Chicken and Chorizo Paella: A Working Guide
Chicken And Chorizo Paella Recipe
I have made this dish probably two hundred times over the years, and I am going to give you the version that actually works rather than the romanticized restaurant version you find online. Paella is not complicated if you respect the rice. It falls apart quickly if you do not. You need about 180 grams of rice per person for paella. This recipe serves four. 400g bomba or calasparra rice — these are the right varieties. Do not substitute arborio or carnaroli unless you are okay with mushy rice that breaks the texture. Bomba absorbs roughly three times its volume in liquid without turning soft.
800g boneless, skinless chicken thighs — cut into 3cm pieces. Thighs stay moist. Breast meat dries out in the second round of cooking and there is no second round here. 200g Spanish chorizo — slice into 5mm rounds. Use a proper Spanish pork chorizo, not the Mexican version. The Mexican kind is sweeter,smokier in a different way, and will make the whole dish taste off. 2 medium red onions — finely diced.
4 garlic cloves — minced. 2 tbsp pimentón dulce (sweet Spanish paprika) — not smoked, not hot. Bitterness comes fast from cheap paprika left in hot oil too long. 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes.
Get the Full Details
1 pinch saffron threads — roughly 0.5g. Steep in 100ml warm stock before adding. 1.2 litres good chicken stock — preferably homemade. Keep it hot before pouring. 150g frozen peas — added at the end.
3 tbsp olive oil — decent quality, not the cheapest stuff you have in the cupboard. Fleur de sel or flaky sea salt for finishing.
Method
Heat a 42cm paella pan or a large wide skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. When it shimmers, add the chorizo slices in a single layer and fry for two minutes per side until they release their colour and start to crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on paper. Leave the chorizo oil in the pan. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. Cook for six minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for thirty seconds. Add the paprika and stir for ten seconds — do not let it brown. Add the tomatoes and cook for three minutes until the mixture thickens into a rough sofrito base. Pour in the hot stock and saffron liquid. Bring to a steady simmer. Add the rice and chicken pieces, distributing them evenly. Do not stir after this point. The rice needs to cook undisturbed so the bottom can form socarrat.
Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook for eighteen minutes without touching the rice. At twelve minutes, check the liquid level. If it looks dry around the edges but the centre is still swimming, tilt the pan slightly to redistribute. If the liquid is gone before the rice is tender, add a splash of hot water. At eighteen minutes, scatter the peas and the fried chorizo on top. Push them gently into the surface — do not stir. Increase the heat to high for exactly sixty seconds to develop socarrat. Listen for a faint crackling sound. If it starts smoking heavily, pull the pan off the heat immediately. You want caramelisation, not carbonisation. Remove from heat, cover loosely with foil or a clean tea towel, and rest for five minutes. This lets the rice finish steaming and the layers set. Serve directly from the pan with flaky salt on top.
What goes wrong and how to fix it
The most common failure is greasy paella. Chorizo releases a lot of fat, and if you do not account for it, the dish sits in oil. Frying the chorizo separately and removing it solves this. The reserved oil flavours the sofrito without drowning the rice. If you still find the finished dish oily, skim the surface with a spoon before serving. Another frequent issue is the rice cooking unevenly because the pan is too small. I once made this in a 30cm pan for four people and the rice on the edges was crunchy while the centre was soggy. The rule of thumb is one layer of rice, no deeper than 2cm. If your pan is too small, cook it in two batches. It is better to make two smaller pans than one compromised large one. The socarrat step scares people. It requires attention for one minute. Stand by the pan. If you walk away, you will burn it. The crackling sound is your indicator. When you hear it, count to sixty and remove the pan. The residual heat will finish the process.
Limitations and when to skip this
This recipe requires a paella pan or an equivalent wide, shallow pan. A standard Dutch oven or deep pot will not work. The rice will steam instead of simmer and you will not get socarrat. You can approximate it in a large oven-safe skillet, but the results will be closer to arroz con pollo than paella. The total active time is about forty minutes plus five minutes resting. The rice cooks for exactly twenty minutes and cannot be rushed. If you are feeding a crowd and need multiple dishes simultaneously, this recipe competes for stovetop space. In that case, prep everything ahead of time — dice the onions, mince the garlic, measure the stock — so the actual cooking window stays under twenty-five minutes of hands-on work. Bomba rice is significantly more expensive than standard long grain. A 500g bag runs roughly £6 to £8 in the UK. Calasparra is similar. If budget is a constraint, you can use good quality paella rice blends from Spanish importers, but avoid the generic "paella rice" packs found in mainstream supermarkets — they often mix in inferior varieties that absorb liquid unpredictably.
Storage
Leftover paella keeps in the refrigerator for two days. Reheat gently in a pan with a splash of stock. The rice will have absorbed most of the liquid overnight, so the extra stock restores consistency. Do not microwave it — the texture becomes grainy and uneven.
