I love this dish. This healthy baked Chicken Cacciatore is one of those simple meals that you can make for an early Sunday dinner or you could serve at a dinner party. Either way, it looks beautiful and it's going to go down a treat.
Easy Chicken Cacciatore
'Cacciatore' means 'Hunter' in Italian. So the idea behind this dish is that it is prepared 'Hunter Style' with commonly found ingredients like tomatoes, onions and poultry. You can almost imagine Italian Wives preparing this meal in rural Italy 100 years ago. This is often an End Of The Week meal for us. The day before I go food shopping when the fridge is empty. I go scrounging in the pantry a bit like a Hunter too. Ha. Maybe that's what it's named after :)
The traditional Cassiatore included red or white wine, but to make it a bit more of a family friendly dinner, I skip the wine and replace with chicken stock to get that classic rich taste.
And since I really like to keep our family recipes as simple as possible, this is a really easy Chicken Cacciatore, as you'll see!
I use chicken thighs in this recipe, I find they often have more flavor than breast meat, and the extra fat on them means they're really juicy. Feel free to use breast meat if you've got it or you prefer it, it still works well in the dish. The traditional dish used thighs and legs, but hey, whatever works!
Making Ahead
This is a great dish to prepare ahead and stick in the fridge until you're ready to oven bake it. If you're going to do this, use an oven proof dish so like this one so it can go straight into the oven from the fridge, and put it in the oven as soon as you turn it on so the dish can heat up as the oven does.
Let the food cool down and then cover it with food wrap and it'll happily sit in your fridge for 24 hours. In fact, the flavors develop, so it's possibly a good thing to let it sit for a while.
Being one of those recipes you can dress up or down, making this ahead of time if you've got people over for dinner is especially easy. Put it in the oven before they arrive and your house will also smell like a dream. Nice ;)
Reheating
Oven or microwave reheated, this recipe is great as leftovers. We often take this to work or school the following day and have a little Wholegrain bread with it to mop up the rather yummy sauce.
What To Serve With Chicken Cacciatore
Seasonal veg works amazingly well with this. I usually serve a variety of fresh veg when I make this: Broccoli, glazed carrots, buttered French beans, they all work well. I also often serve Wholegrain bread with this. It's absolutely delicious covered in Cacciatore sauce.
More Healthy Chicken Dinner Recipes
Healthy Baked Chicken Cacciatore Recipe
Healthy Baked Chicken Cacciatore
Ingredients
- 6-8 Chicken Thighs one per person
- 2 Onions finely diced
- 2 Cans of diced tomatoes
- 2 cloves Garlic finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon Oregano Dried and finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon Dried Rosemary
- 2 tablespoons Olive oil
- Chicken Stock Cube dissolved in 1 cup of hot water
- 1 punnet of sliced Mushrooms 250g
- ¼ cup plain flour
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat up a the Olive Oil in a large pan. Slice the Chicken thighs in half and dust with flour, salt and pepper. Seared in the oil for three to four minutes on each side. Remove and set aside in a large oven proof dish.
- In the same pan, fry the garlic and Onion and fry until softened. Add the Mushrooms and cook for 3 - 4min. Pour in both cans of Tomato. Add , Chicken Stock, Rosemary and Oregano and bring to the boil.
- Pour the Tomato mix over the chicken pieces and place in oven. Bake at 190 degree Celsius / 370 Fahrenheit, The dish should simmer softly for around 40 minutes.
- Serve with a rustic bread or pasta on the side.
