Chicken cacciatore is a traditional Italian dish that translates to “hunter’s chicken.” This easy baked chicken cacciatore features tender and juicy chicken thighs cooked in a sauce made with a combination of vegetables, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, garlic and fresh herbs. The best part about this Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe is that it really is quite easy to make and doesn't require a ton of active cooking time since the final dish cooks in the oven.

This may seem like a cold-weather dish, and it is great in the winter, but cacciatore really is a year-round perfect meal! We often crave chicken cacciatore and consider it one of our favorite Italian recipes.
Looking for more Italian chicken recipes? Try out our Chicken with White Wine Vinegar Tomato Sauce and Spinach Orzo or Chicken Piccata with Caper Lemon Butter Sauce.
Jump to:
- What is Chicken Cacciatore?
- Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Ingredients
- Substitutions
- How to Make Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe
- Equipment
- Step-by-Step Instructions
- Variations
- Storage
- Top tip
- Troubleshooting
- What to Make with Chicken Cacciatore
- What Wines Pair with Chicken Cacciatore
- Mangiamo Cookbook
- FAQ
- Related
- Pairing
- 📖 Recipe
- Food safety
What is Chicken Cacciatore?
Chicken cacciatore is an Italian braised dish that is truly fulfilling and delicious. Cacciatore, as a classic Italian dish in general, wasn’t always made with chicken and it still can be found in Italy with other proteins, such as other game birds, rabbit, vegetable only, or any wild game. This is a quintessential Italian dish, but there are cousins, both close and distant, in many cuisines throughout the world. When we think of chicken cacciatore, many ingredients spring to mind, but, not counting the chicken, only three are found in almost every variation of a classic chicken cacciatore recipe - onion, garlic, and tomatoes.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Almost all of the cooking is done in the oven, so once prepared and placed in the oven, all you have to do is wait!
- Booming with flavor! Seemingly simple, it is amazing how the flavors meld together in this dish and create an extremely tasty meal.
- Versatile - chicken cacciatore can be served alone with some crusty bread, or tossed with pasta, over polenta, rice/other grains, or over mashed potatoes!
- It is great leftover or for meal prep!
- Perfect for anytime of the year.
Ingredients
Here is what you need to make this easy Chicken Cacciatore recipe:

For the Chicken
- Olive Oil: We sear the chicken in olive oil and cook some of the veggies in it as well
- Chicken: Boneless skinless chicken thighs are our favorite thing to use in this recipe. We prefer skinless over skin-on chicken thighs in this recipe since it cooks in the sauce and we don't want soggy skin!
- Kosher Salt and Black Pepper
- All Purpose Flour: Just a small amount to dredge the chicken
- Thyme: The thyme in this recipe is used in two different ways: sprigs of time are added to cook the chicken as well as chopped in the braised cacciatore mixture.
- Dry White Wine: The wine in this recipe gives another flavor dimension to the chicken thighs. We prefer to use a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc here.
For the Cacciatore
- Onion: One of the best flavor foundations, we use yellow onion here.
- Garlic Cloves: We don’t over-garlic this dish, but it absolutely belongs here and just a little goes a long way.
- Bell Peppers: This dish has a lot of bell peppers and we think they are a signature of chicken cacciatore. We use a combination of red bell peppers and yellow bell peppers, but orange or even green bell peppers can work here too.
- Mushrooms: We use cremini (baby bella) mushrooms. Any kind of mushrooms or a mix of mushrooms will work.
- Olives: One of our favorite ingredients in cacciatore, we use both black and green (specifically castelvetrano olives) in moderation.
- Oregano: This deep flavored herb is great in this dish
- Basil: We love using fresh basil in this recipe and it works really well with the other flavors in the dish to give it a quintessential Italian flavor.
- Rosemary: Not much fresh rosemary is used, as rosemary is quite pungent, but without it the dish is lacking a bit of flavor in our opinions.
- Parsley: Another one of the fresh herbs that is added to the dish and can also be used to garnish the plated cacciatore (as pictured).
- Red Pepper Flakes: Just a touch of one of our favorite spices gives a tiny amount of heat and great flavor.
- Tomatoes: We use San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes that come in a can for this recipe and just smash them into smaller pieces with your hand.
Garnishes
We recommend the following to add for serving or use as garnishes for chicken cacciatore:
- Parmesan Cheese: We always serve this dish with some freshly grated Parmigniano Reggiano at the table.
- Parsley Leaves: Parsley leaves always make a dish look nice for serving.
- Crushed Red Pepper Flakes: We always have a bowl of red pepper flakes on the table to add a little extra spicy to our Italian dishes.
See recipe card below for quantities.
Substitutions
Here are a few common substitutions for the ingredients in this recipe:
- Chicken: You could replace the chicken thighs with chicken breast meat if desired, or a whole cut-up chicken. Additionally you can replace the chicken with other proteins such as pork, veal, pheasant, quail or rabbit. If you want to make this vegan, you could replace the chicken with tofu, potatoes, or add more mushrooms, or omit the chicken and just use more of the base veggies in this recipe.
- All purpose flour: You can replace the flour with a different type of flour or even gluten free flour if you wish to make this a gluten free meal.
- Thyme: You could sprinkle some dried thyme to season the chicken instead of fresh thyme. Use about 1 teaspoon of dried thyme as a replacement.
- Dry White Wine: You could make this recipe with a red wine instead if desired.
- Mushrooms: Replace the cremini mushrooms with any type of mushroom, or a combination of mushrooms.
- Olives: We use a mixture of marinated black olives and castelvetrano green olives in this recipe. You can certainly use different types of olives, like kalamata olives if desired.
How to Make Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe
The chicken is made first and the entire rest of the dish is made in the braiser or Dutch oven and cooked in the oven. So this dish, although there are a lot of ingredients, is quite simple to put together and a pretty easy recipe to make.
Equipment
Here is what you need to make this dish
- Large frying pan
- Large braiser or Dutch oven (5 qt or larger)

Step-by-Step Instructions
This simple yet super delicious Italian braised chicken recipe involves just a few easy steps. Here's how to make it.
Step 1: Cook the Chicken
- Lightly season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper, dredge in flour and brown in olive oil over medium-high heat in a large frying pan. While the chicken is browning add some thyme sprigs to the pan for flavor. Once you brown the chicken on both sides (about 3 minutes per side), reduce the heat and add some white wine and cook until almost completely reduced (about 2 minutes). Remove the chicken from the frying pan and set aside.
Step 2: Cook the Onion and Garlic
- In the braiser or Dutch oven, cook the onion over medium heat in olive oil until translucent. Then, add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.
Step 3: Cook Remaining Vegetables
- Add the remaining ingredients except the tomatoes and cook stirring occasionally until the mushrooms have released their juices, just about 5 minutes.
Step 4: Add the Tomatoes
- Next, add the tomatoes (smash them into smaller pieces with your hand first) and cook until the dish is simmering. This only takes about 2-3 minutes. Once simmering, add the browned chicken, cover and remove from the heat.
Step 5: Braise the Chicken Cacciatore
- In a preheated 350°F oven, transfer the covered braiser (or Dutch oven) to the oven and cook for 45 minutes. Once done, serve alone with some crusty bread, over polenta, pasta or egg noodles, rice/other grain, or mashed potatoes.
Variations
Here are a couple ways to change up this recipe:
- Change the chicken cut. We like dark meat in this dish, but you can use skinless chicken breasts. Additionally, you could use bone-in chicken or skin-on chicken pieces as well. We don’t like fussing with bones and such in this dish, so we chose skinless and boneless chicken thighs, but these are variations.
- Use a different protein, such as wild game, pork or different poultry, such as quail or pheasant. Rabbit is a great protein to use in this recipe as well.
- Make it vegan. Omit the chicken and add more veggies, heartier mushrooms, or even a good plant-based alternative.
- Gluten Free. Omit the flour altogether or replace it with gluten free flour for a GF option.
- Make it spicy. Add extra crushed red pepper flakes or Calabrian chili to give this recipe a bit of a spicy kick.

Storage
How to store leftover chicken cacciatore:
- Once cool, store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
How long does leftover chicken cacciatore last in the fridge:
- Five days is about as long as you want to keep this in the refrigerator.
Can you freeze chicken cacciatore?
- Yes, technically you can freeze this as long as the raw chicken was not previously frozen. To freeze, once cooled, store the chicken and sauce in a freezer safe container then store in the freezer for up to 3 months. Transfer to the fridge to defrost before reheating.
How to reheat leftover chicken cacciatore?
- You can simply reheat chicken cacciatore in a saucepan over low heat on the stove. It’s simple and delicious as leftovers anytime!
Top tip
Use good tomatoes! The tomatoes will essentially be the sauce in the Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe so the higher the quality the better it will taste. We prefer canned peeled whole San Marzano tomatoes from Italy.
Troubleshooting
This is quite simple and there shouldn’t be any issues. If you prefer a thick sauce (more of a gravy-like sauce), you can use a tablespoon of flour and some extra olive oil when you cook the onions to give the sauce more body. However, we think this consistency is perfect the way it is here!
What to Make with Chicken Cacciatore
There are so many things that you can serve with chicken cacciatore. It is traditional with polenta, but it is delicious with risotto, farro, mashed potatoes, over pasta, roasted potatoes, or white rice.
Elevate chicken cacciatore by making it with some Homemade Pasta from scratch! Or try it with our Brown Butter and Sage Polenta Recipe or Parmesan Peppercorn Mashed Potatoes.
What Wines Pair with Chicken Cacciatore
We highly recommend a Chianti Classico to pair with this Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe. It perfectly balances the dish and complements the flavors. Other alternatives are Pinot Grigio for a white wine since you are using some dry white wine for the chicken anyway. Any other Italian red that is sangiovese based will be great with this recipe, or Pinot Noir will work well here with the delicious sauce too.

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FAQ
The sauce is basically the juices from the vegetables mixed with the tomato juices from the whole peeled canned tomatoes as they cook down. Essentially, chicken cacciatore makes its own sauce.
Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian and it has always been considered a “hunter’s dish” combining meat and vegetables, so that’s how it was named!
Creamy polenta is the most traditional accompaniment.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Pairing
These are our favorite appetizers to serve with this Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe:
📖 Recipe

Oven Braised Chicken Cacciatore Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Large braiser or Dutch oven
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken thighs, boneless skinless
- 4 Tablespoons olive oil divided
- 3 teaspoons kosher salt divided
- 2 teaspoons black pepper divided
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 8 thyme sprigs
- ½ cup dry white wine
- 1 medium yellow onion diced small
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 3 bell peppers assorted colors
- 8 ounces cremini mushrooms quartered
- ½ cup green and black marinated olives
- 1 Tablespoon fresh oregano finely chopped
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary finely chopped
- 1 Tablespoon fresh parsley finely chopped
- 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme finely chopped
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 28- oz can San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes (smashed into smaller pieces by hand)
- Parmesan cheese parsley leaves and crushed red pepper flakes for garnish.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- Lightly season the chicken with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of black pepper, dredge in flour and brown in 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large frying pan. While the chicken is cooking add the 8 thyme sprigs for flavor. Once the chicken is browned on both sides (about 3 minutes per side), reduce the heat and add some white wine and cook until almost completely reduced. Remove the chicken from the frying pan and set aside and discard the thyme sprigs.
- In the braiser or Dutch oven, cook the onion over medium heat in the other tablespoon of olive oil until it is translucent. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.
- Add the remaining ingredients, including the rest of the salt and pepper, except the tomatoes and cook until the mushrooms have released their juices - just about 5 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes and cook until the dish is simmering. This only takes about 2-3 minutes. Once simmering, add the browned chicken, cover and transfer to the preheated oven to cook for 45 minutes. Once done, remove from the oven, let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
Food safety
- Cook to a minimum temperature of 165 °F (74 °C)
- Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
- Wash hands after touching raw meat
- Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods
- Never leave cooking food unattended
- Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
- Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove
Erika says
So delish I craved for more! Thanks for the recipe 🥰