Shredded Chicken with Mashed Potatoes

Shredded Chicken with Mashed Potatoes is a classic dish for shredded chicken that can be poured over mashed potatoes, toast, or rice. For this recipe, I have included a cranberry sauce that pairs perfectly with this dish.

Some dishes are just comforting. The flavors blend together and can take you back to good moments or perhaps they blend so well that they become favorites on your table. This Shredded Chicken with Mashed Potatoes is one of those for me. I remember standing in the lunch room at school, I believe on Thursdays if my memory serves me right.

The smell of chicken in gravy and mashed potatoes was in the air. It was the one dish that I would opt for hot lunch that day. A shredded chicken over mashed potatoes dish. Simple enough. It was a standard gravy with shredded chicken that was likely poured over boxed mashed potatoes. Nothing whatsoever was fancy about it. But it was delicious to me in those days. A taste I can still remember.

All these years later that same dish provides comfort and a flavor that I love.

I remade my version so the boxed potatoes are gone and with it is a side of homemade cranberry sauce. The addition of cranberry sauce is a must in my book. The combination of the sweetened but tart berries and the salty shredded chicken gravy pair perfectly.

The mashed potatoes are a catch-all for the delicious bits of chicken, gravy, and cranberry sauce. I like to make my own cranberry sauce while the chicken is simmering away. To do this year round you can freeze those winter cranberries to keep on hand. This is exactly what I do so that we can enjoy them longer.

I do use my Homemade Bone Broth for the gravy but any store-bought bone broth or stock is fine here. For this recipe, you can use store-bought cranberry sauce or homemade, or none at all. But trust me, you will want to.

Why I Love This Recipe

We have discussed the flavor aspects of why I love this Shredded Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Cranberry Sauce. Yet it is also a recipe that makes great use of chicken leftovers. Whenever I make my Salt Crusted Chicken, I make this recipe with the extra chicken because it is the perfect use of leftover chicken from whole birds.

It is also perfect for those baked chicken extras or those nights when the chicken breasts needed to be cooked and you don’t know what to make out of them. I have used all sorts of different cuts of chicken for this recipe and it works well with any sort of chicken you have. The only necessary part is to make sure that it is shredded up to be able to pour it over the mashed potatoes.

What You’ll Need To Make It

2 large chicken breast or 4 cups of shredded leftover chicken

4 cups of chicken stock or bone broth (homemade is best)

1 large bay leaf

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp butter

Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Mashed Potatoes

4 russet potatoes

6 tbsp of salted butter

1 cup of cream or whole milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions For Mashed Potatoes

Peel potatoes and then chop them up into equal chunks. Add them to a sauce pot and boil until soft. When ready strain the water and add the potatoes to a mixer bowl. Add the butter, cream or milk, salt, and cracked black pepper. Mix until creamy. Or you can hand mash as well.

For the Cranberry Sauce

1 small orange

1 cup of sugar

12 oz bag of cranberries

1 small orange

Directions For Cranberry Sauce

In a small sauce pot, add the cranberries, sugar, and cinnamon. Zest orange over the pot. Cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice in (about 2 tbsp). Slice 3 pieces of the peel and also add that to the pot for extra flavoring. Place the lid on and allow the cranberries to simmer on low for 20 minutes or until the cranberries have broken down (shown).

For the printable recipe card with step by step pictures you can see the original blog post Best Cranberry Sauce

Directions For Shredded Chicken

In a medium pot, place the chicken breasts, stock, and bay leaf inside. Salt and pepper a bit. Bring chicken to a simmer and let them cook all the way through. If you are using leftover shredded chicken you will skip this step altogether and go directly to making the gravy adding in the shredded chicken once the gravy is thickened.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove the breasts and set them aside to cool down a little for shredding. Or shred your leftover chicken into small bite-sized pieces.

Take a bowl and strainer and pour the stock out making sure to strain out the small bits from cooking the chicken and the bay leaf.

Place the pot back on the stove and add your butter. Once melted add the flour and whisk to move it about the pan.

Once combined slowly begin adding back the stock and whisk until the roux (flour mixture) is worked into the stock.

When the gravy is thickened, add the shredded chicken back into the pot.

Salt and pepper again if needed. Serve poured over mashed potatoes. Or switch it up by pouring the chicken gravy over dinner rolls or rice.

Cooking Notes

• Use a fine mesh strainer to strain off the broth to remove any clumps or debris
• Be sure to slowly pour the broth as the gravy thickens otherwise, it will not thicken properly

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