Oven Chicken Paprikash

This oven version of chicken paprikash takes the classic Hungarian stovetop dish and turns it into a hands-off roast. Two whole chickens go into the pan on a bed of halved onions, garlic, and diced tomatoes, get dusted with paprika, then roast covered until the meat is literally falling off the bone.

The long, slow roast under foil keeps everything moist while the onions and tomatoes collapse into a rich pan sauce. Uncovering for the last hour lets the skin brown and crisp up. Once the chickens are done, stir sour cream directly into those pan juices and you’ve got a velvety, paprika-stained sauce with zero extra effort.

Toss cooked wide noodles right into the sauce so they soak up all that flavor, then pile the sliced chicken on top.

Chef Tips

• Use Hungarian paprika if you can find it. The flavor is noticeably deeper and more aromatic than generic supermarket paprika.
• Let the sour cream come to room temperature before stirring it into the hot pan juices. Cold sour cream can curdle if it hits screaming-hot liquid.
• Don’t skip the garlic. Six cloves sounds like a lot, but they mellow and sweeten over the long roast.
• Save the bones for stock. After nearly four hours of roasting, they’ll give you a deeply flavored broth.

Variations

• Use chicken pieces (thighs and drumsticks) instead of whole birds to cut the cooking time roughly in half.
• Add sliced bell peppers to the roasting pan for a more traditional paprikash.
• Swap sour cream for Greek yogurt for a tangier, lighter sauce.