Chicken Paprikash

Chicken Paprikash, a Hungarian chicken dish with chicken cooked in creamy onion, sour cream and paprika sauce. Serve with pasta or a crusty bread to scoop creamy sauce. It is a weeknight-approved, easy and delicious pantry-ingredient chicken dinner that your family will love! Sauce tastes even more delicious the next day. (hint hint) 

Oh, don't let signature red color of Paprikash Sauce intimidate you. Chicken Paprikash is NOT hot spicy but has very pleasant flavor of sweet Hungarian paprika. (learn more ahead)   

Traditional Chicken Paprikash:

Chicken Paprikash is a popular hungarian chicken dish. The authentic version of this recipe use very basic ingredients. Mainly sweet hungarian paprika, hot paprika, sour cream, onion, garlic and chicken. 

Due to it's world wide popularity, there are many variations. Some only use chicken, paprika and sour cream. Some use more paprika, other use less. Some use tomatoes, others not and on and on..

My Version:

I like chicken paprikash sauce to be creamy and very flavorful. For me, only paprika and sour cream are not enough. So, I use two more ingredients for a more creamy and delicious sauce. 

Tomatoes and Flour-based Roux.

1) Tomatoes give flavor and sweetness to sauce. These also enhance the color of paprika even more.
2) Flour roux gives it creamier texture. It helps thicken paprika sauce and even prevents sour cream from separating.

So, my version of this recipe yields a bold-flavored and novice-user proof Chicken Paprikash Sauce.  I have to say, creamy sauce makes this one of the most requested chicken-pasta dinner in my family.  

Note: You can also prevent curdling of sauce by *tempering. Read more about tempering in Recipe Card notes.

The key ingredient to make Chicken Paprikash at home is Hungarian Paprika. Not just any but "Sweet" Hungarian Paprika.  When I started cooking with Paprika, I had no idea there are so many kinds of Paprika. I even had tough time finding Paprika in store. Often I had Smoked Paprika in pantry which is not the right paprika for Chicken Paprikash.

Let me introduce you to the most commonly used Paprika's and where to buy these.

Sweet Hungarian Paprika: A good quality Sweet Paprika, is sweet, not hot at all, and has good aroma of paprika. If you ever looking for color in sauce without adding heat of chilies, Sweet Paprika is the way to go. The gorgeous color of Chicken Paprikash comes from this sweet paprika. 

You can buy Sweet Hungarian Paprika online. Or In US, look for Szeged Sweet Paprika Seasoning Spice in stores like Whole Foods, Walmart etc.

Hot Hungarian Paprika: This is best when recipe needs heat as well as color. For Chicken Paprikash, I add a teaspoon of Hot Hungarian Paprika for some heat. You can also use Cayenne instead. 

Smoked Spanish Paprika: Spanish smoked paprika gives smokey flavor and red paprika color to a recipe. This is one of my favorite paprika when making grilling rubs and marinades. This is easily available in all US stores. For everywhere else, buy online.

Make-Ahead and Reheat:

The flavor of Chicken Paprikash gets better when made ahead. In other words, it tastes even better the next day.

To reheat, I recommend heating on "low" so that sour cream does not separate. If sauce is too thick, add some chicken stock while re-heating.

If making Papriaksh just to serve the next day.. I recommend to add and reheat with sour cream just before serving.

Update: I came back from India this week. So thankful to God for opportunity to visit home and meet family. So so happy to be back and ready to share delicious new recipes with you all.

Try something different for dinner tonight. All ingredients to make Chicken Paprikash are already in your pantry. Get some Sweet Paprika and fresh chicken, try delicious Chicken Paprikash for dinner. Happy Cooking!

-Savita