Paprika Chicken Recipe

Last weekend, I was in a hurry to cook our meals. I usually do all the cooking during weekends so that I only need to worry about using my microwave heating skills to prepare our dinner. Before my son was born, I tend to cook our dinner from scratch almost-every-evening. But now that we are ALWAYS scrambling for time, I always make sure there is enough food inside the fridge to last us the entire week. I still do our pasta dinners sometimes, though. But at least knowing that there is food already prepared that just needs a couple of minutes warming up inside the microwave is comforting to know!
Paprika Chicken is a super simple dish I cook at home when I don’t have too much time in my hands. The original recipe calls for Light Cream Cheese to be used but I decided to use thickened cream instead – just to play around the recipe a bit! I think it ended up well and I didn’t miss the Philly Cream Cheese taste. To be honest, I think the cream was a better tandem to use with the strong smoky flavour of the paprika since there is no slight “sourness” in the taste that you can taste if using Philly Cream cheese!
It is easy to cook on the spot but I decided to make a big batch so I don’t need to do all the chopping just before dinner. Since it is cooked with cream, don’t make it sit inside the fridge for too long. Finish the entire portion for a week so feel free to reduce the portions accordingly. It is easy to enjoy the dish anyway. We’re Asians so we are definitely big on rice but I also tried eating it with baked potatoes and penne pasta – worked like a treat for me, too! So, choose which carbs you want to eat this hearty dish!

Recipe:

1 kg chicken breast, cut into cubes about 2 inches thick
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup thickened cream
2 gloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil

Steps:

1. Get a sauce pan and place under medium-high heat.
2. When the pan is piping hot, reduce heat to medium and pour the olive oil in.
3. Saute the garlic until golden brown. Add the chopped onions and cook until translucent.
4. Add the paprika and cayenne pepper. Toss around the pan for about 2 minutes.
5. Add the chicken breast pieces. Adjust the heat (as necessary) to make sure all sides are cooked through.
6. After cooking the chicken breast pieces for about 5 minutes, add the salt to taste.
7. Add the thickened cream and cover the saucepan with a lid.
8. Simmer the sauce until thick or until the meat is cooked through.
9. Serve warm and enjoy!

Note: I don’t like to season my dishes with too much cooking so I rarely use stock cubes. But if you want to amplify the seasoning, feel free to add half stock cube to the sauce.