Chicken Piccata is a quick dinner comprised of a crispy pan seared chicken breast with a Lemon Butter Caper Sauce. This chicken has a bright, lemony sauce that’s just on the right side of tangy. It’s incredibly easy and amazingly tasty!
Chicken Piccata
I realise it sounds totally obnoxious to call this a “better” Chicken Piccata. I should clarify and say that this is a better one to me. This dish is a wildly popular Italian-American classic that I’ve tried making over the years following other recipes. I’ve just never been impressed with the results though, leaving me feeling that I’m somehow missing out on the enjoyment of this dish. I always found the lemon sauce mouth-puckeringly sour to the point of wincing. I also felt it just didn’t have enough interesting flavour in it to carry a somewhat bland chicken.
So many recipes also called for an insane amount of butter and oil. Sometimes up to half a cup! What the … ??
My butt cannot afford that much fat for what’s supposed to a quick, midweek meal!
So this is my version of Chicken Piccata. The sauce is not as sour – I dial it in to just the right amount of lemon tang. I use less fat than most recipes too, and reduce the white wine through cooking to add complexity in the sauce. And as for the chicken? Add a dusting of parmesan. It makes it so much tastier!
What goes in (my) Chicken Piccata
So here’s what you need:
Chicken breast – 2 breasts will serve 3 to 4 people once we cut each piece into 3 and pound into thin steaks. You could also use thigh fillets (skinless boneless) or tenderloins;
Lemon – You need a fresh lemon here. Kind of defeats the purpose if you try to make this with bottled lemon juice!
White wine – Use any dry white wine that’s not too woody, too sweet or fruity. Chardonnay is particularly great because it adds a good amount of flavour.
The wine doesn’t make the sauce taste winey at all because we reduce it right down to cook the alcohol out and just leave behind the concentrated flavour that adds depth to the sauce.
Don’t use an expensive wine. The flavour and aroma that you pay for is largely lost during cooking. It’s pretty well documented these days by notable food authorities (such as New York Times Cooking) that you do not need to use expensive wines for cooking.
Substitution: If you can’t consume alcohol, use low sodium chicken stock/broth;
Capers – Use capers in brine, drained. The capers in salt (ie no liquid) are a little too salty to use here;
Butter – For cooking and also for the sauce;
Olive oil – For cooking the chicken; and
Flour & parmesan – For dusting the chicken. Don’t skip this. It gives the chicken a crust that the sauce clings to. Without it, the sauce just slips off the chicken. (PS The additional of parmesan here is a trick that makes this Chicken Piccata a standout!).
How to make Chicken Piccata
Chicken Piccata is a straight forward, pretty quick recipe:
Pound chicken so they cook evenly;
Dust with flour > pan sear until golden; and
Make sauce in same pan (takes 3 maybe 4 minutes).
Cut and pound chicken – Cut each chicken breast into 3 pieces. Then pound each piece until it is 1/2cm / 0.2″ thick. I use a meat mallet and place the chicken between baking/parchment paper, cling wrap or what is called “Go-Between” which is a freezer film used to keep food from sticking together in the freezer. It’s basically like freezer bags in roll form.
If using tenderloin, there is no need to cut, just pound each piece. If using thigh fillets, halve then pound;
Dust chicken – Drizzle chicken with oil, then coat with the flour and parmesan. Press the chicken into the mixture to make it stick. Shake off excess well.
See comment under the Ingredients above for why a flour-parmesan coating is essential here!
Pan fry chicken in butter and oil until golden, amount 3 minutes. Turn, then cook the other side for 1 minute until golden (I know that sounds odd, 3 minutes then 1 minute, but the 2nd side really does cook much faster than the 1st side!). Once cooked, remove from the pan;
Clean skillet – The skillet will be a bit dirty which will tarnish what is supposed to be a clean, clear sauce. So before we proceed, it’s best to clean the skillet. Pour out the excess fat from the pan, then give it a quick wipe with a paper towel. No need to be meticulous here;
Reduce wine – To make the sauce, add the white wine and simmer rapidly to reduce by half. In this step, the alcohol will cook out so you won’t have any boozy flavour in the sauce. Then add lemon and bring to a simmer;
Swirl in butter – Turn down heat to low, then add cubes of butter and swirl it to make it melt. This makes the butter emulsify with the wine and lemon juice to form a glossy, clear, slightly thickened sauce. The sauce would not thicken as well and it would split if you let the butter bubble and melt over high heat;
Capers & parsley – To finish the sauce, add in capers and parsley; and
Serve! Then serve the chicken pieces with the Lemon Butter Sauce. You’ll notice that there is not a ton of sauce. You don’t need loads, the sauce has enough flavour. From a practical perspective, the flour-parmesan crust of the chicken gets soaked with the sauce, and that’s all you need really, to enjoy this dish. (And regular readers know I’m a Sauce Girl!).
Serve this with your starchy side of choice and a side salad to get some greens on your plate. Choose from:
Some suggestions for you:
Enjoy! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Chicken Piccata (Lemon Chicken with Capers)
Ingredients
- 450g / 16oz chicken breast (2 large pieces), skinless boneless (Note 1)
- 4 tbsp flour (sub cornflour/cornstarch for GF)
- 2 1/2 tbsp parmesan , finely grated (Note 2)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp / 15g unsalted butter
Lemon Sauce:
- 2 tbsp / 30g unsalted butter , cut into 1.5cm / 1/2″ cubes
- 2/3 cup dry white wine (Note 3)
- 2 tbsp lemon juice , fresh
- 3 tbsp capers in brine , drained (Note 4)
- 1 1/2 tsp parsley , finely chopped, plus more for garnish
Instructions
Crispy Parmesan Chicken:
- Cut each breast into 3 pieces. Then place between 2 pieces of cling wrap or paper and pound to 1/2 cm / 0.2″ thickness.
- Drizzle chicken with 1/2 tbsp olive oil and spread with your fingers on both sides.
- Mix flour, parmesan, salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Coat chicken, pressing to adhere, then shaking off excess.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Then add butter and let it melt.
- Place 3 pieces of chicken in the skillet. Cook 3 – 4 minutes until golden, then turn and cook the other side for 1 minute. Remove onto plate, repeat with remaining chicken.
Chicken Piccata Sauce:
- Pour out and discard excess fat in skillet, then give it a quick wipe with paper towels (no need to clean thoroughly).
- Still on medium high heat, add wine. Let it simmer rapidly until it reduces by half – around 3 minutes.
- Add lemon and simmer 1 minute.
- Reduce heat to low. Add cubed butter and swirl pan to make it melt but not go foamy. Sauce should be glossy, translucent and slightly thickened.
- Stir in capers and parsley. Serve chicken with Sauce, sprinkled with extra parsley if desired!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
When life gives you lemons …
Life of Dozer
He’s so stinky, I should put him in for dry cleaning too!
I bet Dozer thought he smelled Top Dog! But I don’t think putting him into a dry cleaners would be very fair on him or the dry cleaners. Sentence him to the beach and then a good bath.
I have some sliced turkey breast fillets and am hoping they will work as well as the chicken version.
Where has this recipe been all my life? Made it for dinner tonight, and we practically licked our plates clean. Crispy chicken, lemony sauce, and it cooks up so quickly! Good enough to serve to company 🙂
Cooked this tonight and it was delicious! Chicken was moist, the lemon flavour was subtle and the capers did not over-salt the dish.
However the video shows significantly more caper lemon sauce than we ended up with – what did we do wrong? Just a hint please for the next time we cook this (which is guaranteed!).
The crispy skin salmon first caught my eye but now it’s everything. Seriously, if I’m craving it I always find the best recipe here.
I really loved this delicious yet simple recipe. Im also going to try it with snapper fillets (minus the cheese on the crust).
What a satisfying meal. Couldn’t have been better. Restaurant quality. Keep these coming.
Chicken picatta is one of my favorite dishes and find making it at home is better than what I find in most restaurants. I tried this recipe versus my favorite version I’ve had for years. This was AMAZING! This has now become the family fav! Thank you!!! Adding the parm to the flour mix is a game changer. I didn’t scrap the bits before making the sauce, I find that gives it more flavor. 🙂
This is my husband’s favorite meal and out of so many recipes I decided to make this one. He loved it. Finished it all!
This was delicious and very easy! I used very thin chicken cutlets which were thinner than 1/2 cm. The next time I make it, I will double or triple the sauce. The chicken came out very tender and flavorful. I will definitely be making this again.
Really lovely recipe! So flavourful and zingy! I could have licked the pan to get all the lemony saltiness again when I cleared up!
A very nice recipe. I’d already bought thinly sliced chicken breasts, which were in my freezer. So this was part of my “clean the freezer out” mission. I followed the recipe exactly, and it was quite tasty. However, because of a sautéd zucchini side dish I made (butter, oil, thyme, garlic salt, and smoked paprika cooked until it was almost burned), some of those flavors mingled with the piccata sauce and made it dance. This prompts me to want to try adding smoked paprika to the flour/parmesan mix. I also served it with white basmati rice, which loved the sauces as well. All in all, a great dish and a great meal.
Easy, peasy and doesn’t get much better in a resturant or at home. Delish! Thanks Nagi
I forgot the parm! This was delicious and the sauce was spot on. Definitely a keeper.
Oh well! I’m glad you still enjoyed it Marbleless!! N x
Delicious! Great, tender chicken and a perfect sauce. I am not a person of wheat or corn so I subbed some gluten-free all-purpose flour. It came out great! Thanks so much for another great recipe.
This chicken piccata recipe was easy and the best my husband and I have ever had! Even the leftovers were absolutely delicious two days later! I didn’t have white wine, so I substituted with red wine vinegar and chicken broth and because it came out so good, I will keep the recipe this way. Save the wine for me. 😆 This is now on my list of regular dishes to make!
I love it…saving the wine – my kind of person!! N x
I have never made chicken piccata before it was easy and yummy 😋
This was best and easiest chicken piccata I have ever tried! The sauce is so delicious! I doubled the sauce, and glad I did. I have a question: when I first found your recipe, I could swear there was a link to a buttered noodles recipe as a side dish. It was to die for!! I can’t find it now on the site, would you help me find it? Thank you and keep sharing more delicious recipes!
This is a delicious way of serving up chicken. Capers and lemon go so well together with chicken. Yummy dish
Nagi,
I clearly missed something that others seem to have figured out. After you cook the chicken for 3 min and then 1 min. You take out the chicken and clean the pan. When do you add the chicken back into the pan? Before you add the wine or at the end? Chicken has to cook longer than 4 minutes. So confused!
Hi, Lisa. I used chicken tenderloins and pounded them a little bit, so they were all the same size. I cooked the chicken as the recipe instructed, and had no trouble getting the chicken cooked. You could always just cook the chicken in the skillet until it is done.
Absolutely delicious! 10/10 from my kids too 😄
I am happy that you liked it Mel! N x