Simple and fresh, this Chicken Piccata is ready in about 30 minutes. Company worthy but easy enough for any weeknight meal.
Lemon Chicken Piccata is such a popular main dish and it’s easy to see why. The flavors are so bright and fresh with a beautiful presentation that makes it company-worthy. Best of all, it’s incredibly easy and almost fool-proof, even the most novice home cook can turn out a palatable version. But this version from America’s Test Kitchen is more than just palatable. It’s simply delicious.
Ingredients in Chicken Piccata-
The headliners in this recipe are fresh lemons with their juices, creamy butter, briny nonpareil (small) capers and a touch of garlic.
Starting with fresh lemon slices, these should be sliced very thin so they can quickly become softened when cooking because you’ll want to eat them, skin and all.
Tiny capers; what a peculiarity these squeeky little poppers are… capers are unopened flower buds from a Mediterranean shrub and they have a clean, almost pickle-y flavor that works well in so many Italian dishes. “Nonpareils” as you’ll see them labeled most often, just means they are the smallest version of buds. Larger capers are called grusas. These are twice the size and are a little too powerful in this recipe.
How to prepare chicken breasts for Chicken Picatta-
Also important in this recipe is the type of chicken used in the dish. The recipe I’m sharing with you comes from American’s Test Kitchen and they rightly recommend buying whole chicken breasts, cutting off the tenderloin piece, slicing the chicken horizontally and pounding to your desired thickness (or thinness in this instance). The trouble with pre-trimmed cutlets is, many pieces in the package are nothing more than ragged slivers of chicken that are too thin for the dish and will cook too quickly. So, buy some high quality chicken breasts, slice and pound them to the perfect, uniform thickness that will make the recipe a true success. This is the step that takes up the most time, but if you have a sharp knife and a meat pounder/tenderizer, you’ll breeze right through.
Chicken pieces that you’ve trimmed to an even thickness will be uniformly prefect throughout. And since they’re thinner than whole chicken breasts, they finish up in just a few minutes.
Some piccata sauce recipes call for adding flour to thicken the sauce. Don’t do it! Adding flour as a thickener will take away from the freshness of the lemon juice and then it’s not LEMON Chicken Picatta. Adding butter at the end of the sauce reduction will thicken the sauce just right and the butter will bring all the flavors of the lemons, capers and garlic together for the best, fresh sauce.
Fresh parsley gets added at the very end which adds a nice color and just the right amount of bitter flavor. The thin lemon slices are tart and delicious! I wanted a little lemon with every bite.
So simple, Lemon Chicken Piccata done right is fresh and satisfying without being too heavy or filling. Healthy ingredients make it a perfect fit for any dietary requirement you may have. Serve it with green vegetables or over linguine or other favorite pasta. And by the way, leftovers are delightful the following day. If you have leftovers, the lemony chicken works great in a caesar salad.
Save Chicken Piccata to your Pinterest board “Chicken” or “30 minute meals” and let’s be friends on Pinterest! I’d love to share tasty recipes with you.
Chicken Piccata
Ingredients
- 2 lemons
- 4- 6-8 ounces boneless, skinless chicken breasts, tenderloins removed, trimmed
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- Salt and pepper
- 4 Tablespoons olive or avocado oil, divided
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 Tablespoons capers, rinsed
- 3 Tablespoons butter, cut into 3 pieces and chilled
- 2 Tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Instructions
- Cut 1 lemon in half lengthwise. Trim ends from 1 of the halves and slice crosswise ⅛ to ¼ thick; set aside. Squeeze juice from the other whole lemon and the remaining half lemon into small bowl. You should have about ¼ cup juice. Set aside.
- Adjust your oven rack to middle position and heat to 200 degrees. Halve each chicken breast horizontally, then cover cutlets with plastic wrap and pound to an even ¼-inch thickness (or close) with meat pounder. Spread ½ cup flour in a shallow plate or dish.
- Season cutlets with salt and pepper. Working with 1 cutlet at a time, dredge in flour, shaking off excess, and transfer to a large platter.
- Heat 2 Tablespoons oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Place 3-4 cutlets in the skillet, depending on how many fit without overcrowding, and cook until golden brown on first side, about 3 minutes. Using tongs, flip cutlets, reduce heat to medium, and cool until no longer pink and lightly browned on second side, about 2 minutes longer; transfer to large ovensafe platter or dish. Repeat with remaining cutlets, adding 2 Tablespoons more with each addition. Tent the chicken loosely with aluminum foil and transfer to oven to keep warm while making sauce.
- Add 1 minced garlic to now-empty skillet and cook over medium heat about 30 seconds. Stir in 1 cup broth and lemon slices, scraping up any browned bits. Bring to simmer and cook until reduced to ⅓ cup, about 4 minutes.
- Stir in 2 Tablespoons drained capers and lemon juice, bring to simmer, and cook until reduced to ⅓ cup again, about 1 minute. Turn off heat, whisk in 3 Tablespoons butter, 1 piece at a time. Stir in 2 Tablespoons parsley. Pour sauce over chicken and serve immediately.
Recipe only slightly adapted from America’s Test Kitchen recipe.
I needed a little more sauce but the hubby loved it and will definitely try it again!
Liked this better than Marsala. Excellent recipe! Thank you for sharing
This recipe looks amazing!! Chicken Piccata was one of the very first recipes I ever learned to make in Culinary School! So very delicious…capers are a great little salty treat plus, you cant go wrong with butter being the most important part of this meal 🙂
Pertaining to Step 3: In the recent “Updated Italian” episode of America’s Test Kitchen, the chicken is salted/peppered and set aside for 15 minutes before being dredged in flour. Thank you for posting this recipe!
The chicken looks do juicy and flavorful!
This looks so good! It’s funny, I’ve enjoyed chicken piccata elsewhere but haven’t made it yet. Pinning to my recipes to try board! Hope our son will like it, sometimes is skeptical of new dishes but likes lemon flavor generally. Nice explanation of what capers are; I like the flavor but not sure I knew their source!
David, thanks so much for this nice comment! I hope your son likes it too. 🙂
What a lovely weeknight dinner! I love that you let the lemon shine!
What a beautiful plate of food. My family will love this.
Absolutely love easy fresh dinner ideas. Capers and lemon are some of my favorite flavors together. So Yum!
Question. We are having “Italian Day” potluck for lunch at work to celebrate a birthday. The birthday girl has requested Chicken Picatta . I would like to prepare this dish IN ADVANCE, however, it could be as many as 12-14 hours between cooking and eating and I’m afraid the chicken would become dry; especially since we only have a microwave to reheat. So I’m wondering if I could seal the cooked chicken with sauce in a vacuum food saver bag(s). My theory is that it woudn’t be exposed to air, and stay submerged in the sauce. Then at the potluck, quickly microwave. Do you think this would work, or should I abandon this idea altogether.
Hi Les, I have a couple thoughts on this. Your idea could work but I fear when reheating the chicken in the microwave that it will make the breading on the chicken pretty mushy besides possibly drying out the chicken. Are the following suggestions something you could do?- I would maybe not cook the chicken to completion, barely brown it on each side and don’t put it in the warm oven while making the rest of the recipe but just cover with foil and then after the lemon sauce is finished, pour over top and cover with aluminium foil. Then rather than reheating in the microwave, place the foil covered dish in a 300F degree oven about 30 minutes before serving and let it slow finish that way. My other suggestion might not go over with the birthday girl, but my Chicken Scallopini is very similiar to Picatta but you could cook everything in advance, but keep chicken and sauce separated and refrigerated. Then about 15 minutes before serving, place the chicken (covered in foil again) in a 350F oven just to quickly reheat and place the sauce in saucepan again and heat till very warm but not boiling. served over pasta and/or spinach, it’s quite amazing and tastes very similiar to picatta (most people I’ve served both to prefer the Picatta). Hope this helps and doesn’t cause you to totally abandon the idea. Have a great Italian Day birthday party. Let me know what you decide. 🙂
I’m a little confused on whether to use the flour or not. Above, you mentioned the flour will take away from the freshness of the lemon juice…but in the recipe itself below, it instructs to spread the flour in a shallow plate or dish. Is this for a different purpose?
Keira, the flour is used to lightly dredge the cutlets before placing them in the pan. What I say about not using flour is that I don’t recommend using flour to thicken the sauce as is sometimes done with chicken piccata (as in when you make a roux). Hope this helps and thanks for stopping by.
Chicken Piccata And veal parm are my go to
Dishes when I am at an Italian restaurant. Finally decided to try piccata at home and used this recipe. I loved it. A light dish but bursting with flavor. My husband is not a big fan of chicken and he ate seconds. We served with rice and salad. Great dish!
Beautifully done 🙂 I love how you talk about the differences in capers, so few people utilize them in food…and it’s a shame. Picatta is one of my personal faves 🙂
Thanks Mila! This means a lot coming from you. I agree with you that not enough people utilize capers. In fact, you’re inspiring me to search out MORE recipes with capers because they really do enhance recipes in such fabulous ways. Thanks again for stopping by. Have a great week.