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Chicken Piccata is an easy family favourite recipe adding a garlic twist to an authentic Piccata!
Golden, crispy chicken breasts lightly dredged in flour and parmesan cheese, pan fried until a soft golden crust forms and finished off in a buttery, silky, lemon garlic sauce with capers and white wine or stock! It doesn’t get any better than this easy chicken piccata for dinner!
Chicken Piccata is such a popular American chicken dinner! Who doesn’t love soft, golden, juicy chicken swimming in a rich simple sauce?
Hello gorgeous…
How To Make Chicken Piccata
Chicken Piccata is normally dredged in plain flour, but like this Sheet Pan Lemon Parmesan Chicken recipe, I love dredging our chicken in a mixture of flour and parmesan cheese. Adding parmesan cheese to the flour adds an incredible flavour to the crust.
The chicken then gets fried in a butter/oil mixture. If you’ve never done this and only fried your chicken in oil, you don’t know what you’ve been missing! It creates the most beautiful, golden soft crust all over your chicken, you’ll be frying your chicken in butter/oil from now on! Guaranteed! The oil stops the butter from browning to quickly, while the butter prevents the oil from burning. It’s a win-win, really.
How To Make A Piccata Sauce
The sauce is so easy! All you need is:
- Garlic
- Lemon juice (freshly squeezed please)
- A good quality dry white wine (I normally cook with Pinot Grigio) — optional
- Chicken stock
- Butter
- Capers (also optional)
Once you’ve thrown all of those ingredients together in your pan, allow it all to boil for 6-8 minutes until it starts to reduce down. It WILL reduce down. If you’re anything like me and have the patience level of zero, you’ll be tempted to thicken the sauce with flour or cornstarch…but put down your flour! It will reduce and thicken slightly. Give it time. This step needs to happen to fuse all of those amazing flavours together.
The Best Chicken Piccata!
I have tried some recipes in the past and found them to be way too tart with too much lemon juice added in, or not enough sauce to drizzle over pasta. This recipe is one I’ve adjusted over time to make plenty of sauce to mop up with your pasta OR crusty garlic bread!
Serving Suggestions:
- Pasta
- Plain rice
- Mashed Potatoes!
Wine Suggestions:
- Pinot Grigio
- Reisling
- Rose
- Sav Blanc
Chicken Piccata Recipe Video!
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Garlic Chicken Piccata
Ingredients
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts large, halved horizontally to make 4
- 2 tablespoons flour all purpose or plain
- 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese fresh, finely grated
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cracked pepper
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter divided
- 2 tablespoons olive oil divided
- 4 cloves garlic large, minced
- 1/4 cup dry white wine can be omitted
- 3/4 cup chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1/4 cup brined capers rinsed
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped
- 1 pinch parmesan cheese to serve
Instructions
- In a shallow bowl, combine the flour and parmesan cheese. Season the chicken with salt and pepper; dredge in the flour mixture; shake off excess and set aside.
- In a large pan or skillet heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. When hot, fry 2 pieces of chicken first until golden on each side and cooked through (about 3-4 minutes each side, depending on the thickness of your chicken). Transfer to a warm plate.
- Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and another tablespoon of olive oil. When hot, fry the remaining chicken until browned on both sides. Transfer to plate.
- In the same pan, melt one more tablespoon of butter. Fry the garlic for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the wine and bring to a boil, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan for extra flavour. Cook until wine almost evaporates, stirring occasionally.
- Pour in the stock, lemon juice and capers and allow to boil until reduced slightly (about 6 minutes). Adjust salt and pepper if needed.
- Add remaining butter to the pan, allow to melt, then add chicken back into the pan along with all of the juices from the plate and simmer for 5 minutes to heat through.
- Garnish with parsley and serve immediately with parmesan cheese, if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This particular Chicken Piccata recipe is outstanding. I have made this a ton of times this year and it is PERFECT in our book. I do double the sauce bc as a side, I make fettuccini with garlic oil, asparagus (cut into 2″ slices) and halved grape tomatoes. I just warm it all together and serve as a side to the Chicken Piccata and scoop some off the sauce on the pasta. A small side salad and we’re set! Yummy! Thanks so much for your wonderful recipe!!!
Not to brag, but my wife just said that I have a new signature dish. Man, that was good! I highly recommend this recipe!
This obviously has been around for some time but I just recently found it and made it last night. OMG what a fantastic dish.
This was soo delish. My whole family loved it. Glad I came across it. Will be making it often. 🙂
This was the best chicken I have ever cooked! My whole family gobbled it down on top of wild rice with a simple green salad with blueberry balsamic vinegar that paired so nicely!
I made baguettes first using type 65 flour and while those beauties were baking, I did the prep. I followed your instructions and voila, excellent. My only addition to this recipe was adding shallots to the garlic. Everybody enjoyed this dish. Thanks.
This was the best chicken piccata I have ever had!
Just found you on Instagram!! Yay! Can I make this piccata ahead? I read you said parts of it? I have a party of 8 coming. Do I double the recipe and how can I make ahead? Thanks
I’ve made Chicken Piccatta a few times, but I liked the addition of garlic and parmesan. I made this last night and it was delicious. It will be my go to for chicken piccata, can also use this with flattened pork medallions, or veal too. thanks
I have made this identical recipe for veal piccata and it was fabulous. One of my guests for dinner that night was a chef and he stated that it was as good as his recipe. Max Linkin
Yes, I’ve tried this recipe and it is delicious but I need to fix this recipe for a man that has pancreatitis and cannot have oil or butter. So this now becomes a challenge and I see from all other websites no one has been able to produce almost the same results without frying or using butter or oil, and believe me I have searched. If you have any ideas I would greatly appreciate them!
Wow! That must be tough. Butter definitely gives it that mouth feel. I think I would air fry the chicken (almost last so it doesn’t become tough) then I would just use the chicken broth, wine and lemon juice with the garlic and capers. Maybe a little cornstarch our flour to thicken
This is exactly the recipe I’ve been looking for – one that uses both chicken stock and wine. I’ve winged piccata many times over the years, but now I have a solid reference point. Thank you so much!