This traditional Spanish chicken stew is called pollo en pepitoria, or chicken in almond sauce, and has a unique sauce that's creamy and delicious. It's one of my favorite Spanish chicken dishes for any occasion!
If you love chicken recipes, don't miss these recipes for chicken milanese and Alicante-style roast chicken.
Introduction
I've eaten pollo en pepitoria many times as part of a menú del día. Even the traditional restaurants' versions never impressed me; typically, it was bright yellow from colorante (food coloring powder) instead of traditional saffron. For years, I lived in ignorance of what this dish could really be!
But as I cooked my way through Claudia Roden's The Food of Spain, I was captured by her version of pollo en pepitoria, which uses chicken thighs instead of offal or hen (gallina), and includes cinnamon as an ingredient. I love cinnamon in savory dishes and had to find out more.
Most recipes for pollo en pepitoria are simply seasoned with saffron, salt, and pepper. But the oldest recipe I found includes nutmeg, cloves, and ginger, and is specifically anti-cinnamon!
Would cinnamon be a part of the first pepitorias or not? I may never know the answer! But I made Claudia's version with cinnamon and loved every last bite. It's most definitely a keeper in my book!
Ingredients
Wondering what ingredients you'll need for pollo en pepitoria? Grab these key ingredients, and you'll be ready to make this mouthwatering Spanish chicken in almond sauce!
- Chicken stock: use the best quality stock you can! If it's homemade, great, but if not just buy the best you can find. In a stew like this one it really makes a difference.
- Wine: You can use any dry white wine (I often use Rueda or Albariño, Pinot Grigio also works well). If using sherry, make sure it is a dry style such as fino, manzanilla, or amontillado.
- Almonds: Make sure to use raw almonds that don't have any skin, which would give the stew a bitter flavor. If you can use Marcona almonds, even better!
- Saffron: This stew gets a great deal of its flavor from the saffron, so please use the real stuff. If you take a shortcut here, you will miss out on taste!
See recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Pollo en Pepitoria
If you’d like to see the full ingredients and instructions, scroll to the bottom of the post for the printable recipe card.
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper. (image 1)
- Brown the chicken on both sides in olive oil. (image 2)
- Dump the diced onion into the oil and sauté until golden, then pour in the white wine. (image 3)
- Add the chicken back to the pan, cover with chicken stock, and add the cinnamon and bay leaves. (image 4)
- About halfway through cooking, flip the chicken to make sure it cooks evenly on both sides. (image 5)
- While it's simmering, cook some hard-boiled eggs and separate the yolks and whites. Dice the whites for later. (image 6)
- Make the almond and garlic paste to thicken the stew. Start by frying the garlic and almonds in olive oil. (image 7)
- Bend them with the hard-boiled egg yolks and a bit of the cooking liquid. (image 8)
- Add the paste into the stew along with a pinch of saffron. Stir to mix it evenly into the stew and let it simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce is thick and delicious! (image 9)
- Serve with garlic rice and the chopped hard boiled egg whites and enjoy! (image 10)
Recipe FAQs
Pollo en pepitoria is a Spanish stew that doesn't have an exact English translation, but it is the name for a chicken stew made with all edible parts of a bird, or only with the offal, and whose sauce includes egg yolk. Alternatively in Spanish cuisine, it can mean "a combination of diverse things without order."
Pollo en pepitoria is a Spanish chicken stew thought to be of Moorish (Arab) origin due to the almonds and saffron in the dish. It contains chicken or hen meat and/or offal, and is thickened with egg yolk and flavored with wine, stock, garlic, and herbs.
The oldest recipe I found (from 1763!) includes quite a few interesting seasonings, like nutmeg, cloves, ginger--but no cinnamon like in the modern recipe I like from Claudia Roden's The Food of Spain.
Interestingly enough, pollo en pepitoria is made from ingredients that were all available pre-colonization of the Americas. No new world ingredients, like potatoes, tomatoes, or peppers, are in the dish--a rare phenomenon nowadays!
Pollo en pepitoria was first mentioned in a 1599 cookbook by Diego Granado, The Art of Cooking. Its creator is unknown, but it is reputed to have Moorish (Arabic) origins because of the use of almonds and saffron in the sauce.
Serve
I really love serving pollo en pepitoria with rice, which my mother-in-law always cooks with a bit of garlic (there's never too much garlic here in Spain). But you could also serve it with homemade french fries (my husband's choice) or any baked or mashed potato dish.
Expert Tips
- I made this using chicken thighs, but you can use whichever part of the chicken you prefer. If using chicken breasts don't brown too much at the beginning so that they aren't too dry.
- If you want even more yellow color from the saffron, add a few strands to the white wine about 15 minutes before adding it to the stew. It will release more beautiful yellow color (and saffron flavor!) to the dish.
Pollo en Pepitoria (Chicken in Almond Sauce)
Ingredients
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 4-6 large chicken thighs with skin free-range
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- 1 large onion diced
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup dry white wine or sherry
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- ½ cup raw almonds
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 pinch real saffron threads
Instructions
- Cover the bottom of a large, heavy skillet in olive oil and place over medium heat.
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the hot pan, browning for a short time on each side. Remove the meat from the pan and lower the heat.
- Add the diced onion to the oil and sauté until golden, about 5 minutes, then add the white wine.
- Return the chicken to the pan and cover with the chicken stock, then add the bay leaves and cinnamon. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes, turning the chicken over about halfway through.
- Meanwhile, cook the hard-boiled eggs, then separate the yolks from the whites. Save the yolks for the sauce, and dice up the whites for a garnish later.
- In another frying pan, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Add the garlic and almonds (You can also add a couple slices of stale bread torn in pieces if you like to make a classic picada.) Fry until golden brown, then drain on paper towels to remove excess oil.
- Blend the almonds, garlic, (bread if using), and hard boiled egg yolks in a food processor until you have a thick paste. If necessary, add some of the liquid from the chicken to help blend.
- Stir the paste into the stew and add a pinch of saffron. Simmer uncovered, stirring frequently until the sauce has thickened and the chicken is cooked through.
- Season with salt and pepper and serve. I like to serve the stew with rice, mashed potatoes, or bread to sop up extra sauce, which isn't traditional but is delicious. Garnish with the chopped egg whites.
Notes
- I made this using chicken thighs, but you can use whichever part of the chicken you prefer. If using chicken breasts don't brown too much at the beginning so that they aren't too dry.
- If you want even more yellow color from the saffron, add a few strands to the white wine about 15 minutes before adding it to the stew. It will release more beautiful yellow color (and saffron flavor!) to the dish.
Nutrition
Photography by Giulia Verdinelli
Helene
The flavour was lovely, but the texture was a little strange (maybe due to the
addition of the yolks?).
Leslie
Absolutely delicious! I chose to use sherry instead of wine and the dish had a wonderful flavor. A bonus is that this dish is "husband approved" and that is the highest compliment I can give since it doesn't happen often.
Kathy
Hi, your recipe does not say what to do with the diced egg whites?
Lauren Aloise
Thanks for pointing this out! They are a garnish.
Cat of Sunshine and Siestas
I may actually attempt this! Looks amazing!
Lauren Aloise
Try it! It's soooo good!
Justine Ancheta
Wow this looks so delicious!
It reminds me of the almejas in clam sauce that my neighbor cooked up, but I found the almonds a bit too chunky (which is precisely why I must have a Vitamix now.) The cinnamon sounds interesting, although I’d probably cut it to 1/4 a teaspoon *para probar*. My kids would call me out on some “weird” flavor. Thanks for sharing!
Shelley
Lauren, I love your Blog! My husband and I took your Tapas, Taverns, and History tour in Madrid a few months ago and loved it – keep up the great work!
Lauren Aloise
Hi Shelley! Thanks so much for the kind comment. I'm so happy to hear you loved our Madrid tapas tour! Hope you'll be back in Spain again soon 🙂
Frank Teixeira
Yes and it was underwhelming.
Greek pasta "pasticio" has cinnamon and is very tasty.
The favorite chicken dish in 19th century America was Cinnamon Chicken.
You will also find it in savory dishes of Morocco and India, etc.
Lauren Aloise
Yes, one of my favorite Moroccan treats is the pastela which uses cinnamon, however they say that it might not be Moroccan but rather an Al-andalus dish. I'm curious as to when and where cinnamon made its way into the savory dishes and why in the 1700's it was not only excluded, but shunned in this recipe. Was it his personal taste? The trends of the day? I also found it underwhelming until now. Give it a try! Hope you enjoy.