No.33 The 100 Most Popular Recipes Ever · October 2026

Paella valenciana

Made famous by Claudia Roden

Photo: Jan Harenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From The Food of Spain, 2011.

Spain's most famous dish. The Valencian original has chicken, rabbit and beans, never chorizo; Roden explains it the way Valencians cook it.

Written in our own words and tested in a home kitchen. Get the original in The Food of Spain.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (60 ml) olive oil
• 1 1/2 lb (680 g) chicken thighs (bone-in, cut into small pieces) and/or rabbit
• Fine salt
• 8 oz (225 g) flat green beans (or regular green beans), cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1 cup (150 g) cooked large white beans (garrofó or butter beans)
• 1 ripe tomato, grated on a box grater, skin discarded
• 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika (pimentón)
• Large pinch of saffron threads (about 1/2 tsp), crumbled into 2 tbsp warm water
• 6 cups (1.4 L) chicken stock or water, hot
• 2 cups (400 g) Spanish short-grain rice (bomba or Calasparra)
• A few sprigs rosemary (optional)
• Lemon wedges, to serve

Steps

1. Heat the oil in a 15- to 17-inch paella pan (or your widest skillet) over medium-high heat. Salt the chicken and brown it well on all sides, 10 to 12 minutes.
2. Push the meat to the edges, add the green beans and fry 3 minutes. Add the white beans, the grated tomato and the paprika and cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, until the tomato darkens.
3. Pour in the hot stock and the saffron water. Bring to a boil and simmer 10 minutes to build flavor. Taste: it should be quite salty.
4. Scatter the rice evenly over the pan and shake gently to settle it. From now on, don't stir.
5. Boil vigorously 10 minutes, then lower to a gentle simmer and cook 8 to 10 minutes more, rotating the pan over the burner so it cooks evenly, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is just tender. Lay the rosemary on top.
6. For the socarrat, raise the heat for 1 to 2 minutes until you hear the rice crackle and smell it toasting. Stop before it smells burnt.
7. Take off the heat, cover with a clean towel and rest 5 minutes. Serve from the pan with lemon.

Chef's tips

• Bomba rice absorbs three times its volume and stays firm; long-grain rice will not work the same.
• Cook it outdoors over a grill or paella burner for even heat across a wide pan.

This is Chef Amazing's write-up of the dish, tested for a home kitchen. The original is in The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden: get the book, No. 50 on The 100 Greatest Cookbooks.

← No. 32Jerk chicken→ No. 34Spanish tortilla