Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke)
Bone-in chicken simmered with sweet Hungarian paprika and melting onions, finished with a silky sour-cream sauce.
Hungarian · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 50 min
~790 cal · 89g protein · 16g carbs · 37g fat · 2g fiber · 6g sugars · 16g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Chicken paprikash, paprikás csirke, is one of the best-known dishes of the Hungarian table, peasant cooking raised to something close to perfection. Its whole character rests on one ingredient used with abandon: sweet Hungarian paprika, the ground pepper of the sun-baked Great Plain, whose colour and flavour define the dish.
The building blocks are few and the technique matters. A great heap of finely chopped onion is melted down in lard until soft and golden, the pot is pulled from the heat so the paprika can go in without scorching and turning bitter, and the chicken gently in the resulting red broth until it falls from the bone. At the very end, sour cream whisked smooth with a little flour is stirred through to make the signature velvety, tangy sauce.
Served over nokedli, the little Hungarian egg dumplings, or buttered noodles to catch the sauce, paprikás csirke is Sunday-lunch food and a symbol of Hungarian home cooking, so iconic that Bram Stoker's Dracula served "paprika hendl" to Jonathan Harker on his way into the Carpathians.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally nut- and egg-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
3 lbs bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks
2 tbsp lard
2 large yellow onions, very finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Roma tomato, finely diced
1 Hungarian (or other sweet) bell pepper, diced
3 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
2 cups chicken broth
3 tbsp flour
3/4 cup sour cream (with a splash of heavy cream)
to taste salt and black pepper
Instructions
1
Heat the lard in a heavy pot and brown the chicken on all sides, then set it aside.
2
In the same fat, cook the onions slowly until very soft and golden, then add the garlic, tomato, and pepper and cook a couple of minutes more.
3
Pull the pot off the heat and stir in the paprika, salt, and pepper so it blooms without scorching.
✎ Chef’s note
Paprika turns bitter the instant it scorches, so always take the pot off the heat before it goes in; this one step makes or breaks the dish.
4
Return the chicken, pour in the broth so the pieces are mostly covered, cover, and simmer gently for about 40 minutes until tender.
5
Whisk the flour (or cornstarch) smoothly into the sour cream, stir it into the sauce off the boil, and simmer a couple of minutes until silky. Serve over egg noodles or dumplings.
Hungarian home cooking, the Great Plain.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Great Hungarian Plain. The Plain's cattle are its own breed: the Hungarian Grey, long-horned, slow-growing and bred only ever for beef, which came within a whisker of extinction after the Second World War with about two hundred cows and six bulls left. It was an important Hungarian export as far back as the sixteenth century, driven west on the hoof to German markets.
🗺️
Hungary. Hungarian cooking is defined by paprika, which colors and deepens its signature gulyás (goulash) and countless braises. Rich, warming, and pork- and sour-cream-forward, it reflects a Magyar heritage and a love of hearty, well-seasoned comfort food.
🌍
Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Hungary
LecsóHungary’s summer pepper stew: sweet peppers and tomatoes melted down with golden onions and a generous spoon of sweet paprika.
Gulyás (Herdsman’s Goulash)The original goulash: a paprika-red beef and vegetable soup-stew born over open fires on the Hungarian plain.
BundáskenyérHungarian "fur-coat bread", slices dipped in seasoned egg and milk and fried golden.
Browse all Hungary recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Whisk.
Storing it: Stews and braises keep 3 to 4 days refrigerated and often taste better the next day. Reheat gently, adding a splash of water if it has thickened.
Make it a Hungary meal
Dobos TorteDessert
LángosLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke)?
Bone-in chicken simmered with sweet Hungarian paprika and melting onions, finished with a silky sour-cream sauce.
Where does Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke) come from?
Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke) is a Hungarian dish from Great Hungarian Plain, Hungary.
Can Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Chicken Paprikash (Paprikás Csirke) take to make?
About 70 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 50 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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