This traditional Hungarian Chicken Paprikas is comfort cooking at its best! A rich, creamy sauce flavored with sweet Hungarian paprika surrounds tender chicken for a delicious meal!
This post is for all of you who are still enduring the longest and coldest winter ever! My heart goes out to you. Buuuut Hungarian Chicken Paprikas will make it all better.
Promise.
Rich and creamy and surprisingly easy to prepare –this is chicken at its best.
This is the quintessential Hungarian dish. When I think of using sour cream to finish a dish, I think of Hungarian Chicken Paprikas (Csirkepaprikas) and Russian Beef Stroganoff.
They rank up there with Hungarian walnut cookies and kiffles for me!
I LOVE Hungarian food.
But down here in Atlanta, if you want Chicken Paprikas with Hungarian dumplings, you are just going to have to make it yourself.
I was nervous about making Spaetzle from scratch. There is a strong Hungarian influence in Cleveland, and you can buy homemade, fresh spaetzle at the regular grocery store, but not down here in the South. No, no. You have to brave them yourself.
But, truthfully, it wasn’t that hard!!! You stir them up in one bowl and drop the dough into boiling water with a spoon. How hard is that? It’s not. It’s completely manageable. But, if you don’t want to fuss with the spaetzle, and your grocer doesn’t carry it, you can’t go wrong with egg noodles, because, let's be honest, it's all about the sauce!
With a dish that has so few ingredients, one must use THE BEST of each. That means a rich chicken broth (preferably homemade), authentic, imported Hungarian paprika, and a good quality sour cream. They will make all the difference.
So go pick up some Hungarian sweet paprika and make this tomorrow! You’ll forget all about that snow outside. Well, at least for a while.
Side Note: Many people (including some very famous people and magazines) incorrectly call this dish Chicken Paprikash, which is how it is pronounced. I am not known for my spelling, so I just wanted to throw that out there.
Recipe
Hungarian Chicken Paprikas
Ingredients
For the Chicken Paprikas:
- 5 tablespoons butter
- 1 pound boneless (skinless chicken thighs)
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 1 ½ cups chicken broth (An excellent chicken stock here )
- 3 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (as needed for coating chicken)
- 1 cup sour cream
For the Hungarian Spaetzle:
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cups water
- 1 tablespoon butter (melted)
Instructions
Prepare the Chicken Paprikas:
- Chop chicken into 1” pieces and dry and dust lightly with flour.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat until it is hot. Melt ¼ cup butter. Add chicken, paprika, salt and pepper, and sauté until the chicken is lightly browned. Remove chicken from pan and tent loosely with foil.
- Add remaining 1 tablespoon butter to pan and sauté onions until they are translucent. Return chicken to the pan.
- Add chicken broth and gently simmer over low heat until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from the pan and tent loosely with foil.
- Stir 2 tablespoons of flour into the pan and boil until the sauce has thickened to your taste. Add sour cream and return chicken to the pan and coat with the sauce.
- Serve with spaetlze or egg noodles.
Prepare the Spaetzle:
- I suggest you make the spaetlze while your chicken is simmering in the broth. I made mine too early and they sat around for way too long.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
- Whisk together flour and salt in a medium bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the eggs, water and butter.
- Stir until the batter is smooth and thick.
- Drop batter (each dollop about a teaspoon) into boiling water with a spoon; dipping the spoon into the water each time. This will keep your spoon clean and make the whole process less painful. [You can make these larger or smaller to your taste]
- Cook only half the dough at a time to avoid over crowding. Stir the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon, so that the dumplings will rise to the top. After the dumplings rise to the top, let them boil about 2 minutes more.
- Remove to a large colander and drain while you repeat the process with the second half of the batter.
- Add about a teaspoon of butter to the spaetzle and toss to coat. (This isn’t traditional but I found that it kept them from sticking together)
G'day Lindsey,
It's our first day of winter here in Australia & i came across your wonderful recipe for Hungarian Chicken Paprika. This would be right up my alley (& hubby's) as we both love these "comfort" types of recipes.
I'm from an Italian background, & while I've only ever had Spaetzle in German restaurants, i can't wait to make it from scratch myself. There is a pasta dish that Italians make called "Frascarelli" & i think this would go well with the chicken paprika too.
Thank you again for a lovely recipe.
With kindest regards
Reet
Delicious- I did whole, skin on thighs, but left the recipe the same otherwise. I did not put sauce on my daughter's plate because she has stomach issues. She kept dipping her spaetzle into my sauce. I said this might make you sick, and she said, "I know, but its sooo good!" Thanks!
Aww! So glad you tried this recipe and got to share it with your daughter. ????
Thanks For Sharing this amazing recipe. My family loved it. I will be sharing this recipe with my friends. Hope the will like it.
Hi Raju!
So happy to hear that you enjoyed! Thanks for commenting! ????
Chicken Paprikash has been one of my favorite comfort foods since I was a child. When I made this recipe it brought literal tears to my eyes. It is absolutely perfect, and just like mom used to make.
That makes me so happy, Rachel!! Thank you for stopping by!
Made this last night and it was absolutely delightful! We have a local Hungarian restaurant that serves this dish, as well as a Chicken Paprikas pizza, which is actually what ignited my hunt for a recipe to try myself. I read a ton of recipes and comments before deciding on this one and so glad I did. Only thing I did differently was temper the Sour Cream with the sauce before adding it in and IDK how much that mattered. This will definitely be A recipe on repeat for us. Thanks for sharing!! (Oh, and as I have a toddler and time is a precious commodity, I had to just go for egg noodles to serve on for now - still delightful!)
Hi Kadie! That makes me so happy to hear! Egg noodle are fabulous with the dish (and in general). I was fortunate for a time to live in a place where I could buy pre-made spaeztle in the refrigerator section of the grocery store so it was just as simple haha!
This was Awesome, Tasty, and Oh So Easy to Make!
Thank you for the recipe!
I am Hungarian and my wife uses her own spin on my mother's recipe. She does use chicken with the bone in and with skin. After it cooks she removes chicken, lets cool, removes skin and bones, shreds chicken by hand and back in the pot. She also uses both sweet and hot Hungarian paprika. Just adjust to taste, start off with 50/50 mix. She also adds one diced anaheim chili, skin and all, adds a little kick to it. We usually enjoy this on the homemade spaetzle but we sometimes use the small elbow pasta. Get a spaetzle maker, so much quicker. My grandfather used to make this every 2 weeks using and leaving the cut-up chicken parts on the plate. He has been gone for 30 years now but am reminded of him whenever we eat Paprikash, Goulash and Poppyseed Rolls along with Walnut Rolls. Anyways, Chicken Paprikash is my favorite meal and I always request for my birthday. My wife does the cooking and I do the baking. Oh and love your website, sooooo many great recipes.
This does not taste like Hungarian Paprikas at all. I don't deny it ended up being a good plate though, just it doesn't seem authentic, but I guess that happens when you get to try the real one.
That's not what my Hungarian ex-husband said, Christopher! lol.
Our recipe, which was handed down to our family from Hungarian immigrants, calls for the chicken to still have the bones and skin. The fat from the skin gives it a lot more flavor! I made it once with boneless, skinless breasts and it wasn't anywhere near as tasty.
Hi Mary! You are absolutely correct! I just tried to cut a little fat out 🙂
Hello, I just wanted to recommend if you go to IKEA they sell the galuska maker from time to time. It looks like a pan handle and with wholes all over . you have to seat it on top of the pot with the boiling water and spread the dough on it. It drips in the water in nice sizes. You can help the dripping with a wooden spoon slightly mixing the dough. I have one, makes the process much faster than do it with the spoon one by one. Hope you guys find it
Great idea!!! Thanks for the tip!
Amazon also has some spaetzle doohickeys.