Nothing satisfies like a hearty chicken stew with potatoes, and this one deserves a spot in your your dinner rotation. The chicken is fall-apart tender. There are lots of chunky fork-tender potatoes and briny kalamata olives. And everything is braised in amazing Greek-style, cinnamon spiced tomato sauce.
This dish exemplifies what I love about Greek cuisine: simple home cooking with big flavors.
Chicken and Potatoes Braised in Cinnamon Tomato Sauce
It's common practice in Greece to braise meat or chicken in tomato sauce. But not just any old tomato sauce. Greek style tomato sauce is unique, fragrant, and wonderful, flavored with cinnamon in addition to onions, garlic, and oregano.
The resulting meltingly tender Greek stews of beef or chicken are known as Kokkinisto (meaning "reddened") or Kapama (meaning "covered"). These rustic dishes are usually served over pasta or rice.
In this version of Greek Chicken Stew, I've used boneless chicken thighs and added potatoes, for an easy, family-friendly, one-pot dinner. This recipe requires only about 20 minutes of hands-on prep. You'll spend about ten minutes chopping and ten minutes or so browning the chicken and onions. After that, you can relax while dinner simmers away, filling your home with the most intoxicating aromas.
Why I Love This Recipe:
- One-Pot Wonder: Everything cooks in a single pot, making clean-up a breeze.
- The cinnamon-spiced tomato sauce is so good you'll want to smush up the potatoes into it, dip bread into it, eat it with a spoon like soup!
- Family-Friendly: Boneless chicken and potato wedges are irresistible, even to picky eaters. This stew is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
- Healthy - no butter or flour or unhealthy fats. Just pure wholesome ingredients.
- Great for special diets: Naturally gluten free and dairy free.
How to Make It
This delicious chicken stew can be on your table in just over an hour. Here's a quick overview of the cooking process starting with what you'll need:
- Chicken: boneless and skinless chicken thighs
- Aromatics: onion and garlic
- Wine: Dry white wine or vermouth
- Potatoes: Russets
- Tomatoes: good quality canned plum tomatoes and tomato paste
- Spices: Ground cinnamon, cinnamon stick, fresh or dried oregano, salt and pepper
- Olives: Pitted Kalamatas
- Fresh parsley: optional garnish
Step-By-Step Recipe Overview with Photos
Get all of your ingredients prepped and ready. This recipe goes pretty quickly once you start cooking: Peel the potatoes and slice them into wedges; season the chicken; chop the onion and garlic, open the tomatoes.
Brown the Chicken: Sear the boneless chicken thighs for a minute or two on each side, until golden, then transfer them to a plate.
Sauté Aromatics: In the same pot, cook the chopped onions and garlic until softened, then deglaze the pan with the white wine to capture all those flavorful browned bits.
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Simmer: Return the chicken to the pot. Add the potatoes, pureed (or hand-crushed) plum tomatoes, tomato paste, ground cinnamon, cinnamon stick, oregano, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
Finish Cooking: Add the olives and continue to cook low and slow for another 25 minutes, until the potatoes are fork-tender and the chicken is fall-apart tender.
Enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
This stew is delicious straight from the pot! Ladle it into shallow bowls, sprinkle fresh parsley on top, and enjoy.
As for sides, a hearty chicken stew with potatoes can always use a crisp, green salad as a companion. Here are a few of my favorites salad to pair this stew with:
- The Best Green Salad
- Butter Lettuce Salad with Citrus Honey Vinaigrette
- Kale Salad with Honey Lemon and Parmesan
You may also want to serve some warm crusty bread on the side, for soaking up the sauce. Our no-knead Dutch oven olive bread would be perfect!
Want to Make This Ahead?
Like most stews, it will be even more delicious the next day after the flavors have had more time to intermingle.
If you're interested in more recipes like this, we have a big collection of comforting stews from around the world. Here are just a few tempting stew recipe ideas to get you started:
If you try this Greek Chicken Stew Recipe, I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think!
PrintRecipe
Greek Chicken Stew with Potatoes Recipe
- Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
- Yield: 5 1x
Description
This Greek Chicken Stew with Potatoes is a satisfying one pot dinner that the whole family will love. Tender boneless chicken thighs and thick potato wedges stewed in Greek-style tomato sauce with olives, cinnamon and spices. Easy enough for a weeknight yet hearty and tasty enough for a special dinner.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
- 2 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 10 thighs)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large red onion, chopped
- 4 large garlic cloves, minced
- ¼ cup dry white wine
- 1 ½ pounds of russet potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges (3 medium potatoes)
- 1 28-ounce can plum tomatoes with juice, pulsed in a food processor or crushed by hand.
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- ¼ cup water
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano or 1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano leaves
- 18-20 pitted kalamata olives
- 3 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley, optional garnish
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Instructions
- Season chicken with 1 teaspoon of salt and ¼ teaspoon of pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat in a large heavy lidded pot or dutch oven. Brown the chicken in batches (it browns better if it's not crowded) for about 2 minutes per side and transfer to a plate.
- Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for a minute or so, until fragrant. Turn the heat down to medium and pour in the wine (carefully because it will sputter) and deglaze the pot, stirring and scraping up any browned bits with a wooden spoon.
- Add the chicken back to the pot along with the potatoes, pureed tomatoes, tomato paste, water, cinnamon, cinnamon stick, oregano, 1 teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper. Bring the stew to a boil and quickly turn the heat down low and gently simmer the stew, covered, for 20 minutes. Add the olives and cook, covered, for another 20-25 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
- Serve the stew hot, in shallow bowls, with fresh chopped parsley sprinkled on top.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Category: Stew
- Method: simmer
- Cuisine: Greek
This post was first published on July 18, 2020. It has been review and updated with new high resolution photos, more helpful details added to the written post including a section that gives an overview of the recipe with helpful process shots. The title of the recipe has been changed to more clearly represent the dish. The original title was "Greek Chicken and Potatoes in Tomato Sauce." The same delicious recipe!
Sharon
As a big fan of Greek dishes, I really had to try this one out.
... It absolutely didn't disappoint!
Talk about great comfort food, this is it!
The husband and I will for sure enjoy this delicious meal more often. 👌🏾☺️
Joseph
I did a little variation here . I had some thick cut pork medallions and two chicken breasts so I used them with potatoes and also carrots . Red wine ,tomato sauce , bay leaf cinnamon etc . Was really good .
Erin
Made exactly as instructed but subbed the wine for stock as I had a baby eating with us. Loved this recipe on a snowy day. Will be making it again!
Christine
I just happened to have everything in the recipe! Thank you for this! I started this after we ate this evening. It's about 90% done and in the refrigerator for dinner tomorrow. It smells so good in my house!
Diane Hilton
I've been looking for this recipe for some time - my late partner used to make this dish and haven't been able to replicate, until now! Thank you delicious in many ways
Lisa Goldfinger
I'm so glad you found what you were looking for with this recipe Diane!
Ronnie
I haven’t eaten it yet, but I made my own homemade greek sauce from scratch, and your precise recipe and it taste amazing, I crushed my olives and tomatoes by hand and probably added a 1/2 cup of white wine, I’m poss it is going to be great
Lisa Goldfinger
I hope you enjoyed this as much as you expected to 🙂
k
700 cals per bowl? you are sure?
Dorothea
What size Dutch Oven did you use? You call for 5 pounds of thighs at 20 thighs. That sounds like enough chicken for 20 people! What am I missing? One package of 4 thighs would mean I need five packages of chicken?
Lisa
Hi Dorothea - I think you must have clicked on the "double the recipe" button. This recipe calls for 2 1/2 pounds of thighs. I agree that 5 pounds would be too much!
Kathryn
This is terrific! My husband is a fussy eater, so I didn’t add the olives. Next time, I’m going to get some olives for me. I always wondered what made Greek tomato sauce so good. Cinnamon!
Lisa
Isn't cinnamon wonderful in tomato sauce?! I'm so glad you liked the Greek chicken and potatoes!
Jane
This was so good! It took a little longer than 10 minutes to prep - I'm a slow chopper. But it's a pretty easy recipe and the whole family loved it. It was even better heated up the next day. A definite keeper!
Lisa
I agree about the leftovers! I'm so glad you and your family enjoyed.
Nick @ GreekBoston.com
We make this Greek chicken dish all the time in our household. It's one of those great dishes that has plenty of leftovers, too. I like to add a little chopped parsley to garnish just before serving it.
Ann
Will chicken breasts work with the recipe?
Lisa
Hi Ann, I would assume so. Chicken breasts will cook a little faster than thighs so I suggest you cut the potatoes smaller and check the chicken for doneness 15 minutes after you add the olives. Also make sure you simmer the stew gently so the chicken stays nice and tender.
Brian
This looks incredible! I can’t wait to make it. Thanks for sharing.