A classic Hungarian holiday-table plate of chicken paprikás and hand-rolled nokedli dumplings, finished with sour cream.
Chicken paprikás served with nokedli is the dish most Hungarians would put forward if asked to name a single national plate — it's the centerpiece of countless Sunday lunches and family holidays. The chicken simmers in a sauce built the proper way: onions cooked until truly soft and sweet, sweet paprika bloomed off the heat, and a careful balance of stock and sour cream that thickens into something glossy rather than broken or greasy. Nokedli, small soft egg dumplings scraped straight from a board or spätzle-style press into boiling water, are the traditional starch here rather than rice or noodles, and getting their texture right — tender, slightly chewy, not doughy — is as much a marker of a good Hungarian cook as the sauce itself. The whole plate depends on sequencing: chicken thighs braise until fall-apart tender, the sauce reduces separately if needed, and sour cream goes in only at the very end, off the heat, so it stays silky instead of splitting into curds.
Serves 5
Heat lard in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Brown chicken thighs on both sides, about 4 minutes per side, then remove and set aside.
In the same pot, reduce heat to medium-low and cook onions 12-15 minutes until very soft and sweet, adding a splash of water if they start to catch.
Pull the pot off the heat, stir in the paprika, and let it bloom in the residual warmth for 20 seconds before returning to low heat.
Add bell pepper, tomato, salt and stock. Return the chicken to the pot, cover, and simmer gently 35-40 minutes until the chicken is fall-apart tender.
While the chicken braises, whisk together eggs, flour, water and salt into a thick, sticky batter. Let it rest 10 minutes.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Scrape small strips of dough from a cutting board (or press through a spätzle maker) directly into the boiling water. Cook 2-3 minutes until they float, then drain.
Remove the chicken from the pot. Whisk the sour cream with the flour until smooth, then whisk in a ladle of the hot sauce to temper it. Stir this back into the pot off the heat until glossy.
Return the chicken to the sauce to warm through. Serve over the nokedli, spooning extra sauce over both.
Wet the cutting board and knife between batches of nokedli — it keeps the sticky dough from clinging and makes scraping much easier.
Temper the sour cream with hot sauce before adding it back to the pot, or the temperature shock will curdle it into visible flecks.
Cook onions until they're truly jammy — this is the single biggest flavor difference between a flat paprikás and a rich one.
With veal: swap chicken for cubed veal shoulder and extend the braise to about 1 hour 15 minutes.
Dumpling swap: serve over egg noodles or plain rice if you don't have time to make nokedli from scratch.
Extra heat: stir in half a teaspoon of hot paprika alongside the sweet paprika for a spicier sauce.
Refrigerate the paprikás and nokedli separately up to 3 days. Reheat the sauce gently over low heat without boiling, and warm the nokedli briefly in a pan with a little butter.
Csirkepaprikás with nokedli is widely regarded as Hungary's unofficial national dish, built on the same onion-and-paprika method that defines gulyás, and remains standard fare for Sunday family lunches and celebratory meals across the country.
Yes — a wet cutting board and a butter knife work fine for scraping small strips of dough into boiling water; a spätzle press just speeds up the process and makes the shapes more uniform.
This almost always happens when sour cream is added directly to a hot, simmering pot. Always temper it first with a ladle of hot sauce, then stir it in off the heat.
Gulyás is a beef soup made with more liquid and no sour cream, while paprikás is a thicker, creamier braise finished with sour cream — chicken paprikás is the most common version.
Per serving (480g / 16.9 oz) · 5 servings total
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