Chicken Scarpariello is an Italian-American dish with chicken pieces, sweet Italian sausage, and a spicy, tangy sauce. The sauce includes vinegar, garlic, and a variety of hot and sweet peppers. Bone-in dark meat chicken, such as chicken thighs, wings, and drumsticks, is typically used in chicken scarpariello, but it can also be made with bone-in chicken breasts.
Chicken scarpariello is one of my favorite Italian-American dishes, and it’s perfect for a hearty and flavorful dinner. The browned chicken thighs, sweet Italian sausages, and sweet and hot peppers are combined in a remarkably flavorful sauce mixture. My version is started on the stovetop and finished in the oven. The chicken and sausages are braised to perfection with the peppers, onions, and garlic. I use both peppadew peppers and pepperoncini peppers in my chicken scarpariello, plus the liquid from the pepperoncinis. Along with chicken thighs, sausages, and lots of peppers, it makes a highly flavorful and colorful meal.
What to Serve With Chicken Scarpariello
You’ll want lots of crusty bread or focaccia to soak up the spicy, tangy sauce, and you might want to serve the chicken scarpariello with a side of pasta, rice, or roasted potatoes. If you’re watching carbs, try serving it with hearts of palm pasta or cauliflower rice. Roasted cauliflower is also a great option, or add a Caesar salad or green salad with Italian dressing to your dinner menu.
What are Peppadew Peppers?
These are whole, red, cherry-sized piquanté peppers. Peppadew is the brand name. If you can’t find them, go ahead and use all whole pepperoncini peppers, which are more readily available.
Preparation Notes
- Skillet: Use a large, deep skillet, sauté pan, or Dutch oven.
- Chicken: Dry the chicken thighs thoroughly with paper towels and season with. Heat the olive oil until it shimmers, then add the chicken, skin-side down. The chicken is cooked until the skin is crisp, then it’s removed, and the sausages are lightly browned and cut into short lengths.
- Vegetables: The onions and bell peppers are added to the fat left in the pan and sautéed, then the garlic is briefly cooked with them.
- Wine, Pickled Peppers, and Liquids: The dry white wine is cooked down, then the pickled peppers and pickle juice are added along with the chicken stock and sugar.
- Finishing: The chicken and sausages are returned to the pan and the pan is then transferred to the oven to bake for 30 to 40 minutes.
Variations
Potatoes: Add some baby potatoes along with the broth mixture and simmer them for 5 minutes, then add the chicken and sausage back to the pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the chicken and sausages are done and the potatoes are tender.
Chicken: Instead of chicken thighs, make chicken scarpariello any combination of chicken wings, drumsticks, thighs, quarters, or bone-in chicken breasts. The timing may have to be adjusted for thicker piece. Look for a minimum temperature of 165 F on an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest pieces.
Vinegar: If you don’t have liquid in the pickled peppers, add 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar.
Spicy Sausage: If you like it very spicy, use hot Italian sausage. Or add some crushed Calabrian peppers or red pepper flakes to the sauce mixture.
Sugar: To lower the carbs, replace this with a sugar replacement, such as allulose.
How to Store Leftover Chicken Scarpariello
- Refrigerate leftover chicken scarpariello in an airtight container within 2 hours, and enjoy it within 4 days.
- To freeze, transfer cooled scarpariello to a resealable freezer bag or container. Label the container or bag with the name and date and freeze the chicken scarpariello for up to 4 months.
- To reheat chicken scarpariello, place it in a baking dish and let it stand while the oven preheats to 350 F (roughly 15 minutes). Cover the baking dish with foil and bake the leftover scarpariello until it is heated through and registers at least 165 F in the thickest pieces. This will take 15 to 20 minutes.
Chicken Scarpariello
- Prep Time: 18 minutes
- Cook Time: 52 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Chicken Thighs, Peppers, Italian Food
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 3 pounds chicken thighs, bone-in with skin (about 6 thighs)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 pound sweet Italian sausage
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 2 large bell pepper, multicolored, cut into strips
- 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence or an Italian blend
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 3/4 cup dry white wine
- 8 to 12 hot or sweet whole pickled Peppadew peppers or pepperoncini, or a mixture of both, with 1/4 cup of the pickling liquid
- 1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Pat the chicken thighs with paper towels to dry.
- Heat the olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat.
- Add the chicken thighs skin side down, and cook until the skin is golden brown and crisp, about 7 to 8 minutes, turn and cook for 3 minutes longer. Remove the chicken to a plate and set aside.
- Add the sausages to the pan and reduce the heat to medium; cook for about 4 minutes, turning once. Remove the sausages to a cutting board and slice each sausage into 2 or 3 pieces. Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.
- Add the sliced onions and bell peppers to the pan and place it over medium-high heat; cook for 4 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Reduce the heat to medium. Add the herbes de Provence and garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
- Add the wine and cook, scraping up any brown residue in the pan. Cook until the wine has reduced by about half, about 2 minutes.
- Add the pickled peppers with 1/4 cup of their liquid.
- Add chicken stock and sugar; stir and bring to a simmer.
- Return sausage to the pan and return the chicken, skin-side up.
- Return the chicken and sausages to the pan, nestling them into the into the vegetables.
- Place the skillet in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.