Slow Cooker Spanish Chicken

If you want a bold, bright dish packed with Mediterranean flavours, this Slow Cooker Spanish Chicken recipe is perfect. Tender chicken thighs are slow cooked with tomatoes, chorizo, olives, cannellini beans and garlic for a delicious meal. Perfect served up with rice or potatoes, and naturally gluten and dairy free.

This Spanish Chicken Stew has to be one of my favourite ‘dump and go’ slow cooker recipes ever. It’s so simple and SO tasty.

This easy Mediterranean chicken stew features a rice tomato sauce flavoured with red wine, garlic and smoked paprika.

The tender chicken thighs are slow cooked to perfection with chorizo, olives, cannellini beans and onion, for a flavour-packed summer stew.

This is actually my favourite slow cooker recipe to make when the weather starts to turn autumnal. It’s proper comfort food but tastes like the memories of summer!

Pair this Crock Pot Spanish Chicken Stew with gluten free flatbreads for dipping, loaded in a Air Fryer Baked Potato or even with some fresh gluten free focaccia bread.

If you love this recipe, be sure to check out all my other gluten free slow cooker recipes, including my Slow Cooker Satay Chicken and Harissa Chicken Stew.

Ingredients

There’s a printable recipe card for this gluten free Spanish chicken below. But for the shopping list you will need…

• Chicken Thigh Fillets: I tend to use boneless skinless chicken thigh fillets for ease. But this would be equally delicious with cheaper, bone-in chicken thighs too. If you’re using skin-on thigh fillets, I recommend searing the skin in a hot pan before adding to the slow cooker so it goes nice and crispy.
• Green Olives: These add a delicious umami flavour to this Spanish stew and are such a delicious staple in Spanish cooking.
• Cannellini Beans: Adding tinned beans is a great way to make a recipe go further, add more fibre and more protein. They’re cheap and easy – you can use different beans like butter beans, if you prefer.
• Tinned Tomatoes: Canned diced tomatoes form the base of this sauce.
• Onion
• Vegetable Stock Pot: I use a Knorr vegetable stock pot for flavour, and all their stock cubes and pots are gluten free. You can use any gluten free stock cube or stock pot you like – chicken or vegetable both work well.
• Chorizo: Always double check there is no gluten (or dairy if you need it to be dairy free) in your chorizo. Most brands are fine.
• Garlic: Use frozen chopped garlic, fresh minced garlic or a garlic paste.
• Red Wine: If you want to omit this you can replace it with an equivalent amount of water (I use this to rinse out the tomato tin!)
• Tomato Puree: (Tomato paste) This helps add a richness to the tomato sauce.
• Smoked Paprika: For those bold, smoky Spanish flavours.

How to make slow cooker Spanish chicken

There’s a printable recipe card below with the method. But here are some step-by-step photos to show you how easy this slow cooker Spanish chicken is to make:

Finely chop the onion, dice the chorizo and drain the cannellini beans. If you want to, you can sear the chicken thighs (especially if using skin-on thighs) in a hot pan first.

You can also fry the chorizo off first, but again this is not necessary.

This recipe is designed to be a ‘dump and go’ crock pot recipe. You can literally just chuck everything in and leave the slow cooker to work its magic.

Add everything into the slow cooker and mix together well. Make sure the chicken pieces are submerged in the sauce and completely covered.

Place the lid on and cook on low for 5-6 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours. Stir well and then serve with rice, potatoes and extra green vegetables.

It also goes really well with some gluten free crusty bread for mopping up that sauce!

Storing and Freezing

This crockpot Spanish Chicken is so easy to make for meal prep of batch cooking. You can make up extra to store for another meal – or freeze.

To Store: Let the stew cool completely, portion into tubs and keep in the fridge for up to 3 days. You can eat this cold or reheat thoroughly before eating.

To Freeze: Portion the cooled Spanish chicken into tubs, label and freeze for up to 6 months. You can reheat these directly from frozen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some FAQs about this easy bagel recipe – if you can’t find the answer to your question here or in the post above, please comment and I’ll try answer!

If you make this recipe and love it, please do let me know by tagging me on my Instagram or using #theglutenfreeblogger. You can also share your creations in my Facebook group! And please do leave a 5* review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ to let others know you loved it too! It would mean the world to me and really helps support my website.