My grandmother, who was born in Tarpa, Hungary, makes her chicken paprikash with pieces instead of a whole chicken, too. You are in good company.

We also always put the sour cream on the side instead of stirring it in, but that's non-traditional.

Very different method than the way I was taught (my family is Czech)

We do ours in a skillet.

Season chicken parts (can be boneless but you di get better flavor with chicken on the bone IMNSHO) with salt, pepper and paprika and then brown the meat on both sides and set aside.

Sauté some onion and garlic, then add the paprika to cook that a bit.

Then add some stock, add the chicken to simmer.

Finish with a bit of sour cream.

My grandmother used to make this for me all the time when I was a little girl, with little dumplings in the sauce. :)

This is the closest I have seen to my grandmother's recipe, ingredients-wise. Many recipes want to add green peppers, which isn't right -- It really is a simple dish! However, my grandmother (from Budapest originially) did hers on the stovetop -- browned the onions in chicken fat (I use butter), browned the meat, then simmered on the stovetop just barely covered in water. Sour cream with a little flour mixed in is stirred in at the end to finish the gravy.

Oh, and the true Hungarian spelling is Paprikas, no H -- The "S" in Hungarian makes the English "SH" sound.

My husband is from Hungary, and he makes this dish for me using shrimp (and vegetable broth)instead of chicken (I don't eat beef or poultry). He also adds red, orange, or yellow peppers. It's a great dish either way!

Anyone have any thoughts on substituting the sour cream with a bulgarian-style yogurt?

While it might not be traditional, Cooking Light also ran a version of Turkey Paprikash in their March 2003 issue that I really enjoy. You can search for it on their website. Their recipes recommend serving with Egg Noodles, but I sometimes just serve with Rice. Does anyone else have other ways to serve?

My mother makes this dish with yogurt instead of the sour cream and we eat it over rice or noodles. I have also had it at my friend's house, her parents and husband are Hungarian and I don't remember her putting it the oven. I'll ask her and post the answer here.

Another HIT recipe! I made it for dinner last night and really enjoyed it. THANKS! SIMPLE!!!

I served my paprikash with buttered rice, but planned on doing egg noodles-didn't have any. I deboned the chicken and poured leftover sauce on top for my lunch today. Looking forward to trying that out in an hour or so.

Both of my parents are from Hungary and my mother prepares this in a skillet like a few other posters have mentioned. It is my absolute beyond-favorite dish. However, I really recommend quite a bit more paprika than the recipe states - I believe it is supposed to be fiery red by the time the dish is finished. I also skip the sour cream - the oniony-paprika flavor is enough for me! One more thing - try to get REAL Hungarian paprika - it won't taste the same if it's not.

If I am lazy, I generally serve it with buttered Egg Noodles. The traditional accompaniment is a homemade dumpling/noodle called Nokedly. I don't know proportions, but I make it with flour, egg, a little salt, and water or milk, then cut the dough into boiling water. When I Googled "Nokedly" I got a bunch of Hungarian websites, so I believe that is the correct spelling. If you google Nokedly and Paprikas together, there is a recipe @ cooks dot com. I haven't tried it, but it looks about right. Hope this helps.

And yes, I also use a LOT more paprika than is called for in this recipe!

I'm currently living in Hungary, and have enjoyed this dish often made in a variety of ways with pretty much the same taste with the only variance being the fat content. Typically, this is served with "nokedly," which is sometimes translated by Hungarian cookbooks as gnocchi. It's not like the Italian gnocchi that I'm familiar with that is potato-based, but is exactly the same as the very simple to make German or Swiss spaetzle that I've had often. Just be certain that the paprika is truly Hungarian, as there are a bunch of knock-offs that even made the market here, some of which have a red powder from South America that is a carcinogen.

I used boneless skinless chicken breasts and shred them into the dish after cooking. Mix it up and add a little more sour cream (low fat) and it's incredible with rice. Everyone loves it!

I tried this today and it is really good. I used skinless, boneless chicken breasts and did the entire dish in the oven, cooking it for about an hour so that the chicken breasts were browned. I served it with couscous as I'm not crazy about rice. I liked it very much.

This how to make proper Chicken Paprikash:

4-6 onions chopped
Approx 5 green peppers chopped
2 or 3 tomatoes (or 3/4 of a large tin canned tomatoes but use all juice)
Chicken (with or without bone/skin)
Real hungarian paprika - sweet - (about 4/5 tablespoons)
Oil, Salt, Pepper, water

Using a slow cooker or large pot on stove
Fry onions in oil
Add chicken, brown then remove from heat
add paprika (make sure pan is not too hot or it will burn the paprika)
Mix with chicken and onions
Add diced peppers, tomatoes
Salt & Pepper to taste
Add about a cup of water
Cover & Simmer on stove (1 1/2 hrs+) or in slow cooker (2+ hours)
When ready to serve: Mix with sour cream (if you want). Sometimes I will thicken a little with flour (much like you would gravy, but not that thick!) and serve with:

It is usually cooked with 'tarhonia' (don't know how to spell it). This is the best side dish to serve with Paprikash. Very easy to make - brown in butter, add three cups boiling water (careful when you add, steam from it can burn you) - keep in as low a temperature as possible, cover until all water is absorbed/noodles soften - not mushy!

Serve chicken over 'tarhonia' Elbow noodles are very good with Paprikash as well.

I make homemade spaetzle with my Chicken Paprikash. Order a spaetzle maker from Williams-Sonoma online. You can make a giant bowl of spaetzle in about 10 minutes!!!

Hello! I am a Hungarian girl, so I know exactly how to make " Paprikas csirke " = Chicken Paprikas. The recepie is very easy. Take a whole chicken and cut it into parts. You will need 2 tablespoon of lard ( not butter or oil!!!) 1 tablespoon of Paprika some salt and ground black pepper, a small tomatoe and a half green pepper and lot of onions 2-3 big ones(cut it into small pieces). Put the lard into a roast pan heat it up and add all of the onions to it. Stir it and when the onion is getting glasslike, add the paprika to the onion and reduce the heat immediately! Stir it and put the chicken pieces in the pan. Stir and season them. Add the tomato and the green pepper to the chicken.Pour water on the chicken ( 1 liter or so ) and simmer it until it is tender. We serve it with nokedli/ rice/pasta/mashed potatoe. If you want to make it with nokedli you should add 3 tablespoon of sour cream to the chicken before you take it off from the cooker.
Sorry about my English, but I hope you can understan that I wrote :)

Hey! Another Gabriella! I'm a first generation American: both of my parents are from Hungary, and all of my extended family lives there.

Gabriella who commented above me makes it almost EXACTLY like my mother does: uses the whole cut up chicken, some tomato and half a green pepper (not that many onions though). Uses water, not broth (you're using a whole raw chicken, you're not going to need broth - it will make its own broth). My mother uses way more than 1 tablespoon of paprika though. She also uses the imported kind: the sweet, not the hot.

And yes, you MUST have nokedly with it. It's just not the same dish without it. Have you ever had a hamburger without the bun? Peanut butter without jelly? Popcorn without butter? Then you'll have a sense of what you're missing if you have Paprikas Csirke without the nokedly.

Oh, forgot to add.. she also uses much more sour cream as well. But that's probably because the finished dish is swimming in its own "gravy", which you ladle over the nokedly. She uses a large pot and the liquid level usually reaches to about 1/3 or 1/2 way up the pan. It's almost like a stew.

My mom, grandma, great grandma, and my great great grandma made this. It's one of my favorite meals and it's very good with dumplings. Thatss how my family made it, but I've also had it with noodles and it's great that way too. My whole family is from Hungary so I grew up with this meal my whole life. But insted of using whole chicken my family used boneless chicken; it's great that way.

Using Greek style yogurt in place of sour cream is fine, but keep the heat down for looks. Also find some way of "cooking" the paprika; it enhances the flavor.

Great recipes..I am of Coatian/Austrian/hungarian backround...these paprikash recipes are close to what my Mom and Oma used to make. With a few exceptions...they added bayleaf & potatoes the last 1/2 hour of cooking. They also ommited the sour cream and served with homemade crusty bread...yum!

My Mom and Dad were both Hungarain, lets just say, i was born in NY State(UPSTATE), anyways i grew up on Chicken Paprikash, my Dad made it with cut up chicken parts, some different regions put tomatoes in there`s, we never did, and if i did, it wasn`t considered Paprikash.

We also mixed the sourcream w/ some flour and put it in at the end, and served the sauce over the homeade dumplings, yum, i can taste it now...

My great-great-grandma, great-grandma and grandma all made this dish religiously. I believe the older generations used the whole chicken, but my grandma who still makes paprikas just buys packaged cut legs and thighs. I think it makes such a difference having that dark meat ON the bones. SO much more flavor! She makes this stovetop also and uses at least double the amount of paprika and the Hungarian HOT, not the Sweet. She often adds a couple of potatoes which really thickens the dish up making it hearty and filling. She always serves paprikas with simple dumplings. YUMMY! I know what I'm going to be making this weekend!

I made this last night and it was delicious! I'm not a big fan of meat on the bone so i used a combination of split and boneless breasts. As a side to make it healthier, I made whole wheat egg noodles and we all ate it up! I'll definitely make this dish again and again! :-)

If you grew up in a Hungarian household
you remember the wonderful clicking sound
of the spoon hitting the spatzell dough on the plate as your grandmother or mother dropped it
off into the boiling water.

Flour,eggs, water, salt.
mix in a bowl =nokedly=spatzell="little sparrow" shaped pasta.

Can be bought by Knorr
in international isle of market or from
most german mail orders on line..

Hungarian Food is the most wonderful food,
I love German food too, and Italian..

No matter how you serve Chicken Paprikas
it brings tears of joy. Images of grandma
cooking over a wood burning stove,
also stuffed cabbage rolls, fried cabbage
and noodles.

Mom and I making dumplings and testing them
to see how good they were..before the sauce
was poured on top.. and its a great food
to sneak at midnight and eat cold (wink)

Blessings to all who cook Hungarian
Pachuri Daj Romma Hungaria..

ps there can never be too much sour cream :)

There is no PROPER way of making paprikas csirke. I am Hungarian, born and raised and grew up on it and learned to make it at a very young age. YOu can use parts or whole chicken, with or without bone, it's a matter of preference. Every region adds it's own twist to it.

I do not add water to it. Water dilutes the flavor. If you have to add fluids becuase it's dry add chicken stock..just a little..otherwise just add sour cream and let it simmer with it for a little while before adding the noodles or nokedly and again let it simmer on low heat a little. The simmering allows for the noodles to absorb the flavor. Most hungarian households serve it this way and not just spooned over the noodles.

As for nokedly ....it not something you can just throw together. It's an art that needs to be perfected. I still can't make it as good as my mother makes it.

I am horrible. I took a basic recipe my mother ate 20 years ago at someone's house, and I barbarized it even more. It's still good!

Throw some boneless chicken breasts in your slow cooker with a few cans of chicken broth, chopped onions and garlic, pepper(as much and whatever kind you want) , a chunk of butter, salt, and a handful of paprika. Hungarian "sweet" paprika is good, but any kind will do. Cook it overnight or for 4-6 hours.

Throw in about a cup of sour cream and stir. Then add some corn starch, smoothly blended in water to thicken it. Add some cooked noodles last.

I used to really like it when boneless chicken breasts were available with the skins still on. The chicken fat adds something to the overall flavor. Bones do too. As often as I can, I use regular bone-in breasts. But after slow-cooking, lots of little rib bones are annoying.

Do whatever you want -- the basic combo is a classic and you can't go wrong.