Paprika Chicken
Serves 6–8 as main course Time Prep: 15 minutes Cooking: ~65 minutes Difficulty 3/5 Ingredients 13 Steps 7
Paprika chicken is a dish of Hungarian origin traditionally made with chicken, paprika, and lard, served over pasta. There is no official recipe. Preparations of this dish often vary between families. In this Americanized version, sour cream is used in place of lard. Vegetables are optional—the traditional Hungarian version contains none.
Ingredients
- 1 ea. (2-3 pounds) chicken
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 2–4 tablespoons sweet (not hot) paprika
- 5–7 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 cup sour cream
- ¼–½ cup heavy cream
- Salt
- Fresh green parsley
- 6–7 whole black peppercorns
- 1 green bell pepper (optional)
- ½ red bell pepper (optional)
- 1 carrot (optional), thinly sliced
- 1 onion (optional), thinly sliced
Steps
- Cut chicken into eight pieces.
- Add oil to medium sauté pan. Sauté onions 3–4 min until yellow.
- Add chicken, peppercorns, salt and paprika. Stir rapidly. Add water immediately to cover meat.
- Simmer over low heat. Add peppers and carrots after 10 min, if using. Stir occasionally until chicken is tender, about 45–50 min. Add water very sparingly if needed. Do not boil the chicken; it should be almost fried at the end.
- Stop adding water for the last 15 min. Let liquid boil off almost completely. Keep about half a finger's width of gravy on the pan bottom.
- Add sour cream and heavy cream to gravy. Stir. Top with fresh chopped parsley.
- Serve with dumplings, rice or mashed potatoes and salad.
Notes from the original
- It is important not to use hot paprika, as this would make the soup too spicy and of the wrong consistency. In the United States, paprika is typically mild and sweet unless otherwise indicated.
- If desired, for every carrot used add ⅓ parsnip, thinly sliced. This takes away the slight sweetness of the carrot.
- If you want to avoid the heavy cream, use more sour cream.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Paprika Chicken” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-05-25, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Paprikás Csirke Galuskával.jpg by Sumit Surai, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.