Elise, your Arroz Con Pollo recipe looks wonderful. I'm one of the ones who use saffron in their recipe. I love the bright color it gives, but yours seems to have a nice subdued color which is nice.

I'm also surprised that you use only oregano in the rice (and paprika on the chicken)...I've seen quite a few recipes that really spice up the dish, and I will be eager to try yours instead. I like the subtle approach you give here.

I love Arroz con pollo! It's a favorite to make for company because it's so colorful and flavorful. (It also stretches real well - which is important since there are 8 members of my family to start with!) I like to make it with the canned diced tomatoes w/oregano and garlic. And my sister-in-law, who is of Puerto Rican descent said I HAD to add chopped green olives w/the onions and garlic. I top with rinsed frozen peas and diced fresh red bell peppers for a beautiful presentation. My girlfriend's father is cuban and she said it tasted just like his.

Hi Elise -

Your version is pretty close to my family's, though we would all have a cow if someone put bell peppers in ours. :) There are so many variations to this dish - you're right. We have always made it a dry dish like you, but my favorite restaurant rendition comes in a soup bowl and has a lot of broth in it.

As Elise mentions, there are many variations on arroz con pollo. The Cuban variant is done with valencia (arborio is good too) rice and more liquid is added to produce a slightly soupy rice. It is also garnished with cooked peas and smoked red pepper.

My version calls for saffron and finish it off with the peas and pimiento strips (as Jose mentions above)- I use a combination of chicken stock and beer to cook my rice. I do not dredge the chicken with flour for mine.

This is a family favorite. I got my recipe years ago from a Puerto Rican friend. She added pimento and green peas, and chopped salt pork. I use chopped bacon. This really adds a new dimension to the dish, gilding the lily I suppose. As I am from New Mexico I use chopped dried New Mexican chili, Just a little bit, one pepper, for added punch. Yum. I am making it for dinner now.

Thanks for the recipe, Elise! We tried this last night for dinner and my husband loved it! I might try it with skinless chicken breasts next time though. Two forks up! :)

I have used a recipe from Tyler Florence for this dish that is pretty time consuming but utterly delicious. This one looks a bit simpler and equally delicious.

My husband made this last night for dinner and it was delicious! Thanks for a great recipe.

I prefer the more powerfully flavorful Puerto Rican version with olives, pimentos and peas. And I always brown the chicken first. More flavor! Achiote oil gives it a nice bright color. But there are certainly any number of versions of this dish. I believe it originated in the Andalusia region of Spain. The Peruvians also have a version with duck called arroz con pato.

I cooked this the other night with a few variations (can of fire-roasted tomatoes, just the spices as a rub for the chicken) and it was terrific. My husband, who is hard to please, said, "Add it to the rotation." Done!

Thanks - a great recipe! It really impressed both myself and my girlfriend. Nice one :D

This version is really interesting but my favorite one is the one we make in Peru. Here we make it with cilantro, which gives rice this particular green color. My mom makes it with fresh cilantro of our garden. Anyways, this is a beloved dish here in my country and it's nice to have it featured in recipe blog.

Here is MY recipe :o)
Arroz con pollo
Ingredients (serves 4)
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 brown onion, halved, coarsely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 6 (about 600g) chicken thigh fillets, halved crossways
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground sweet paprika
• 1/2 tsp saffron threads
• 150g (3/4 cup) long-grain white rice
• 1 x 400g can diced Italian Roma tomatoes
• 250ml (1 cup) chicken stock
• 1 tbs tomato paste
• 200g fire-roasted peeled whole peppers (Always Fresh brand), coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh continental parsley
Method
1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes or until onion softens. Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes or until brown all over. Add the cumin, paprika and saffron and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add the rice, tomatoes and chicken stock, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 15 minutes or until chicken and rice are tender.
2. Add the tomato paste, peppers and parsley, and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until heated through. Remove from heat. Divide the arroz con pollo among serving bowls and serve immediately.

This is a good beginner recipe. Peas, pimentos, olives,tomatoes, and yellow saffron-flavored rice are a must if you want more of an authentic Central-South American taste and look. Yes, the rice and chicken are initially browned a little in oil ... no flour though, I think that part is some sort of North American thing.

Different countries prepare this dish in their own special way.

I like to put green bell peppers and scallions in mine. I also shred the chicken and mix it with the rice. We serve it with ripe sliced fried plantains (platano macho or maduro, the darker the skin the better), boiled yuca (most latino markets), "sunny side up" eggs and a simple tomato and onion salad dressed with olive oil and vinegar.

I went to a Cuban restaurant a few days ago in Palo Alto, CA for my son's birthday and the Arroz con Pollo was very bland. I told my wife that I could make it better. I used your recipe and my wife loved it! It was much better than the restaurant's dish. Thank you.

I made this for dinner this weekend - thumbs up from all the family. I sneakily used Brown Rice (which my husband and son say they don't like). They copped it, but they still loved it. Next time I'm going to add a couple of dried Kashmiri chillis to the rice to give it a little kick. This will be a regular dish for our family from now on - thanks for sharing it.

I just made the Arroz con pollo, of course, slightly modified, and we loved it! Added a touch of chili to the paprika, saffron and added peas at the end, no flour dredging.

This sounds like a great recipe. I'm an utter begginer in the kitchen and I want to give my fiance a nice home cooked meal like this. One question though when you add the rice to brown is it after you cook it or is it still raw? Thanks a million for posting this recipe.

You brown the rice when it is still raw. ~Elise

What a coincidence, I made this yesterday for some friends (before it was recipe of the day). It went down really well, they said I had raised the bar for cooking! I put about a glass of white wine with the stock, and and sprinkled toasted pine nuts on top when I served it. And the leftover rice has made me a rice salad for lunch today. Delicious!

Ok, it's time for another episode of stupid cooking question:

Why add or not add saffron? As my name suggests, I know little about cooking, but near as I can tell, saffron doesn't add a whole lot of flavor, and would probably get completely overwhelmed in a dish like this.

So what gives?

Saffron will give the rice a more yellow color. As for the taste, saffron is quite distinctive and you would know it if there was any saffron in this dish. ~Elise

Ahh, brings back memories of Madrid. As for their cuisine, it seems like everything but arroz con pollo contains tuna and green olives. And if you ever get a plate of cold white asparagus that came from a bottle - run away - no amount of pre-toasted bread can hide that taste.

By the way, I bet you could make a great chicken paella Elise!

My grandmother used to make arroz con pollo every sunday. I really got tired of it, but now that she's gone, I miss it dearly. She sometimes used to bake it with a few dollops of mayonnaise on top. I know...it sounds gross, but it's actually quite good.

I keep seeing mentions of recipes that use green olives. I've never had it this way - does anyone have a recipe they could share?

You might want to try pimenton, Spanish oak-smoked paprika. It has a VERY distinctive flavor and comes in 3 styles: sweet, bitter-sweet (medium hot), and hot. Your recipe is great as a starter, but there are really a million versions (I know; I counted) out there. My late wife and I battled about saffron or not. Never solved it after 43 years. Does anyone have the recipe and cooking times for the duck paella that was mentioned in one of the comments?

I do mine Tex-Mex style from a recipe that my ex-wife's Abuela gave me. It uses sauteed onion, bell peppers (or poblanos), garlic, comino and oregano in the rice. 1 small can of tomato sauce (or a healthy dose of Knorr Tomato Consumate, which my kids adore but I don't use any longer.)added in with the water gives just the right red color. Salt to taste. Peas in at the last few minutes.

The chicken gets salt and pepper before being browned as it picks up flavor from the seasonings in the rice as they simmer together.

I was so excited to see this recipe! Arroz con pollo is one of my most fav dishes from my days studying abroad in Costa Rica, but I never knew how to make it. I ran out and bought the needed ingredients right away and made it last night for dinner. My husband is still gushing about it 24 hours later!!!

My aunt has a version of this she showed me, which is quite good also.

Basically the same only for the rice you simmered it in chicken stock and salsa. I'll have to try this one though!

I made this for my family tonight and it was a huge hit. I made a few changes. I roasted cherry tomatoes with a little garlic, cumin, olive oil and liquid smoke instead of canned tomatoes. I took a hint from my friend who grew up in the Panama zone and replaced one cup of coconut milk for some of the broth. I added red pepper to the onions and garlic. I used some Basmati rice I had on hand. The cooking instructions were perfect. I have made rice dishes before where the rice is either still raw, or the dish is too soggy. This was perfect. Thanks.

Elise,

You have done it this time. Bravo! This is my families all time favorite dish. I love all the tasty variations. I learned my recipe from a Cuban lady. She added red peppers and peas and chopped salt pork or bacon while browning the chicken. Oregano is the main herb. I use lots of it. I also prefer the dryer dish. I brown the chicken, salt pork, then add the rice and fry it until it is golden. I then add the wet ingredients and pop it into an oven to bake. I use an iron and enamel casserole pot with a lid for a richer, deeper flavor. When I am feeling Southwestern I skip the red pepper and use red New Mexico chile pods that I have pulverized with garlic and a little water in my blender.

I used this recipe for a school project, for "week or foreign countries," and my classmates and other students loved it. THANKS!

Yum.
My puerto rican upbringing recalls a different sort of Rice and Chicken experience...

Homemade Sofrito & Recaito, a bit of finely chopped ham or fatback fried in with the chicken, olives w/ pimento,garlic, safron, achiote oil and chicken broth....always dark and light meat together...

Sticky sort of rice with tender chicken falling off the bone. I think Daisy Martinez's recipe (PBS show) is pretty close to the one I remember.

This is my new favorite recipe, and I can't wait to make it with olives in it (my boyf hates them so I can't use it in the general recipe).

One addition, though. We're trying to lose weight and so we've been using the olive oil spray rather than bottled olive oil. It worked really well for this recipe. It worked even better for browning the rice.

We also added broccoli to it. I steamed the broccoli, but instead of the usual 10 minutes in the steamer, I only put it in for 8 and added it in with the chicken. It adds a veggie taste for those who don't like peppers or have a milder palate. (Like my boyf).