Not traditionally a slow cooker meal, this classic Italian dish is also known as Pollo alla Cacciatora. An easy weeknight dinner that even your most picky eaters will enjoy. It’s one of those slow cooker recipes where you add all the ingredients to your slow cooker, set it, and forget it. Around Italy, the vegetables in classic chicken alla cacciatore (pronounced ka·chuh·taw·reh) vary depending on who’s making it. Some like bell peppers or celery, but when I enjoyed this dish in Italy, it was just mushrooms, sometimes with no vegetables at all! Classic chicken cacciatore translates to hunter’s chicken (cacciatore meaning hunter, hunter-style chicken). Comforting Italian food made for the hunters in Tuscany, and in keeping with its origin, this dish uses a simple Italian seasoning of fresh rosemary, basil and wine, very Tuscan.
Wine substitute
If you don’t want to cook with wine, replace with chicken broth. This is as easy as slow cooker chicken recipes get. A comforting and hearty dish that will require fare la scarpetta (make the little shoe), which refers to the little pieces of bread used to mop up the sauce (the best part). You didn’t know that the mopping you do at the end of a meal had a fancy Italian name, did you? The tender chicken pieces alone are not enough to get every last bite of the tasty tomato sauce.
Best chicken for Italian Chicken Cacciatore
I like to use bone-in chicken thighs (boneless thighs are okay too). The thighs stand up better to long, slow cooking, and they don’t dry out like chicken breasts. If you are not a fan of thighs, by all means, use breasts, but opt for bone-in, as boneless chicken breasts will dry out due to the cooking time.
Thickening the sauce
If you find at the end of the cooking the cacciatore sauce is not as thick as you’d like, you can leave the lid off toward the end of cooking to let some of the liquid evaporate.
Serving suggestion
Serve simply with crusty bread. Over fresh, homemade tagliatelle pasta, white rice, or go low-carb with zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash.
Crock pot chicken cacciatore leftovers
Store in an airtight container, refrigerated for up to 4 days. If you’ve made this easy Chicken Cacciatore recipe, please leave a star rating in the recipe card. You can also leave a comment below or ask a question. This is the measurement of the mushrooms chopped, not whole
