The Best-Ever Chicken Piccata Recipe
After a long day, you just want to come home to a true comfort meal. Enter chicken piccata. In case you're unfamiliar with this classic Italian staple, piccata translates to "cooked in a lemon and butter sauce." And the dish is just that—juicy, thin pieces of chicken breast dredged in flour and smothered in a zesty lemon-butter sauce, then topped with capers for an extra burst of flavor.
With this recipe, you can have a chicken dinner on the table in about 30 minutes. Not to mention, you'll be using classic Italian ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. That's our idea of a perfect, healthy, weeknight dinner!
Pro tip: If you've finished the chicken but have some leftover piccata sauce, warm it up the next day and add cooked shrimp, or use it as a deliciously creamy pasta sauce for linguine. The sauce is so versatile, you'll want to come up with new ways to use it!
Makes 2 to 3 servings
Ingredients
3 chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
Granulated garlic, to taste
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp salted butter, plus more to taste
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups chicken stock
Juice of 2 lemons, plus 1 lemon, sliced
1/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup capers
How to Make It
- Clean chicken breasts and pat dry. Using a sharp knife, filet the breasts down the middle into six thin cutlets. Generously season each piece with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.
- Dredge each piece of chicken in flour and shake off any excess. Set aside.
- In a saucepan, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon salted butter over medium heat. Fry chicken in batches, about 4 minutes on each side, until each piece is browned. Remove from pan and set aside.
- To make the piccata sauce, add 1 tablespoon salted butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil, and sauté the minced garlic until it browns slightly. Scrape off the chicken bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken stock, lemon juice, wine, lemon rounds, and granulated garlic. Whisk and simmer, and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Once the sauce starts to bubble, add in the capers. Add the chicken back to the pan with the sauce, and let everything simmer for 5 minutes. Add more butter to thicken the sauce if needed.
