Greek hilopites with chicken (Κοτόπουλο κοκκινιστό με χυλοπίτες)
Greek square egg pasta noodles called hilopites are cooked in a tomato broth along with chicken for a rustic, humble and delicious traditional Greek meal.
Have you ever had square pasta? Like small little squares of egg noodles that are delicate and full of flavour? If you’re Greek like I am, or have ever visited a Greek home, I think that the answer might be (should be) Yes!
Growing up Greek rustic, simple and nutritious meals were pretty much always on the menu. Opening up the pantry in a Greek home you are bound to find some staples, and among the pastas you are sure to find the thick long noodles used to make Pastitsio, the thin vermicelli-like noodles used to make the simple soup called Fide, and the small square egg noodles used in this recipe, called hilopites.
Hilopites are very common in Greek cooking, but likely not something you will see in a Greek restaurant. This is more of a home cooked meal, and often the hilopites themselves are made from scratch, at home. You can read all about my memories related to that activity later on in this post. But first, let’s talk about this recipe!
Reasons to love this recipe!
Simple and delicious
Easy recipes are great, if they are good! Luckily, this recipe is not only simple to make, but the end result is honestly so delicious you may find yourself wondering how that could be given how basic it seems!
Traditional and authentic
If you really want to immerse yourself in real Greek recipes, then this is the recipe for you! Just a few basic ingredients come together to create a meal you would find in a horio (Greek village) or in a Yiayia’s kitchen!
Great for a crowd
If you are feeding a large family, this is the meal for you. For the cost of a chicken and a few other less expensive ingredients you can get a nutritious meal on the table. Feeding fewer mouths? Great, leftovers are perfect!
Key ingredients
Depending on where you are, sourcing the hilopites may be a bit of a challenge. Otherwise, everything else is available pretty much everywhere.
Hilopites These are egg noodles shaped in small little squares. They can be found in most Greek or Mediterranean markets, or online.
Chicken I like to use a whole chicken when I make this meal because it is more economical, and also, this way I can serve both white and dark meat.
Vegetable oil When I brown my chicken I do this in vegetable oil. It is more economical than using olive oil, and has a higher smoke point.
Tomato sauce Whenever possible I use my homemade tomato sauce, made simply with fresh tomatoes. When I don’t have this available I use a good quality passata or strained tomatoes.
Olive oil I add a touch of olive oil to the meal when it is almost ready. This small amount of oil adds a bit of flavour and also helps to keep the hilopites from sticking together.
Cinnamon The use of cinnamon is really common in savoury Greek dishes, especially ones which contain meat.
Salt & Pepper Basic seasonings, essential here! I use the salt to season the chicken before browning it and then I add both salt and pepper to the dish for flavouring.
Mizithra cheese It is optional to add some grated mizithra cheese to this dish when serving. Mizithra is made of sheep or a combination of sheep and goat milk. It is a hard cheese that is grated and served in the same way you might serve parmesan.
How to make it
Step 1
Butcher your chicken in order to end up with 8 serving pieces (2 breasts, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs and 2 wings). Remove as much of the skin as possible, as well as any visible fat. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with 1 tablespoon of salt.
Step 2
Add the vegetable oil to a deep frying pan and heat over medium heat. Being careful not to over crowd the pan, add the chicken pieces a few at at time and brown them on all sides (about 5 minutes per side). Depending upon how large your pan is, you may have to do this in batches.
Step 3
Transfer the browned chicken to a large pot. Add the tomato sauce and enough boiling water to cover the chicken. Add the cinnamon and the pepper. Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce the heat back to medium and cook, covered, for 10-12 minutes.
Step 4
Stir the hilopites into the pot This may be a bit difficult since your chicken is in the pot, so be sure to stir carefully. Cook, uncovered, for an additional 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. It is important to stir well to avoid the hilopites from sticking to the bottom of your pot.
Step 5
After the 20 minutes have passed, add a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, stir and then turn off the stove. Cover the pot and let sit off the heat for 10-15 minutes. This will allow the soup to thicken up a bit. Upon serving, sprinkle with grated mizithra cheese if desired.
Recipe substitutions
I like to use a whole chicken for this recipe but you can certainly use only chicken thighs, or chicken breasts.
I fry my chicken in vegetable oil, but if you prefer to fry it in olive oil, or another oil, go ahead. No problem!
Optionally I add grated mizithra on the top of my dish, but if you prefer you can add crumbled feta (Greek feta only please) or for a non-Greek twist you can add grated parmesan or grated romano cheese.
Recipe variations
There are so many wonderful ways to enjoy hilopites. You can have them simply prepared as a hilopites soup; a vegetarian way to enjoy this lovely little pasta. Be sure to check out this round-up of the best Greek soup recipes for fall, or anytime. You will find much to love there!
Cooking tips
You can usually find hilopites in Greek or Mediterranean grocery stores, and even on-line. However, if you happen to be visiting Greece, or know someone who is, you can always ask them to forget the souvenir keychain and bring back some hilopites instead. Hilopites from Greece, especially when home-made, are a luxurious treat.
Although weirdly delicious raw (especially when they are homemade), it really is recommended that you cook your hilopites, obviously! They have the potential to stick to the bottom of the pot so be sure to stir them regularly, especially at the beginning.
If you like cheese (who doesn’t?), this dish is delicious with a generous sprinkling of grated mizithra. If you can’t find mizithra, grated parmesan or romano cheese (or a combination of the two) could also be lovely.
Hilopites memories
Hilopites are the small, square-shaped egg noodles that I grew up with in my Greek home. In fact, I have very vivid memories of my parents gathering with aunts and uncles and dear friends, spending the day making hilopites from scratch. Flour, water (or was it milk?), salt, eggs all worked together and transformed to make long strips of noodles that were then cut by hand into perfectly imperfect squares.
Once cut, the hilopites were laid out to dry on tablecloths and bed sheets reserved for this purpose. Because making hilopites was a group and all day affair, you can imagine that what was produced was more than a one-time serving; when one made hilopites, one made a LOT of hilopites. So, for hours our beds were off limits as they were the perfect spot to lay out the tablecloths and sheets, sprinkle them with some flour, and spread the hilopites out to dry. Our home looked a bit funny, but the drying pasta smelled delightful.
As kids, my siblings and I we loved sneaking into the hilopita bedrooms to grab a few of the drying pastas and then pop them in our mouths. For some reason, we loved the taste and the texture and the way they the little squares got stuck between our teeth. After our taste test, we would carefully rearrange the hilopites so that the adults wouldn’t realize we had eaten them raw; they were funny about that sort of thing.
Every once in a while, an errant hilopita would find itself in our bed, missed while the rest of the pasta was packaged in bags and stored in the cold room or refrigerator. So there we would be, lying in bed getting ready for sleep and a perfect little square noodle would be lying by our pillow. You can be sure that that ended up in our mouths too.
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Related recipes
If you love this recipe for Greek hilopites with chicken, I think you will also love these dishes:
Greek chicken with tomato sauce and peas (Κοτόπουλο κοκκινιστό με αρακά)
Greek chicken with chickpeas (Kota me revithia kokkinista)
Hilopites soup (Χυλοπίτες σούπα)
Youvetsi with chicken (Κοτόπουλο γιουβέτσι)
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Greek hilopites with chicken (Κοτόπουλο κοκκινιστό με χυλοπίτες)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken (or chicken pieces)
- 1 tbsp salt
- vegetable oil, for frying
- 2 1/2 cups tomato sauce
- boiling water enough to cover the chicken
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground pepper
- 2 cups hilopites uncooked
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup mizithra cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Butcher your chicken in order to end up with 8 serving pieces (2 breasts, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs and 2 wings). Remove as much of the skin as possible, as well as any visible fat. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with 1 tablespoon of salt.1 whole chicken, 1 tbsp salt
- Add the vegetable oil to a deep frying pan and heat over medium heat. Being careful not to over crowd the pan, add the chicken pieces a few at at time and brown them on all sides (about 5 minutes per side). Depending upon how large your pan is, you may have to do this in batches.vegetable oil, for frying
- Transfer the browned chicken to a large pot. Add the tomato sauce and enough boiling water to cover the chicken.2 1/2 cups tomato sauce, boiling water
- Add the cinnamon and the pepper. Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce the heat back to medium and cook, covered, for 10-12 minutes.3/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground pepper
- Stir the hilopites into the pot This may be a bit difficult since your chicken is in the pot, so be sure to stir carefully.2 cups hilopites
- Cook, uncovered, for an additional 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. It is important to stir well to avoid the hilopites from sticking to the bottom of your pot, especially the first few minutes of cooking. You might need to add some more boiling water if it gets too thick while cooking.
- After the 20 minutes have passed, add a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, stir and then turn off the stove. Cover the pot and let sit off the heat for 10-15 minutes. This will allow the soup to thicken up a bit.1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt
- Upon serving, sprinkle with grated mizithra cheese if desired. Enjoy!1/4 cup mizithra cheese
Recipe for Hilopitas? YES PLEASE!
You have me in tears remembering those days in my yiayia’s kitchen. Marveling at how she wielded that skinny stick to turn that lump of dough into hilopitas. Then later, sneaking in to my aunts Georgette and Katherine’s room to graze on the semi-dried hilopitas. Remembering how they stuck in your teeth and were so delicious!
Thanks for the memories and the recipes too!
Thank you so much Katina for your message. We’ll tell our folks that the two of us, and YOU, really want to learn to make homemade hilopites 🙂 Maybe they’ll agree 🙂 We love that you saw yourself in our post; we knew we couldn’t have been the only kids eating raw hilopites!! Hope you try the recipe, and love it! Have a great day!
Looking forward to finding the hilopita recipe in the near(I hope) future.
Another plea for the hilopita recipe! My kids are super pumped to try making them.
Oh boy!!! We really hate to disappoint kids. We will do our best! xoxo
Would love the recipe for homemade hilopitas. My mother-in-law and her sister would make pasta here in Canada. It was nice to watch and oh so delicious to eat. This was all new to me as I am not Greek, but soon became one with the desire to learn. Wonderful memories.
Thank you Leah! We would love to be able to share this recipe as well and plan to do so when we are finally able to cook with our parents again 🙂 We are so happy that you are enjoying our website! xoxo Helen & Billie
Hi. For those of us who hunt birds, September 1st is opening day for dove season where I live. I used your recipe to prepare dove instead of chicken. I improvised a bit. I browned the birds in olive oil instead of vegetable oil in the same deep pot I used to prepare the dish. When browned, I removed the birds, then sautéed 1/2 a cup of scallions and a clove of coarsely chopped garlic in the remaining olive oil until soft. I then put the birds back in the pot and added the remaining ingredients, substituting a stick of cinnamon for ground cinnamon, and adding half a cup of chardonnay. As wild birds need more cooking time, I cooked them for 45 minutes before adding the hilopetes. It was an incredible dish, accompanied by a bottle of red wine. I immediately retired to my hammock afterward.
Thanks!
HI John!! What a meal!! We are so happy that you were inspired by our recipe and made it your own. Sounds wonderful. xoxo Helen & Billie
Chicken and hilopites is a favourite at our house. My husband says it reminds him of his YiaYia when I make them and my daughter requested them the first time her boyfriend came for supper. I have always cooked the chicken in the liquid and then taken it out and done the hilopites till they are done. Then served them together. Your way would be quicker for sure. But it would be harder to stir with both in the pot. Will try it next time! Got to look through all your recipes now!
Hi Jaqueline! Your family has good taste 🙂 Chicken and hilopites is such a wonderful, rustic and amazing Greek meal! Give our method a try – we find that it works really well and is quite simple 🙂 Hope you find much to love here with us – we have over 450 recipes posting, with new recipes being posted every week!! xoxo Helen & Billie
just bought hilopites imported from Greece at my local Greek grocery store. The bag doesn’t say how long to boil them in water. Anyone have a guess for me?
Hi Patra! Cooking time will definitely vary with the brand of hilopites; we suggest cooking them according to our recipe for about 20 minutes or so. xoxo Helen & Billie
Just made χιλοποτες for dinner. Amazing! Omg. My name is Billie, and I have a sister named Helen. Imagine the look on my face when I read your comment 😯🤔😂
That is crazy!!! What a coincidence. Love it! xoxo
Made χιλοποτες for dinner. One of my favorGreek meals. Thank you for sharing the story of how they are made. Brought back some great childhood memories of the process in Greece as a child with my Γιαγοα 🥰
Hi Billie! (love your name by the way!) So glad that you enjoyed the recipe, and the story! Hope you continue to find much to love here with us 🙂 xoxo Helen & Billie
Unfortunately, there’s so many things I can’t get my hands on where I am right now 😪
So, I’m always having to figure out substitutes and alternative ingredients to use.
I miss χυλοπίτες (and many more of my childhood food, I’m craving it everyday)… 😩
What I thought of just now, looking at your recipe… how about I boil some Fettuccini, just enough to where I can cut it into small squares 🔲 …. do you think it will work? I can boil it a bit and rinse it in cold water, just before it gets al dente, cook my chicken and sauce, and drop my χυλοπίτες in just for 2-3 minutes at the very end.
Please 🙏🏻 let me now your thoughts on this.
Hi there Khadija! Love your resourcefulness! We would suggest using egg noodles instead of fettuccini, if you can find them and then to proceed as you describe. Traditional hilopites have eggs in them and so egg noodles will be a closer substitute. Good luck! And keep us posted on how this works out for you 🙂 xoxo Helen & Billie
I made this dish for my husband’s family who is from Greece and they were very impressed! They did not stop complimenting it and talking about it all night. This is truly an authentic dish. Thank you for sharing!!!
Hi Alexis!!! This makes us so very happy to hear. Thank you for trusting our recipe with your family from Greece. We are thrilled that they loved it. Hope you continue to find much to love here with us 🙂 xoxo Helen & Billie
This is a fantastic recipe! Have you ever tried doubling it? What would the cooking times look like in that instance?
Thank you! So glad that you loved it 🙂 Sure, you can easily double the recipe, by using twice as much of all the ingredients. Hope that helps! xoxo Helen & Billie