Mama Palma’s Chicken Piccata

Chicken Piccata is an easy, delicious way to prepare chicken breasts, tenders, thighs – pretty much any part you prefer.  It’s covered in a delicious lemon/butter/white wine sauce that feels fancy, but is actually simple to make!  

Here’s what you will need:  Chicken breasts, thighs, tenders, whatever.  Lemons, white wine, capers, butter, olive oil, chicken (or vegetable stock), fresh parsley (dried is fine too).

A lot of recipes call for leaving the skin on the chicken, but for this recipe, I used boneless, skinless breasts. I cut the breasts in half and a couple of them were super thick, so I cut them in half that way as well. 

Start by generously seasoning the chicken with salt and pepper, then coat  them in flour.  Heat the olive oil and some butter (measurements below in the printable recipe card) and place the floured chicken in the pan.

Now cook until the chicken is nicely browned on both sides.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set it aside. 

Next,  make your sauce by adding lemon juice, chicken or vegetable stock, wine, and the capers to the pan.  Make sure you scrape up all the yumminess from the bottom of the pan, which is where a TON of flavor is hanging out.  Whisk this all together.   Now add a little more butter and whisk again.  Put the chicken back into the pan and let it simmer for about five minutes so that it can absorb all the wonderful flavor. Add  a big handful of fresh chopped parsley (or probably about a teaspoon of dried) into the pan.

The sauce is going to thicken up a bit because of the fat in the butter and also the flour that you coated the chicken in before you cooked it.  Also, you can substitute olives for capers if you don’t have them on hand. I usually serve this with pasta and a salad.  But you can serve it with roasted vegetables.  Or both.  Whatever you prefer! I hope that you will enjoy this dish as much as my family does!

Print Recipe

Chicken Piccata

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By Denise Palma – Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 2 Chicken breasts cut in half or 4 thighs (skinless or not - your preference),
• Salt and pepper,
• All purpose flour for dredging,
• 6 T butter,
• 5 T extra virgin olive oil,
• 1/3 c fresh lemon juice,
• 1/4 c chicken or vegetable stock,
• 1/4 c white wine,
• 1/4 capers - rinsed
• 1/3 c fresh parsley chopped (or a teaspoon of two of dried parsley)

Instructions

1

Season chicken generously with salt and pepper.

2

Dredge the chicken in all purpose flour.

3

Heat 2 T butter and 3 T extra virgin olive oil in a large saute pan. If cooking multiple pieces, you'll need to add 2 more T butter and 3 more T oil to cook the next batch.

4

When the oil and butter start to sizzle, add the chicken and cook about 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown and no pink is left.

5

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

6

Remove the pan from the heat and add lemon juice, wine, stock, and capers, scraping up all the flavor bits from the pan as you mix.

7

Whisk in a couple more tablespoons of butter.

8

Add chicken back into the pan and simmer for about 5 minutes.

9

Add fresh or dried parsley

10

Serve immediately.