Save This Recipe
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
This Hungarian chicken paprikash is comfort food at its finest. The chicken falls off the bone in a rich, creamy paprika sauce, and the homemade dumplings soak up every last drop. It takes a little time, but every minute is worth it.
Why You’ll Love It
Deeply flavorful sauce — sweet paprika and slow-simmered chicken broth make something truly special
Fall-off-the-bone chicken — the long simmer does all the work for you
Homemade dumplings — soft, pillowy, and perfect for soaking up the sauce
Better the next day — the leftovers are somehow even more delicious
Pure comfort food — hearty, warming, and impossible not to go back for seconds
A Note on a Few Ingredients
The paprika. Please, for the love of all things good, use sweet Hungarian paprika. Not the dusty orange stuff that’s been sitting in your spice rack since your oldest was a baby. I’ve made that mistake. I’ve made it twice. Fresh sweet paprika is a completely different thing — it has this depth, this color, it turns the whole dish a gorgeous rust-red. I get mine at a little Eastern European grocery about twenty minutes from my house. Worth the drive.
The sour cream. Full fat. I don’t want to hear about low-fat sour cream in this context. You’re already simmering a whole chicken for an hour, you’ve already committed. Don’t undercut yourself now.
And here’s the thing about the Lawry’s seasoning salt — it gives it something. I don’t know what’s in Lawry’s that does it, I don’t want to know, it just works.
Ingredients
For the chicken and sauce:
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 Vidalia onion, chopped — Vidalia specifically if you can get it, they’re sweeter
- 1 whole chicken, cut up, skin on — I always cut mine up myself, about 8 pieces
- 2 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika
- 3 chicken bouillon cubes, roughly one per cup of water (eyeball it)
- Enough water to almost cover the chicken
- 3 teaspoons Lawry’s seasoning salt — optional but not really
- 1 pint sour cream, full fat
- ½ pint water
- 4 tablespoons flour, maybe a little more if you like it thicker
For the dumplings (this is a double batch — you can halve it):
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups water
- 6 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
How to Make It
Start with a big pot — and I mean big. I have this heavy-bottomed Dutch oven that I bought probably fifteen years ago and it has never once let me down. Add your oil and your onion over medium-high heat. You want them soft and translucent, not brown. Once they go brown you’ve lost something. Pull the pot off the heat, add your paprika, stir it in well. The smell at this point is already extraordinary. Just warning you.
Now put your chicken in and brown it lightly with the onion and paprika mixture. Work in batches if you have to — don’t crowd it. Add a splash more oil if things start sticking. Then add your water, almost to cover, drop in the bouillon cubes, add the Lawry’s if you’re using it (use it), and bring everything to a boil. Then cover it and let it simmer. A regular pot, about 25 minutes. Pressure cooker, closer to 15-20. I use a regular pot because that’s what I’ve always done and I’m not changing now.
While the chicken does its thing, make your sour cream mixture. Combine the sour cream, the half pint of water, and the flour — I use a hand mixer and get it really smooth. Set it aside.
When the chicken is done, pull the pieces out and set them in a colander to cool a bit. Now — slowly, slowly — add your sour cream mixture to the hot broth, a little at a time, stirring as you go. Don’t rush this part. You want it incorporated smoothly. This is where the sauce becomes the sauce.
Now, what you do with the chicken is up to you. You can serve the pieces whole, separate, on their own plate — or debone everything and add it back into the sauce. Either way works beautifully.
For the dumplings — get a big pot of water boiling. Mix your eggs, water, flour, and salt together in a mixer until you have a thick, soupy dough. When the water is at a full boil, use a spoon to scrape the dough in, a little blob at a time. Dip your spoon in the boiling water between each scoop — it keeps the dough from sticking. They’ll sink to the bottom and then come floating up to the surface in about seven minutes or so. When they float, they’re done. Drain and rinse them. They make a lot. You will not have enough people to eat all the dumplings. You will have enough dumplings anyway. This is fine.
Variations
Boneless chicken thighs work here if you’re short on time — easier to deal with and still delicious. The flavor isn’t quite the same without the bones in during the simmer, but it’s a reasonable shortcut.
Some people add a little smoked paprika in with the sweet. It adds a different layer. Not worse, just different. Not how I usually make it, but there’s no rule saying you can’t.
Leftovers
Put everything in the fridge — sauce and dumplings together or separate, doesn’t really matter. They keep for three or four days, though in my house they’ve never lasted that long. Reheat gently on the stove with a splash of water if the sauce has thickened up too much overnight. The dumplings will absorb basically all the liquid given the chance, so if you’re storing them separately that helps.
I once left a container of this in the back of my fridge for almost a week — not my finest moment — and I will say it did not survive. So don’t do that. Use it up while it’s good.
Hungarian Chicken Paprikash with Dumplings
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 Vidalia onion chopped
- 1 whole chicken cut into pieces
- 2 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
- 3 chicken bouillon cubes
- water enough to almost cover chicken
- 3 tsp seasoning salt optional
- 1 pint sour cream full fat
- 1/2 pint water for sauce mixture
- 4 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups water for dumplings
- 6 cups all-purpose flour for dumplings
- 1 tsp salt for dumplings
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and cook until soft and translucent.
- Remove pot from heat and stir in paprika. Return to heat and add chicken pieces, browning lightly on all sides.
- Add enough water to nearly cover the chicken. Add bouillon cubes and seasoning salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 25 minutes until chicken is cooked through.
- In a bowl, mix sour cream, water, and flour until smooth.
- Remove chicken and set aside. Slowly stir the sour cream mixture into the hot broth, mixing gradually to create a smooth sauce.
- Return chicken to the sauce or serve separately, as desired.
- For dumplings, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Mix eggs, water, flour, and salt into a thick batter.
- Drop spoonfuls of dough into boiling water. Cook until dumplings float to the surface, about 7 minutes.
- Drain dumplings and serve alongside or under the chicken and sauce.
