Our Family’s Southern Chicken Stew Recipe
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Featuring tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and chicken, this flavorful and hearty southern chicken stew recipe is a firm family favorite.
I am going to start this post off by asking a favor of you all. Please make this chicken stew. It’s that good. I mean, it’s 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. It’s 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. It’s just, well folks, it’s 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.
Once you make this a time or two, you’ll have no more need for the recipe. It will be ingrained in your heart, your taste buds, and your stomach. If you need more reasons to give this southern chicken stew recipe a go, it 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 a bowl of this supreme dish whenever they need a quick meal all week long!
Recipe Ingredients
- Potatoes
- A chicken
- Crushed tomatoes
- Corn
- Onion
- Salt
- Black pepper
- Sugar
- Margarine
Helpful Kitchen Tools
Cover your whole chicken with water and cook over medium heat until it’s done. When chicken is done, remove it from the broth and set it aside to cool a bit. Reserve broth.
If you prefer to use boneless skinless chicken breast for this recipe, just add some chicken bouillon cubes to your water to make sure your chicken broth is rich enough.
Peel and dice potatoes. Also, peel and dice your onion.
Add potatoes to the 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 the saucepot along with the .
Add the can of tomatoes.
Now, you can use any type you want here. I tend to use 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 tomato in his stew. However, I prefer diced if I’m going with canned. Nothing though, NOTHING is better than homegrown tomatoes from my freezer if I have them!
Add corn.
I often use frozen corn if you prefer that.
Add salt…
And pepper.
Then add the sugar. I know sugar sounds a bit odd in a stew, but trust me on this.
Simmer slowly with the lid off for about forty-five minutes.
Just before serving, stir in margarine. YUM!!
Storage
As I said, this southern chicken stew recipe refrigerates and freezes well. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days or the freezer for up to 6 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating in the microwave.
Recipe Notes
- Serve your homemade chicken stew with saltine crackers, homemade drop biscuits, or cornbread. You could also serve it with a simple side salad, like an easy Greek salad.
- For a little kick, serve your stew with some hot sauce. Alternatively, before simmering add a teaspoon of paprika or a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning.
- Want to add more vegetables? Add in a cup of frozen peas or green beans when you add the corn. You could also add diced carrot, , or celery to your stew.
- If you’d prefer slow cooker chicken stew, follow the steps but once the potatoes, chicken, and onions are cooked in the broth, you’ll want to transfer everything to a slow cooker before adding the can of tomatoes and the remaining ingredients. Then cook on high for 4 to 6 hours.
Check out these other sensation stew recipes:
Beef Stew Recipe for Slow Cooker
Lentil Stew (Budget-Friendly & Delicious)
Ground Beef Stew (with a secret!)
Ingredients
- 1 chicken
- 2 large onions chopped
- 7 cups water
- 4 cups canned tomatoes
- 6 medium potatoes peeled and diced
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups frozen or canned whole kernel corn
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 5 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons pepper
Instructions
- Cook the chicken until done in water. Remove the chicken from the broth and discard its skin. Separate the meat from the bones and then shred the meat.1 chicken, 7 cups water
- Dip off as much fat from the broth as possible.
- Simmer potatoes in 1 cup of broth in a covered saucepan until done and do not drain. Mash potatoes slightly, keeping them lumpy.6 medium potatoes
- Add corn, onions, tomatoes, sugar, salt, and pepper to broth.2 large onions, 4 cups canned tomatoes, 3 tablespoons sugar, 2 cups frozen or canned whole kernel corn, 5 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons pepper
- Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Add potatoes and chicken pieces and simmer slowly with the lid off for at least 45 minutes.6 medium potatoes, 1 chicken
- Right before serving, stir in the butter and let it melt. This chicken stew is best if made a day ahead and reheated to serve.2 tablespoons butter
Nutrition
So I have been looking for a chicken stew recipe that tastes like the stew our local volunteer fire departments make. This is it!!! It’s all good! And my whole family begs for my leftovers! Thanks!
My family and I have made this recipe multiple times now and it never fails. Not even when we make it vegan by substituting chickpeas for the chicken (although the original is the best). I am now going to hoard your cookbooks LOL. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much!!! I am so glad to hear you like the stew and LOVE hearing it turns out great as a vegan dish!
Chesty what you have is what is what you call it “chicken stew “pretty much recipe that real chicken stew cookers in Lauderdale County use when you go adding those beans an peas an veg all you have vegetable soup but it is all good.I know lots of discussions goes on about that
Christy, I made this and enjoyed it so very much! Your recipe has given me a tomato based recipe to alternate with a milk based recipe I’ve been using for more than 30 years!
Thank you for this!
Thank you Kimbra, I am so glad you liked it!!!
Hello, I have a question about the instructions. In the directions, it says to simmer potatoes in cp cup of broth, yet the photo shows you adding the potatoes to all of the broth.. it looks like 7 or more cups. Which is the best way? Thanks
I can’t tell you how glad I was when I ran across this recipe.
Ihave searched all over the net, Google, Pinterest, You Tube…all over with not a single red chicken stew coming up.
When I lived in Western New York this or one similar to this stew was sold as a fund raiser. I forget if it was the VFW, or volunteer fire or what but I would buy it by the gallon. I’ve loved it and tried endlessly to find it. Now…HaHaHa, hallelujah. You’ve made me so happy.
I will be making this very soon.
Also I will try to adapt it to the Instant Pot.
If anyone has already done this please contact me or enter it in Facebook’s ‘Instant Pot Community’.
Thanks again, so much!
I made in the instapot today by putting frozen chicken breasts, onion, and potatoes all in at the same time with enough cups of water to cover and cooked on sauté mode. Once the potatoes were tender about 30 minutes, shredded chicken and added all other ingredients (used frozen corn and butterbeans) besides butter which I’ll add right before eating and switched to slow cooker because I wasn’t in a rush to eat. I would imagine you could cook on soup mode for a minute or two for the frozen veggies and to meld the flavor and have the stew in under an hour counting release time.
We’ve ❤d this for most of my life. We call it red soup and we just add tomato sauce rather than a can of tomatoes. Just before serving, a can of cream corn thickens broth.