Cook these until your potatoes are tender.

Cook until potatoes are tender. Remove about a coffee cup’s worth of potatoes.

Like this.

With a fork, mash those potatoes in the cup. We are going to add this back to the stew and it will thicken it. You can also just use a bit of instant mashed potatoes here if you want, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post. (I truly believe soup thickening is about all they are good for….except for when I make this crust out of them for our Taco casserole…….but that is a recipe for another day)

Place back in pot.

Add can of tomatoes. Now you can use any type you want here. I tend to used crushed because my husband (who I have oft mentioned was dropped on his head as a child) doesn’t like to actually bite into a piece of a tomato in his stew. However, I prefer diced if I’m going with canned. Nothing though, NOTHING is better than home grown tomatoes from my freezer if I have them!

Add corn. I often use frozen corn if you prefer that.

Add salt…

And pepper.

and sugar. I know sugar sounds a bit odd in a stew, trust me on this.

Simmer slowly with lid off for about forty five minutes.

Just before serving, stir in margarine.

These photos were taken with my old camera, the final was taken with the new camera!

YUM!!

Now, I did this tutorial how I make my stew. The following recipe is my mothers. You may find that hers does things slightly differently (she doesn’t cook her onion with her potatoes), but it makes absolutely no difference in the outcome!

Chicken Stew

1 chicken

2 lg onions, chopped

7 cups water

4c. canned tomatoes

6 med.potatoes, peeled and diced

3 T sugar

2 c. frozen or canned whole kernel corn

2 T butter

5 tsp salt

2 tsp pepper

Cook chicken until done in water. Remove chicken from broth and discard skin. Separate meat from bones and shred meat. Dip off as much fat from the broth as possible. Simmer potatoes in 1 cup of broth in covered saucepan until done, do not drain. Mash potatoes slightly, keeping them lumpy. Add corn, onions, tomatoes, sugar, salt, and pepper to broth. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add potatoes and chicken and simmer slowly with lid off for at least 45 minutes. Right before serving, stir in butter and let it melt. Best if made a day ahead and reheated to serve.

*This has been our family’s favorite stew since my mother got the recipe in 1974. No one has to use the recipe anymore because we have all made it so much.

Be sure you subscribe to Southern Plate via email at the top right hand of this page in order to recieve the first installment of weekly printer friendly Southern Plate recipes! If you are already an email subscriber, you’re good to go!

*I’ve added a “Freezes Well” category to Southern Plate, beginning with this stew. I’m going to go back this weekend and add all of my dishes that freeze well to that category for your convenience!

Thank you for reading Southern Plate! I better get back to my company!

Share and Enjoy:

30 Comments »

1

sjs said:

Hi there. I may make this for our Sunday meal. It looks yummy.:) Hope you are having a great day.:)
Sharon:)

- October 3, 2008 at 11:07 pm

2

Linda Goossen said:

My oh My! There have been so many good recipes this past month I am in a quandary as to what to take to pot luck on Sunday! I’m going to have to go back and reread all of them.

I think I will definitely make this chicken stew when all the kids come home for Thanksgiving!

- October 3, 2008 at 11:42 pm

3

Jo said:

yummilicious! That looks great Christy, your recipes always do

- October 4, 2008 at 1:35 am

4

Southern Plate said:

Sharon OOH YAY!! I seriously hope so bad y’all try this! My natural instinct is to feed people and it just kills me that fall is nipping at our heels and I can’t make y’all this stew!!! I have had a very busy but REALLY great day, thank you!!!

I try to always have good days. I tell my kids “Each day when you wake up, you have a choice. You can have a good day or you can have a bad one, so you might has well have a good one.”
Its not always that easy but…….wow, you didn’t mean for me to go into all of that, did ya?

Gosh darnit, I’m just chatty!

Linda Thank you!! You know, This stew is the perfect thing when you have company or have a bit of a busy weekend with folks to feed despite it. We have this big Fiddler’s Convention in my town this weekend and my in laws are here. So I made this tonight and then we’ll eat it again for lunch one day this weekend. No one has EVER minded having chicken stew for leftovers! In fact, we came back from the Fiddler’s tonight and gathered around the soup pot once more!

My brother is a Jack Daniel’s two time grand champion winner for his bbq and he is selling pork chop sandwiches and bbq sundaes all weekend at Fiddlers, oh and roasted corn, too. I’m going to bring y’all some pics back tomorrow and put them into my next post - or maybe the next newsletter. I’ll have to decide.

I try not to ever post just general things about my family or what we did this weekend or such because I figure folks come to Southern Plate for recipes so I do my best to keep on point (in as much as I am able - y’all know I like to ramble). Anyway, my point is that I am going to have some neat pics coming up as soon as I have an excuse to post them or something I can include them with. I thought I’d get some pics of my parents tomorrow and such. Everyone is taking their turn working for my brother this weekend! His BBQ restaurant opens up next weekend and I already have plans to spend some time in his kitchen with my camera for tutorials from there!

Jo Hey!! Wow, thank you!! y’all always make me grin and blush! Just make me feel so good.

I really hope you all know how much I appreciate you taking the time to read Southern Plate and to give me such wonderful feedback. Feedback is so very important and it just makes me feel so good and so thrilled to do more recipes and tutorials every time I read the kind things you all say!

I sure do hope y’all have a wonderful weekend!

Gratefully,
Christy

- October 4, 2008 at 2:13 am

5

Cee said:

Oh Christy,

You have made my day for sure. I have been looking for a Chicken Stew recipe for a long time now. The kind we used to get when they would sell them at fund raisers and such. I never made it myself, and didnt have a recipe till NOW!…

They dont make this stuff up here, and I will definately have to introduce everyone I know to it.

Thanks for such a fabulous recipe.

Girls, Seriously, you all have to try this recipe… its good hearty food, home cooking food… and a southern staple for sure!!!!!

- October 4, 2008 at 2:36 pm

6

Stephanie said:

I need to go buy a chicken. They’re really cheap, and we always have canned tomatoes and corn, and my folks just gleaned enough potatoes to last all of us all winter. This really does look like a very good stew.

And you look so pretty in that picture at the bottom of your post!

- October 4, 2008 at 10:38 pm

7

BillGent said:

Stew looks great! You can freeze tomatoes? I never knew that. I sure have thrown out a ton of them from my dads garden..especially last year when he had 50 plants in the backyard!

How long will they keep?

- October 5, 2008 at 7:12 am

8

Deanna said:

Oh, yum! I have been sick for a week and the only thing that sounds good is warm soup to soothe my sore throat. I am going to tutor my hubs through this recipe so we can have this for supper. Thanks so much! I’ll help him whip up some of the cornbread. He’ll be such a happy camper because he and boys will have it all to themselves!

- October 5, 2008 at 8:52 pm

9

Donna in VA said:

That looks like good old fashioned Southern comfort food for a cold rainy day. Add some of that cornbread of yours and you have a feast. Yuummmm!

- October 6, 2008 at 3:49 pm

10

Cara said:

Your recipes are great! I keep coming back for seconds!! Love the emails to! Can’t wait to try this one with cornbread!

- October 6, 2008 at 4:55 pm

11

Southern Plate said:

Hey Cee!!

Oh, I don’t know if anything beats a good fundraiser chicken stew. If that’s what you’re craving, this’ll hit the spot for sure though!

I’m so glad you read Southern Plate! I actually thought about you this weekend at the Fiddler’s. You know they always have great chicken stew there, too!

Stephanie Hey! I am always amazed at how inexpensive a whole fryer is compared to the boneless skinless breasts and the broth they make just can’t be beat! I think you could likely feed a family endless meals if you just have corn, tomatoes, and potatoes on hand!

~blushes~ thank you! I am working on getting a good “mug shot” done to use in print and such and doing a trial run. It’s so hard having photos made of yourself!! I appreciate your compliment GREATLY!

Bill HEY! Tomatoes are SUPER easy to put up in the freezer.
What I do is this:
*Get on a large pot of water to boil.

*Set out a 9×13 pan on the counter (they cool faster and its easier to chop them in that)

*Once the water is boiling, drop a few tomatoes at a time in it. Wait just a minute or two and the skins will split open. Remove them and put them in the 9×13 pan and let them cool until you can handle them. Just grab hold of that skin and it will come right off! Throw away the skin and cut off the tops and throw that away too. Then, I just take a large knife and coarsely chop them up a bit before filling quart sized freezer bags with the tomatoes, juice and all!

Deanna Let me know if your husband makes this for you! My husband is doing good to be able to boil water – seriously. He is an engineer and is completely lacking in common sense when it comes to cooking. Everything is made to be a hundred times more complicated then necessary. Once, I was in the middle of making chicken and dumplings and got to feeling very sick rather suddenly. The kids were hungry and wanting their supper so I called him in there just to shred the chicken and put it in the dumplings –that’s all there was left to do.

I’ll never forget eating chicken and dumplings with perfectly cubed one inch squares of chicken in it. It was – odd. No telling how long it took him to do that. Bless his heart.

Donna Oh yes, it was so good. I froze the leftovers and sent it with my in laws back to Georgia. Not to sound too selfish, but I’m kinda regretting doing that now! I sure do want a bowl!

Cara Hey! Thank you so much!!! I hope to keep you happy and coming back for a very long time! Let me know if you have any questions or special requests!
Gratefully,
Christy

- October 7, 2008 at 3:01 pm

12

Deanna said:

This soup was soooo delicious. I helped hubs through it and it turned out great. One of the boys is now sick and he has asked me to make him the “sick soup”. Ha!

- October 8, 2008 at 10:43 pm

13

mysoulhunts said:

Thank you.. will be making this for the crew very very soon. I can make it ahead for the guys to take when they go to deer camp!

- October 13, 2008 at 6:44 pm

14

matt silb said:

If you are going to use canned tomatoes (and canned are better than non-ripe store tomatoes) use the whole ones and crush them with your hand. Not only is it fun, but they used the best tomatoes for the whole ones. Canned tomatoes are pretty good because they let them ripen on the vine and can them pretty much in the field.

- October 14, 2008 at 4:49 am

15

Indigo Children said:

I made this for my family tonight. We LOVED it. Chicken stew, a bottle (or two) of pinot noir and a homemade pumpkin pie for dessert.

Comfort food…mmmmmmmmm.

Thanks

- October 19, 2008 at 1:00 am

16

emilywhitman said:

You need to come cook for me.

- October 24, 2008 at 1:42 am

17

AthensMel said:

Hi Christy ~ I made this last weekend and even my picky teen age boys came back for seconds!!! I did buy diced tomatoes, but probably will go with crushed next time! (I guess my kids were dropped on their heads at some point in time too!!! LOL!!) I will be making this again!!!! THANKS!!!!

- October 26, 2008 at 11:03 pm

18

Bev said:

This is a lot different from the chicken stew I make. I am really anxious to try it. It sounds wonderful. I have not tried using some of the potatoes as a thickener. Good tip
Thanks so much

- October 28, 2008 at 5:41 am

19

Ohio Girl said:

I made this for dinner tonight and it turned out great. The flavor was wonderful. I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow…Yummy!

- October 28, 2008 at 9:37 pm

20

Debra said:

Oh yum, this sounds terrific! I am anxious to try it.

- October 29, 2008 at 10:58 am

21

Cathy said:

Hi Christy

First of all,I’ve just got to tell ya OH…MY…GOSH!!! This stew was AMAZING! I’ve been on the hunt for a stew like this for a very long time.So awhile back I went searching for Southern recipes and found your wonderful site You’ve got so many delicious looking recipes that I’ll just have to try.Reminds me of eating at Granny’s when I was growing up.Please keep em’ coming…I’ll be back fer sure Oh,by the way I live just across the Ala/Tn. line so we’re practically neighbors.Have a spooktacular Halloween!
God bless…
Cathy

- October 31, 2008 at 2:00 am

22

Dora said:

The chicken stew is a hit!! All my boys actually ate it without a fuss! Although they might be bias since they knew I had peach cobbler in the oven. Either way it’s a keeper. BTW, is it horribly mean of me not to tell my sisters and SILs about your site? I just want to keep all of your yummy recipes to myself and play off “I’m a great cook” routine. lol I am seriously loving your site! I’ll let you know how the cobbler goes.

- November 10, 2008 at 1:25 am

23

Carolyn said:

I made the chicken stew yesterday and as all your recipes have been, it was delicious. It was even better when we warmed a serving for supper last night! I’m thinking of using the left over as a base for Brunswick Stew since that is a family favorite and company’s coming next week!

- November 18, 2008 at 8:25 am

24

Jennifer said:

I have NEVER made chicken stew ever! I always thought it was too hard and I tried this recipe this weekend and me and my son loved it!! This is the best chicken stew!! And if I can make it, ANYONE can make it….thanks Christy!!

- November 18, 2008 at 11:13 am

25

Karyn said:

Loved this stew! My husband raved about it and keeps asking when are we having it again! I’m slowly working my way through all your recipes and they are all outstanding!

- November 19, 2008 at 12:01 pm

26

audrey humphreys said:

christy, i made this stew for me and my husband and it was wonderful. My husband doesn’t comment on alot of stuff but he said it was the best he’d ever tasted. He usually don’t like many leftovers but he wanted bowls of this over and over again until we ran out. It sure didn’t go to waste. I recommend everyone to try making it. Thanks so much!!!

- November 19, 2008 at 7:36 pm

27

Benu said:

Hi,

I like experimenting with food and wanted to try chicken stew for a long time, but did not get an easy recipie till now. yours looks real yum and i will definitely be trying it next weekend. Thanls for sharing this recipe with us.

Benu

- November 30, 2008 at 4:41 am

28

ron willis said:

nice recipe, but it is not stewed chicken , more like soup. If you added boston butt, hot sauce and catsup, creamed corn and you would have a Bruinswick stew. stewed chicken has a light brown gravy that coats the chicken.

- November 30, 2008 at 12:46 pm

29

southernplate (author) said:

Well thats interesting. I think we’re talking about two different things, yours sounds like a recipe for chicken, when I refer to stewed chicken I am actually referring to the method of cooking it. Stewing a chicken doesn’t produce a gravy, you’d have to manipulate your broth or else add it in order to get that so I’m guessing you have a great recipe which is called that. Bet its good!

This is a classic stew recipe in that all of your ingredients are simmered low for an amount of time. I enjoy Brunswick stew and make that often as well, but its an entirely different recipe and flavor. You are right though, if you added all of that, you’d have one humdinger of a brunswick stew - but not chicken stew! lol
Wow, this was a confusing comment to even respond to but you kept me on my toes!

Thanks for reading Southern Plate, Ron!! I bet folks are eating good at your house!
Gratefully,
Christy

- November 30, 2008 at 12:55 pm

30

Micha said:

Guess what just made it on to my meal plan next week. Yay for Winn-Dixie having chicken buy one get one free last week. A big bowl of that and your hoe cake- sounds amazing.

- December 11, 2008 at 2:18 am