Chicken Scarpariello (Braised Chicken With Sausage and Peppers)

The Italian-American dish of chicken braised with sausage and peppers in a sweet-and-sour sauce is the perfect weeknight meal.

By
J. Kenji López-Alt
Kenji Lopez Alt
Culinary Consultant
Kenji is the former culinary director for Serious Eats and a current culinary consultant for the site. He is also a New York Times food columnist and the author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.
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Updated February 21, 2023

Why It Works

  • Intensely browning chicken thighs produces flavor for the whole dish.
  • Chicken thighs stay nice and tender while their skin crisps.
  • The liquid from a jar of pickled cherry peppers provides a vinegary base for the pan sauce.

Chicken scarpariello is one of those perfect Tuesday-night meals: packed with flavor, relatively healthy, easy, and made in a single skillet.

Chicken scarpariello in a round ceramic platter. The platter is on a maroon colored piece of cloth, and there is a broken loaf of bread on the left hand side of the image.

Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

I'm always wary of posting new recipes for Italian dishes. We've all had run-ins with the Authenticity Police—that organization whose mission is to preserve the sacred recipes of each member's specific grandparent. I haven't done a formal study, but anecdotally, I can say that the severity of their response seems to be directly correlated with the recipe source's proximity to the Mediterranean.

The Many Faces of Pollo allo Scarpariello

Luckily, by all accounts, pollo allo scarpariello—"shoemaker's chicken"—is Italian-American in origin, so hopefully I'm off the hook. It's a good thing, too, because as existing recipes go, this one is all over the map. Some, like this one from Deborah Mele of Italian Food Forever, bathe the chicken in a lemon-based sauce. Others include potatoes and bell peppers in a wine sauce. Most, but not all, include some form of Italian sausage.

My version of the dish stems from the first one I tasted, which was this recipe (warning: paywall), developed by my colleague Sandra Wu while I was working at Cook's Illustrated. It's pretty much in line with the versions I've tasted at various Italian-American restaurants around the Northeast: chicken flavored with pickled cherry peppers and sausage, in a sweet-hot-sour sauce. You could also look at it as a brother of my crispy braised chicken thighs with cabbage and bacon, with some flavor makeovers. The technique is nearly the same—that is to say, easy.

It's punchy, it's not for the timid, but it's ultimately very simple to make, requiring just a single straight-sided sauté pan or Dutch oven, about 25 minutes on the stovetop, and a half hour in the oven.

My Version of Pollo allo Scarpariello

Chicken scarpariello being scooped from the saute pan it's cooked in. A plate of Chicken scarpariello is next to the pan.

Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

Scarpariello is often made with a whole chicken cut into eight or 12 pieces. After trying it that way a couple times, I switched over to using only bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or legs. Breasts tend to dry out much more easily, and it's a bit too fiddly for a simple weeknight meal to fish out the breast pieces as they finish cooking, then add them all back in. Chicken thighs are packed with connective tissue, which means that they're very forgiving to cook. Even if you accidentally overcook them, they stay nice and juicy. Thighs are also great because that connective tissue breaks down and converts into gelatin, giving the sauce better body and flavor.

To start, I brown the chicken thighs deeply, with their skin side down, in order to get them crisp and to start building up fond—the tasty browned bits in the bottom of the pan—for my sauce base. Once the chicken is browned, I remove it and add a few whole Italian sausages to brown. Some recipes call for removing the sausage from its casings; I prefer to brown the sausage with the casing intact, then slice it into chunky pieces before braising it along with the chicken.

Once the sausage is browned, I add an onion and a bell pepper and sauté them until tender, then add a few sliced cloves of garlic and a couple tablespoons of minced fresh sage leaves. In the Cook's Illustrated version of this recipe, Sandra found that using a combination of a bell pepper and sliced pickled cherry peppers offered the best flavor, and I concur. You can use either sweet or hot pickled peppers, depending on your tolerance. (Using hot can make this dish spicy.)

Building A Tangy, Spicy Sauce

To get the sweet-and-sour flavor, I tried using straight-up vinegar mixed with sugar. That worked pretty well, but I realized as I was putting my cherry peppers back in the fridge that I was wasting an opportunity: The peppers come packed in a vinegary liquid that would otherwise get dumped down the drain.* Why not use it in my sauce? I tried it, and it worked a treat. The only thing to be careful of is that it's salty, so taste the dish before adding any extra seasoning at the end! A cup of dry white wine lends some complexity and brightness to the sauce, while chicken stock ensures that the pan doesn't get too dry during its pit stop in the oven.

*Or maybe used to brine chicken breasts for fried chicken sandwiches!

Transferring the pan containing chicken scarpariello to the oven.

Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

Once the vegetables are softened and the foundation for the sauce is formed, I nestle the sausage and chicken back into the pan, making sure the chicken skin stays above the liquid, then stick the whole thing in a 350°F (175°C) oven to braise for about 30 minutes. In this time, the chicken will tenderize and release juices into the pan as its skin crisps up even further. Meanwhile, the sausage cooks through, and the liquid reduces until it has the body and texture of a perfect pan sauce. The only work you have to do is wait. Maybe pour yourself a glass or two of the remaining wine.

But make sure to save some of that wine for the actual dinner. Or, just open another bottle. After all, this Tuesday night is not gonna entertain itself.

Chicken scarpariello on a serving plate next to the pan it's cooked in.

Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

January 2017

Recipe Details

Chicken Scarpariello (Braised Chicken With Sausage and Peppers) Recipe

Prep 15 mins
Cook 45 mins
Active 25 mins
Total 60 mins
Serves 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 pounds (1.15kg) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (6 to 8 thighs)

  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

  • 1 tablespoon (15ml) vegetable oil

  • 3 to 4 links sweet or hot Italian sausage (about 1 1/2 pounds; 700g)

  • 1 medium onion, thinly sliced (about 6 ounces; 170g)

  • 1 large red bell pepper, thinly sliced (about 6 ounces; 170g)

  • 2 tablespoons finely minced fresh sage leaves (about 1/4 ounce; 8g)

  • 6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

  • 8 hot or sweet pickled cherry peppers, thinly sliced, along with 1/4 cup (60ml) pickling liquid from the jar

  • 1 cup (240ml) dry white wine

  • 1 cup (240ml) homemade or store-bought low-sodium chicken stock

  • 2 tablespoons (28g) sugar

Directions

  1. Adjust oven rack to center position and preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Season chicken generously with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 4- to 5-quart straight-sided sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add chicken, skin side down, and cook, without moving, until well browned and crisp, about 8 minutes total, lowering heat if pan starts to smoke excessively. Flip chicken and brown lightly on second side, about 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to a large plate and set aside.

    A two-image collage. The top image shows seasoned chicken added, skin side down, to shimmering oil inside a stainless steel pan over medium-high heat. The bottom image shows the chicken flipped over, showing the skin is brown and crisped.

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

  2. Return skillet to heat without draining it and add sausage. Cook until well browned on first side, about 1 1/2 minutes, reducing heat if it starts smoking. Flip sausage and cook on second side until browned, about 1 1/2 minutes longer. Remove pan from heat, transfer sausage to a cutting board, and cut each link into 3 to 4 slices.

    A two-image collage. The top image shows sausage flipped over inside of the stainless steel pan, showing its begun to brown. The bottom image shows the browned sausage links cut into 3 to 4 slices each on a wooden cutting board. 

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

  3. Return pan to heat, add onion and bell pepper, and cook, stirring and scraping up browned bits with a wooden spoon, until softened and starting to brown, about 4 minutes. Add sage and garlic, stir to combine, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

    Sage and garlic combined with softened onion and bell pepper inside a stainless steel saute pan.

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

  4. Add pickled cherry peppers and their liquid, stirring and scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan with a wooden spoon. Add wine and cook until liquid is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add chicken stock and sugar, and stir to combine. Return sausage to pan, toss to combine, then return chicken pieces to pan skin side up, nestling them down among sauce, vegetables, and sausage.

    A four-image collage. The top left image shows pickled cherry peppers and their liquid added to a stainless steel pan, with any browned bits from bottom of pan scraped up. The top right image shows wine now added to the pan. The bottom left image shows the wine reduced by half inside of the pan. The bottom right image shows the browned chicken and cut up sausages added to the vegetables and reduced wine inside of the pan.

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

  5. Transfer to oven and cook until chicken is crisp and tender, about 30 minutes. Serve immediately, spooning sauce, vegetables, and sausage around chicken pieces.

    Crispy and tender chicken with sausages and reduced liquid inside of the stainless steel pan.

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

Special Equipment

Straight-sided sauté pan or Dutch oven

Notes

The pickling liquid from the jarred cherry peppers can also be used to brine chicken breasts for fried chicken sandwiches.

Read More

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
1260Calories
83gFat
29gCarbs
90gProtein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories1260
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 83g106%
Saturated Fat 28g138%
Cholesterol 391mg130%
Sodium 2158mg94%
Total Carbohydrate 29g11%
Dietary Fiber 3g10%
Total Sugars 15g
Protein 90g
Vitamin C 98mg491%
Calcium 117mg9%
Iron 6mg34%
Potassium 1449mg31%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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