10 Crockpot Italian Chicken Dinners

These crockpot Italian chicken dinners are the ones I make when I want the house to smell like garlic by four o’clock.

From chicken parmesan over spaghetti to a creamy Tuscan chicken, chicken marsala, and a bruschetta chicken for summer, they all lean on a jar of marinara, a block of parmesan, and time.

Here are the ten on rotation!

Italian food and the slow cooker get along because the sauces want a long simmer anyway.

A jar of marinara that’s cooked around chicken for four hours tastes like it was made from scratch, and that’s most of what’s going on in this post.

1. Chicken Parmesan

Breaded chicken breasts cook in marinara, and mozzarella and parmesan go on top for the final half hour until they melt.

The breading softens into the sauce, so it’s less crunchy than the skillet version and more like a chicken parm casserole, and I like it better that way.

Spaghetti underneath, and more sauce from the crock spooned over.

This is a birthday-dinner request in my house!

2. Chicken Marsala

Mushrooms, garlic, and marsala wine cook down around the chicken into a sauce that’s rich, a little sweet, and dark.

A little cream stirred in at the finish is optional, and I’m on the side of adding it.

Use dry marsala from the wine aisle, not the cooking wine near the vinegar, which is mostly salt.

Over fettuccine or mashed potatoes, with the mushrooms piled on top.

3. Italian Chicken and Potatoes

Chicken breasts, baby potatoes, and green beans, all cooked together with Italian seasoning, garlic, butter, and a little parmesan.

It’s a full plate out of one crock, and the morning prep is about ten minutes.

Keep the green beans in their own corner so you can pull them at the three-hour mark if they’re done before the potatoes.

A little more parmesan over everything at the table.

4. Chicken Cacciatore

Hunter’s chicken, the old-fashioned way, with bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes braised around bone-in thighs.

A splash of red wine and a few olives make it taste like it took all day, which it did, but not your day.

The chicken falls off the bone and the vegetables collapse into the sauce, and it’s the most forgiving recipe here.

Pappardelle, polenta, or crusty bread, depending on the night.

5. Creamy Tuscan Chicken

Sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, spinach, and parmesan in a cream sauce, and the chicken braises in it until the side of a fork goes through.

The spinach goes in for the last ten minutes, and the cream goes in at the end too, so it doesn’t split.

I make it for guests, because it’s ready before they get here and I’m not stuck at the stove.

Fettuccine, a big pile, since the sauce is what everyone wants more of.

6. Balsamic Chicken

Balsamic vinegar, garlic, honey, and Italian herbs, with cherry tomatoes that burst into the sauce over the afternoon.

It’s tangy and a little sweet, and lighter than the creamy recipes, so it’s what I make in the warm months.

Boil the sauce down on the stove for a few minutes once the chicken is out, and it goes from thin to glossy.

Roasted potatoes or a big green salad, and it’s dinner outside if the weather holds.

7. Bruschetta Chicken

Chicken cooked in garlic and Italian dressing, then piled with a fresh tomato, basil, and balsamic topping right before serving.

The topping never cooks, and that’s what makes it, cool and bright against the warm chicken.

Mozzarella melts on at the end, and I do that under the broiler for two minutes when I want color.

Angel hair pasta or garlic bread, and the tomatoes go on everything.

8. Chicken Piccata

Lemon, capers, butter, and white wine, and the chicken braises until the sauce is sharp and buttery at once.

Add the lemon juice at the end and not the start, or it turns bitter over the long cook.

It’s the lightest recipe of the ten and my pick on a hot night.

Angel hair or a pile of steamed asparagus, with the capers spooned over.

9. Creamy Italian Chicken and Orzo

Chicken, Italian seasoning, garlic, and broth, with dry orzo that cooks right in the crock for the last thirty minutes and turns the whole thing creamy on its own.

Parmesan and a splash of cream at the end, and it’s risotto-like without the stirring.

Watch the orzo, because it goes from done to gluey in about ten minutes.

A bowl, a spoon, and a little more parmesan, and nothing else needed.

10. Marry Me Chicken Orzo

The sun-dried tomato cream sauce from marry me chicken, cooked with orzo into a one-pot dinner.

Chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and broth cook first, then the orzo and cream go in near the end, and the parmesan melts through it.

It’s richer than the Italian orzo above and a little more special, so it’s my pick for a Friday or a date night in.

Notes on Italian Chicken in a Slow Cooker

Chicken breasts are done after three or four hours on low in a tomato sauce and go stringy past that, and thighs handle five or six hours without complaint.

Cream, parmesan, and spinach all go in during the last fifteen to thirty minutes, and lemon juice at the very end, because a long cook turns each of them bitter or grainy.

A jar of good marinara, the kind with olive oil in the first three ingredients, is the difference between a decent dinner and a great one, and I keep a few jars of the good stuff in the pantry.

Grate parmesan from a block with a microplane, because the pre-grated kind doesn’t melt into the sauce.

Dry pasta goes in the crock only in the orzo recipes, and everything else gets its pasta boiled separately in a big stock pot, timed to finish when the chicken does.

A 6-quart oval slow cooker fits four breasts in one layer, which is what you want for the cheesy ones so every piece gets a lid of mozzarella.

The tomato-based ones freeze well for three months, and the cream ones are better eaten within three days.

More Crockpot Chicken on the Site

My crockpot chicken alfredo pasta is the eleventh Italian chicken dinner, and it has its own post because it gets made that often.

The crockpot meals with chicken breast that don’t dry out post covers the timing behind every breast recipe above.

And the slow cooker chicken and dumplings is where I go when I want comfort food that isn’t Italian.