It's that time of the year! Time for fall dinner parties with lots delicious food and wine and friends, and I think that calls for a Spanish Paella!
I love Paella for many reasons... let's count the ways. 1 - everything is made in 1 big paella dish so that keeps thing semi-tidy. 2- you can pick and choose all sorts of different proteins to add into the paella. It can be just seafood, seafood and chorizo, seafood and chicken, we could go on and on. 3- once the Spanish Paella is ready, it actually gets served in the same pan you cook it in. 4- all that you need on the side are a few bottles of wine and then you're set.
Mine has been evolving over the years and these days it consists of chicken, shrimp, mussels, clams and a really smoky chorizo that highlights some of the spices! If you were feeling extra special and decadent you could add some lobster to this too! All you need is a paella pan - here's my favorite! I've been using it for years! Now all that's left is to secretly plot a trip to Spain so I can have it in its home country alongside a bottle or two of Spanish wine! Paella recipes can more commonly be with seafood/pork, if you are looking for a similar dish with chicken, try arroz con pollo.
Love Seafood? Try these other seafood recipes?
- All my Seafood recipes
- Shrimp Fajitas
- Seafood Pasta
- Grilled Shrimp with Cilantro Pesto
- Seafood Paella
Check out some of my favorite Shrimp Recipes here:
Easy Spanish Paella
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 Spanish chorizo sausages thickly sliced on a bias
- 1 yellow onion diced
- 4 garlic cloves chopped
- 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley leaves chopped
- 1 can 15-ounce fire-roasted diced tomatoes
- 1 ½ cups medium grain Spanish rice
- 3 cups water
- generous pinch saffron
- 10 littleneck clams cleaned
- 10 mussels cleaned
- 10 medium shrimp peeled and deveined
- ½ cup frozen sweet peas thawed
- lemon wedges for serving
- sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Combine the paprika and dried oregano in a small bowl. Rub the paprika mixture all over the chicken and marinate chicken for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Heat the oil in a 15-inch paella pan over medium-high heat. Add the chorizo to the pan and sauté the chorizo until browned. Remove and reserve chorizo.
- Add chicken to the pan and brown on all sides, turning with tongs until fully cooked. Season with salt and cracked pepper. Remove from pan and reserve. In the same pan, sauté the onions, garlic and parsley for 2 or 3 minutes on medium heat.
- Add the fire-roasted tomatoes and cook over medium heat for about 4 minutes to let the flavors come together. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains in the mixture. Add the water and simmer for 10 minutes, slowly stirring the rice. Add chicken and chorizo back to the pan along with the saffron. Add the clams, mussels and shrimp, tucking them into the rice. Continue to cook until the rice has absorbed all of the liquid, the shrimp is cooked and the mussels and clams have opened, about 15 minutes more.
- Add the peas and toss to combine. If any of the clams or mussels do not open, discard them before serving. When the paella is done, turn up the heat to high and toast the rice on the bottom of the pan for 30 seconds. Remove the paella from the heat and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Serve with the extra lemon wedges and season with Sea Salt or Cracked Black Pepper to taste if needed.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Hello- the link to your favorite paella pan does not work. What brand and size do you use?
I have used your recipe a number of times and each time I forget to take a photo. We're at 6000' and rice is problematic, but I've managed to find a way to make it work. This is now my go to dish for company or comfort in the midst of a snowy winter! Wonderful!!! Thank you.
Hi gaby,
Going to masked paella next week for guests. I always used the New York Times version but while packaged not to move lost the book and recipe. I know I cooked it in the oven. Your recipe is so similar do you think it COULD be adapted to the oven? I now live in a very remote mountain region of Tennessee so my grocery choices are pretty meager. Would regular uncle bens white converged rice be alright??
Sorry so long but when you live 90 minutes from the store one needs to be quite certain of ingredients and cooking methods!!
Thank you so much
I bet it would work in the oven but I haven't tested it that way so I can't be 100000% certain! and yes that rice should work
Hello Gabriella, my name is daniel i am Spanish and cook. I discovered your page on the net and I really like your recipes. But to get to your Spanish paella recipe suffered a great sadness because as in most cases the original Spanish paella, original from valencia my city is not nearly reflect what is really a paella. I hope you do not mind my comment a greeting from Spain.
Oh my word!!! How beautiful! I have a dream of someday doing Paella on Christmas Eve for everyone. So far, i have lost the battle to Chinese take out, but one day!! I will be giving this recipe a try for sure. Being in a seafood industry family, we always have too much shell fish!
I've got to try this recipe soon! The flavors sound amazing!