Oven-baked chicken cacciatore
A richly delicious, family-friendly one-pot recipe packed with healthy ingredients
15 mins
1 hour
221 kcals
serves 1
OVEN-BAKED CHICKEN CACCIATORE
Chicken cacciatore is a delicious Italian dish with a rich, rustic sauce. I oven-baked this, as I love it when chicken thighs are fall apart tender, and the tomato sauce has broken down to be rich and dark.
Not only is this a very tasty dish, it’s a great way to pack veg into the sauce. On top of what I have used in this recipe, you could add mushrooms, olives, courgette, carrot…. the rich flavours in the sauce can carry all sorts of veg!
This is certainly family friendly in flavour, the sauce is richly herby- to feed it to my kids I blended it down to take out the chunks (your kids may be less fussy than mine, but my kids would definitely avoid the pepper if they could see it!), and then for the grown ups version I added some dried chilli flakes too because I always love a kick!
Traditionally this is served with spaghetti, but I served it up to the family with cooked cannellini beans stirred through it, and alongside broccoli and asparagus.
Do you need a quicker tomatoey chicken pasta? Why not try my chicken pizzaiola recipe!
Oven-baked chicken cacciatore
Ingredients
- 2 onions finely diced
- 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 2 sticks celery finely chopped
- 4-6 chicken thigh fillets skin removed and excess fat trimmed away
- 1 red pepper finely diced
- 1 yellow pepper finely diced
- 2 tins chopped tomatoes
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- 2 tbsp Italian herb mix
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- large handful fresh parsley finely chopped
- salt and pepper
- low calorie cooking spray or spray oil
Instructions
- pre-heat oven to 180c
- Spray a large, oven-proof casserole dish (with a lid) with low calorie cooking spray, and stir-fry the onions for a few minutes until they start to soften
- Move the onions over to one side of the pan, and lay the chicken on the empty side to start frying
- Add in the celery, garlic and peppers, and stir everything together
- Pour in the chopped tomatoes, add the mixed herbs and balsamic vinegar, and stir everything together. Use one of the empty chopped tomato tins to add about 200ml water
- Sprinkle in the fresh parsley, season with salt and pepper, stir once more. Place the lid on the casserole dish, and pop on the bottom shelf of the oven
- Oven-bake for 1 hour.
- Once you remove from the oven, give it a good stir. If it’s looking a little watery then give it a simmer on the stove-top to reduce it down a bit.
- Serve with a little fresh parsley sprinkled over the top, and a few grinds of black pepper.
