What Pasta to Serve with Chicken Cacciatore (10 Options)

Chicken cacciatore is a rustic, Italian dish that’s perfect for a cold winter night.

It’s also incredibly versatile: you can pair it with a variety of pasta shapes, and it’ll taste great every time.

Read Also: Chicken Cacciatore Wine Pairing – Best Wines for Chicken Cacciatore

We’ve rounded up our ten favorite kinds of pasta to serve with chicken cacciatore, so you can make the most of your next batch!

What Pasta to Serve with Chicken Cacciatore?

A great choice would be penne pasta. This pasta shape is usually preferred for chicken cacciatore, because it’s long and thin which makes it easy to cook and eat. It’s also a good option for people who like to enjoy their pasta in one big, hearty serving.

Still looking for more?

Then just keep scrolling!

1. Ziti

One of our favorites is ziti, a delicious and flavorful pasta that goes well with chicken cacciatore.

It’s a great choice because it has a robust flavor, which can stand up to the spicy sauce in the chicken cacciatore without being too heavy or overpowering.

We particularly enjoy this combination when we’re cooking at home, but if you’re looking for something a little different then perhaps you should try serving them with spaghetti instead?

This will provide you with more texture as well as some extra crunchiness from the noodles themselves.

You may also want to add some fresh herbs such as basil or oregano into the mix before serving up your meal.

These will complement the rich taste of both dishes beautifully! Plus they’ll give your dish some added health benefits too since many herbs are packed full of vitamins C and A – both which help boost immunity (and who doesn’t want that?).

2. Bucatini

The best pasta to serve with chicken cacciatore is bucatini.

If you want to try out this type of pasta, then check out these bucatini pasta recipes.

When you’re looking for a pasta dish that can stand up to a rich sauce, you need something that will soak up the juices and provide a perfect texture-balance between the softness of the sauce and the springy firmness of the pasta noodles.

That’s what makes bucatini so special.

The hollow spaghetti-like noodles of this pasta variety can soak up the juices and carry them through the meal, providing an incredibly rich experience in every spoonful.

Bucatini is also easy to prepare and gives you a little wiggle room when it comes to cooking—you don’t have to worry about overcooking because it’s not mushy.

Just make sure you check on it every couple minutes or so, especially if you’re keeping it on low heat.

3. Farfalle

Farfalle pasta holds up well to sauces and is able to hold the sauce inside its folds.

It also gives you the ability to scoop the chicken and vegetables onto the pasta, which means you don’t have to make a whole forkful of food at once: just one bite, and you’ll get all the flavor components of this dish.

Farfalle can be made in a variety of ways, too: it holds up well when lightly buttered and served with some cheese grated on top, or it can stand up to a heavier tomato-based sauce like marinara or alfredo.

4. Rigatoni

Rigatoni (See this article for the best rigatoni pasta sauces) is the perfect companion to chicken cacciatore.

It’s got a larger diameter than spaghetti, and so it feels like a more filling meal, but it’s still got that smooth texture that you want in a pasta.

The sauce will cling beautifully to the ridges, and the whole dish will just feel right.

If you’re looking for a little bit more crunch, consider adding some breadcrumbs to this dish—they’ll soak up the sauce and add some tasty texture.

And don’t forget about the cheese! Grated parmesan or pecorino romano are great options for this dish.

Not only will rigatoni make your chicken cacciatore work in a way that other pastas just can’t achieve—it’ll also help you keep your figure and stay healthy.

So don’t think twice about choosing it for your next meal!

5. Cavatappi

Cavatappi is a type of pasta that can be used in so many different dishes.

The shape of this pasta is great for chicken cacciatore because it holds the sauce really well—the ridges and twists of the pasta are perfect for getting all that rich, tomatoey goodness into every bite.

And if you’re worried about your kids picking the chicken out and leaving behind the rest, this is a great way to get them to eat it: they’ll love the fun, twirly shape!

To make it even better, we recommend throwing in some vegetables like zucchini or fresh spinach—it’ll add color, flavor, and nutrients.

Serve with a side salad or garlic bread, and you’ve got yourself a meal!

Nutritional information: 1 cup of cooked cavatappi has 190 calories, 1g fat (0g saturated), 37g carbs, and 7g protein.

Don’t forget to check out these tasty cavatappi recipes.

6. Gemelli

Gemelli is a great pasta shape because it can handle the weight of this heavy sauce.

Another thing to keep in mind when choosing your pasta?

Size!

Chicken cacciatore is pretty hearty, so you want to make sure your past is big enough to hold its own when it’s smothered in that delicious sauce. 

The nice thing about gemelli is that it’s not only a great carb vehicle for the sauce; it also offers some nutritional benefits!

Gemelli is one of the more popular whole wheat pastas on the market, which means you’ll be getting plenty of fiber and nutrients that are stripped out during the production of white pasta.

7. Spaghetti

Spaghetti offers more surface area for the sauce to stick to, which means more flavor for you with every bite.

It pairs so well with chicken cacciatore that if you close your eyes and take a bite, it’ll be like the two were made for each other (because they were).

To make this garlic-heavy meal sing, add a pinch of salt to the water before adding your spaghetti.

Also make sure to use a coarse grind of pepper when seasoning the chicken cacciatore, and serve with a sprinkle of fresh parsley on top.

To get perfect al dente spaghetti every time, bring your water to a boil in a pan large enough to accommodate all your pasta.

Salt liberally and add your spaghetti. Stir often and cook until al dente (test by tasting).

8. Fusilli

I love fusilli as a good pasta option for chicken cacciatore.

It’s got a nice texture—a little bit of a bite. The way it winds around is perfect for getting hold of some of the veggies and meat in this dish.

The best way to make this work is to use a simple sauce, so that the textural qualities of the fusilli aren’t lost in a sea of tomato or cream.

You still want your main course to shine!

If you’re not sure how to cook the pasta, just follow these easy steps:

1. Cook the grains according to package instructions.
2. Drain them well when they’re finished cooking.
3. Toss with your cacciatore and serve!

9. Orecchiette

Orecchiette is a perfect match for the way that chicken cacciatore is full of hearty vegetables, rich tomato sauce, and savory meat.

Orecchiette is a type of pasta that has a cup-like shape and holds sauce perfectly.

Check out these orecchiette pasta recipes for inspiration.

Orecchiette is also easy to make yourself at home.

To make orecchiette, you can use a soup spoon to shape balls of semolina flour dough into little cups on a floured cookie sheet.

Then you can let the cups dry out on the cookie sheet until they’re hard enough to remove from the sheet without falling apart.

From there, you can boil them in salted water for about six minutes and strain them before serving.

10. Elbows

Elbows are a great pasta to serve with chicken cacciatore.

They’re solid, so they hold all of the sauce and meat in them, but they’re also delicate enough that you don’t have to chew through a tiny hole.

Not sure how to make those two things work?

Here are some tips:

• Put the elbows into the sauce before you serve it to make sure they soak up as much as possible.
• If you feel like the elbows aren’t holding enough of the sauce, add some more tomato and extra chicken stock—and make sure you sprinkle in some oregano.
• Serve this at room temperature when you’re having a picnic or potluck, or go for warm if you want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie on a cold night.

Choosing the Right Pasta to Serve with Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken cacciatore is a rich, hearty dish that’s perfect for cool fall nights.

It’s easy to make and guaranteed to warm you up.

The only problem?

Finding the right pasta to serve it with.

The first thing to consider when making this decision is what kind of sauce your chicken cacciatore has.

Is it a creamy sauce, or is there more of a tomato base?

If it’s a creamy sauce, you’ll want a pasta that isn’t going to compete with the creaminess—or worse, cause it to curdle.

You’ll also want noodles that will soak up some of the richness and flavor of the sauce to create a balanced dish.

Here are a few tips:

1. Familiarize Yourself with Your Options

Penne is long, spaghetti is long and thin, rigatoni is short and tube-shaped, and farfalle (or “bowtie” pasta) is flat and bowtie-shaped.

There are so many more options!

Take some time to look at restaurant menus and see what kinds of pasta they use for their chicken cacciatore, if any.

2. Consider Thinner Pastas Like Fettuccine or Linguine

If you’re using a heavy sauce, you don’t want too dense of a pasta—because it’ll be too heavy for the sauce to cling to!

Thinner pastas can be easier for the sauce to coat, resulting in a better experience for everyone involved.

3. Is It a Dinner Party?

If you’re serving this dish at a dinner party, don’t go for spaghetti—it’s harder to twirl around on your fork than other shapes of pasta.

Fusilli or penne are great options because they hold sauces well, and they’re easy to eat without making a mess.

4. Consider Your Audience

Are you serving a simple, family dinner?

If so, you probably want to choose a simpler pasta like spaghetti or penne.

But if you’re making it for a date night, consider choosing a more elegant shape like fusilli or cavatappi to create a fancier presentation.

5. Choose the Right Sauce

Chicken cacciatore can be made with either marinara or white wine sauce.

If you’re using marinara sauce, consider choosing a pasta shape with a lot of nooks and crannies like rotini (see also these tasty rotini pasta recipes) or fusilli so that the sauce can really stick to it.

If you’re using white wine sauce, consider choosing an open pasta shape like linguine or bucatini that will allow for more of the delicate flavor of the sauce to really come through.

6. Think About Texture

Some pastas feature ridges or holes, and others are flat or round.

These shapes can affect how the sauce adheres to the noodles.

You can vary your choice based on how you want the sauce to cling to the noodles.

For example, if you want each bite of pasta to be coated in sauce, choose a round noodle such as penne or rotini.

If you want small pools of sauce to gather between ridges or holes in the pasta, try fusilli (corkscrews) or farfalle (bowties).