Five Weeknight Chicken Recipes That I Cook Again and Again

Hello! Mia here, filling in for Emily.

A wild, groundbreaking statement: I love chicken. I love how readily available and relatively inexpensive it is. I love chicken breasts, I love chicken thighs, I love chicken wings. I often think about what Fuchsia Dunlop wrote in her cookbook “The Food of Sichuan.” “The chicken has a place at the heart of Chinese gastronomy: Not only is its meat enjoyed in countless dishes,” she writes, “but its natural juices are thought to possess the very essence of flavor.” The very essence of flavor! And chicken plays so nicely with other flavors, textures and aromas across countless cuisines. Three cheers for chicken!

So today’s lineup of weeknight-friendly recipes includes five New York Times Cooking chicken recipes — the New York Times chickens, if you will — that I cook again and again. Several are made in one pan, most should be eaten with rice and all are fantastic.

(And for my vegetarian friends, three quick-fire favorites: mattar paneer, one-pan creamed spinach with eggs and chile crisp fettuccine Alfredo with spinach.)

Credit…Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Eugene Jho.

1. Sheet-Pan Paprika Chicken With Tomatoes and Parmesan

I’ve made some version of this Melissa Clark classic more times than perhaps any other sheet-pan chicken dish. I say “some version” because the recipe lends itself so well to my whims, whether that’s adding fennel or cumin seeds to the sweet and smoked paprika mix, throwing in sliced onions or broccoli florets, or swapping in plain old white vinegar (instead of apple cider vinegar) for an extra sour bite. When I don’t have Parm — awful, I know — I serve this chicken with an artsy swoop of plain yogurt or labne.

View this recipe.