Creamy Chicken Stew

How do you do, Chicken Stew? When you’re creamy, you’re quite dreamy! This inexpensive comfort food is exactly what anyone in the Northern Hemisphere needs on a cold November day! At last weeks’s party for the FFFF (see my post of Nov. 4, 2012), I served the Creamy Chicken Stew that appears below. Tossed into a slow cooker, it practically makes itself!

Tip: Served over pasta with an added can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, the leftovers of this wonderful stew taste completely different the next day!

Creamy Chicken Stew:

This recipe requires a slow cooker

2-½ lb. (just over 1 kg) boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs

Salt and coarsely ground pepper, to taste

¼ c. (60 mL) olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely minced

4-to-5 tbsp. (60-to-75 mL) cornstarch

4 c. (1 L) chicken broth

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. chunks

2 stalks celery, cut into 1-in. chunks

½ c. (125 mL) quartered mushrooms

2 tsp. (10 mL) dried, crumbled rosemary

4 small bay leaves

Additional cornstarch, as needed

1 c. (250 mL) dairy sour cream

3 green onions (“spring” onions), sliced thinly

1-¼ c. (310 mL) frozen green peas

Chop chicken into 1-½-inch pieces. Season to taste. Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté chicken in three separate batches, turning often to brown well. Transfer chicken to small bowl and set aside, being sure not to drain chicken fat and juices from bowl or from skillet. 

When chicken pieces have cooked, stir onion into skillet, sautéing until browned. Add garlic, cooking just until soft. Whisk cornstarch into chicken broth. Pour into skillet, continuing to whisk until sauce mixture thickens. Add prepared vegetables, rosemary, and bay leaves, stirring just until heated through.

Transfer all including chicken, fat, and juices to slow cooker or “crock pot.” Set cooker to “high” and cook 4 hr., stirring occasionally. Test thickness of sauce about 30 min. before stew finishes cooking. If too thin, strain off some of the broth, cooling in refrigerator before whisking in additional cornstarch. Return cornstarch solution to stew, straining through sieve to remove as many small lumps of cornstarch as possible. 

Combine dairy sour cream and green onions, stirring into stew in final 15 min. As stew returns to the simmer, stir in frozen peas just until heated through. Serve at once. Yields 6-to-8 servings.

For other stew recipes, see One Click: Stew.

Heat olive oil in large skillet.

Chop chilled chicken into large chunks.

Batch-cook chicken until browned, so oil remains hot.

Cook onions until golden brown before adding garlic.

When veggies are heated through, transfer to slow cooker.

Set slow cooker timer for 4 hr. (not 6, as mine reads!)

Add reserved sour cream and green onions. 

Add frozen peas at the end.

Serve at the table or buffet-style, as I did.