Name: Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 5 h
Total time: 5 h 15 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 8 chicken thighs, bone in, about 1.2 kg; 1 tsp salt; 2 tbsp olive oil; 1 onion, sliced; 250 g mushrooms, quartered; 4 garlic cloves, crushed; 150 ml red wine; 800 g tinned chopped tomatoes; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 1 tsp dried oregano; 1 bay leaf; 2 peppers, sliced; 60 g black olives; 2 tbsp basil, torn

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken thighs slow cooked on low for 5 hours with peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and red wine in a rustic Italian hunter-style stew.

5 hr 15 min total Serves 6 servings Easy

The smell of tomatoes, wine and herbs drifting through the house by mid-afternoon is the real reward of this dish. Cacciatore means hunter in Italian, and the idea is a rustic stew of chicken braised with whatever the hunter would have gathered: onions, peppers, mushrooms, herbs and wine.

The slow cooker suits the dish because thighs cook best at a low temperature. They turn silky and flavourful over 5 hours, while breast meat would have dried to string. Brown the thighs skin side down before they go in, if you have a few minutes. The colour adds a deeper, roasted flavour, and any fat that renders can be tipped away.

Add the peppers late. Peppers cooked for 5 hours lose their shape and flavour. Stir them in for the last 90 minutes, so they soften but stay sweet and slightly firm. Mushrooms can go in from the start since they shrink and release their liquid into the sauce.

The finished sauce is thin from the juices of the chicken. Lift out the thighs, turn the cooker to high with the lid off, and reduce the liquid for 20 minutes. Add the olives and basil last and serve over polenta, pasta or crusty bread.

How to Make Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

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Season the chicken with the salt. Brown in the oil in a pan for 5 minutes, skin side down. Transfer to the slow cooker.
Add the onion, mushrooms, garlic, wine, tomatoes, tomato purée, oregano and bay leaf.
Cover and cook on low for 3 hours 30 minutes. Stir in the peppers and cook for 1 hour 30 minutes more.
Lift out the chicken. Cook the sauce on high with the lid off for 20 minutes to thicken.
Return the chicken, stir in the olives and basil and serve.

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A Few Pointers

Add the peppers for the last 90 minutes.
Reduce the sauce at the end.
Use thighs: they stay moist over a long cook.

If You're Missing Something

An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Fresh herbs work in place of the dried oregano at roughly three times the quantity — a teaspoon of dried is about a tablespoon of fresh, chopped.

What to Serve With It

Polenta · Crusty bread · Pasta · Green salad

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Focaccia Genovese, Rosemary Focaccia, Creamy Parmesan Polenta.

Storage

Keeps for 4 days in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer.