Food As Medicine: Paprika Chicken Recipe

For the past two months we’ve been focusing on the herb cayenne at HerbMentor.com.

There are lots of benefits to eating cayenne in foods. It’s been shown to support heart health, decrease chronic and acute pain and promote digestion. But the amount a person can eat is variable because some people are highly sensitive to this hot spice.

Paprika is a pepper with the same genus and species but is often more mild-tasting than cayenne peppers. (It can also be very hot, but the paprika sold at Mountain Rose Herbs is mild.)

Paprika offers many of the same health benefits as cayenne, but people can consume a lot more of it.

Paprika Chicken Recipe

This is one of my favorite recipes. We eat it practically every week during the colder months. It is loaded with antioxidants that have been shown to protect the heart and reduce the risk of heart disease.

You’ll probably notice this recipe is very similar to Buffalo Hot Wings. We use chicken thighs instead of wings and cook it at a lower temperature so the olive oil doesn’t heat up too much, which would cause it to go rancid. However, I think the secret to this yumminess is in the smoked paprika!

What you’ll need…

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2.5 ounces Frank’s hot sauce
• 1/2 cup smoked paprika powder (regular paprika works, too)
• 1 teaspoon cayenne (depending on how hot you want it, use less if you want it milder)
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1.25 pounds chicken thighs (or whatever cut of chicken you prefer)
• Need herbs? Visit Mountain Rose Herbs.

1. In a cast iron pan combine the olive oil, hot sauce and spices.
2. Stir them well until they form a thin paste.
3. Put the chicken pieces in the pan and coat them well with the paste. Let them marinate at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.
4. We cook them in the broiler with the thermostat at 350⁰ F for ten minutes, then flip them and cook for another ten minutes. (Or bake until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and the meat thermometer reads 165⁰ F).
5. To complete this paprika chicken recipe, we serve this with sweet potato fries and/or kale chips. I hope you enjoy this food as medicine dish!
   
   

Written by Rosalee de la Forêt

Rosalee de la Forêt is an herbalist and author of the bestselling book Alchemy of Herbs: Transform Everyday Ingredients Into Foods & Remedies That Heal and co-author of Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine. She’s a registered herbalist with the American Herbalists Guild. Explore Rosalee's website and podcast. All content and photos in this article are © Rosalee de la Forêt.