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One Pan Paprika Chicken Drumsticks and Rice

Slow simmering in broth and spices creates moist & flavorful rice and chicken, in this super affordable 45 minute one pot recipe for One Pan Paprika Chicken and Rice.

Welcome to the February 12, 2017 edition of Sunday Scratchups: Your weekly recipe from scratch around ingredients that are either on sale or generally affordable. Up this week, we have a super easy (and super affordable!) recipe for One Pan Paprika Chicken Drumsticks and Rice.

drumstick, rice, and spinach on a plate

How about that humble chicken drumstick! These are so affordable and so kid-friendly that I cook with them fairly often, but I recently realized that I haven’t actually posted many chicken drumstick recipes. Let’s remedy that starting with today’s easy one-pan dinner — which was also a great way to use up the last of the homemade vegetable broth in my fridge this week.

One Pan Paprika Chicken Drumsticks and Rice

Ingredients

2 Tbsp olive oil
3-3.5 lbs chicken drumsticks
Sea salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
2 tsp paprika, divided
1 small yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup water
1 cup long grain white rice
2 tsp parsley
1.5 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat until shimmering. Rinse drumsticks, pat dry, and season on both sides with salt, pepper, and 1 tsp of the paprika. Sear drumsticks for about four minutes a side until browned on both sides, then remove to a separate plate. Add onion to pan and saute 3-4 minutes until beginning to brown and soften. Add garlic and saute another 30-60 seconds until beginning to brown.

drumsticks in pan with broth

Add broth, water, rice, parsley, and the rest of the paprika to pan and stir. Bring to a boil, stir again, and arrange chicken drumsticks on top of rice. Cover pan, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until liquid is mostly absorbed and rice and chicken are cooked through.

cooked drumsticks and rice in pan

Remove pan from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes until rice is thickened up. Remove the drumsticks to a separate plate and stir lemon juice into rice, then serve chicken with rice and a green veggie of choice. (I also garnished mine here with green onion for a bit of color, but that’s totally optional.)

This recipe is a flavorful blank slate…

plate of chickendrumsticks, rice, and spinach

I served my paprika chicken drumsticks & rice here with garlicky sauteed spinach, which went really well when mixed into the rice. You can also saute diced carrots and peas in with the onion in this recipe for a little more color and a pop of veggie flavor, or stir in some cooked broccoli florets at the end. You have lots of options here to incorporate different vegetables into the blank paprika rice canvas, depending what’s on sale or in season.

Slow simmering in broth and spices creates such moist & flavorful rice and chicken in this super affordable 45 minute one pot recipe. One Pan Paprika Chicken Drumsticks and Rice is naturally gluten free and dairy free.

One Pan Paprika Chicken Drumsticks and Rice, printable recipe

One Pan Paprika Chicken Drumsticks and Rice

Slow simmering in broth and spices creates moist & flavorful rice and chicken, in this super affordable 45 minute one pot recipe.
Course dinner
Cuisine Chicken
Keyword chicken, chicken drumsticks, drumsticks, one pot meals, rice
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 3-3.5 lbs chicken drumsticks
  • Sea salt to taste
  • Black pepper to taste
  • 2 tsp paprika divided
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 4 cloves garlic peeled & minced (about 2 tsp minced)
  • 1.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 cup long grain white rice
  • 2 tsp parsley
  • 1.5 Tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

  • Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat until shimmering.
  • Rinse drumsticks, pat dry, and season on both sides with salt, pepper, and 1 tsp of the paprika.
  • Sear drumsticks for about four minutes a side until browned on both sides, then remove to a separate plate.
  • Add onion to pan and saute 3-4 minutes until beginning to brown and soften.
  • Add garlic and saute another 30-60 seconds until beginning to brown.
  • Add broth, water, rice, parsley, and the rest of the paprika to pan and stir.
  • Bring to a boil, stir again, and arrange chicken drumsticks on top of rice.
  • Cover pan, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until liquid is mostly absorbed and rice and chicken are cooked through.
  • Remove pan from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes until rice is thickened up.
  • Remove the drumsticks to a separate plate and stir lemon juice into rice, then serve chicken with rice and a green veggie of choice.
  • (I also garnished mine here with green onion for a bit of color, but that’s totally optional.)

Notes

I served my paprika chicken drumsticks & rice here with garlicky sauteed spinach, then mixed the spinach into the rice for a great flavor combination. You can saute diced carrots and peas in with the onion in this recipe for a little more color and a pop of veggie flavor, or stir in some cooked broccoli florets at the end — lots of options here to incorporate different vegetables into the blank paprika rice canvas, depending what’s on sale or in season. 

Recipes in the real world

weekly ALDI meal plans from Mashup Mom -- six complete dinners for four, $60 out the door! MashupMom.com, every Wednesday.

Be sure not to miss the free ALDI meal plans, which show you how to use these easy family recipes to meal plan affordably and realistically for your family. Or, find more recipe ideas with the Recipe Search!

Recipe Rating




MamaHan

Friday 19th of March 2021

This is a very delicious recipe that's super affordable! Thank you, Rachel, for a wonderfully easy way to cook chicken drumsticks that doesn't take too much time. My family eats a lot of rice, so I simply doubled the amount of rice, broth, parsley, and the second dose of paprika so that we'd have enough with our chicken. One suggestion- if you normally remove as much skin and fat as possible, you really need to leave some with the chicken for the best flavor. The schmaltz gives amazing taste and texture to the rice, and if you let everything sit in the pan long enough on low, you'll get a crispy layer of rice on the bottom. YUM! :) Also, I didn't have chicken broth on hand the second time I made this, so I just used 2 bouillon cubes with 2 cups of water for the original amount of rice in the recipe. If you use extra rice like me, use more of both.