Easy Lemon Chicken Piccata
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You won’t believe how quick/easy this is with ingredients you already have on hand! Serve over pasta – SO GOOD!
For today’s recipe, we need to do a quick FRIENDS recap – it’s the one with the metaphorical tunnel.
Chandler: Okay, last night at dinner, when the meals came, she put half her chicken piccata on my plate and took my tomatoes.
Ross: And that’s bad because…, you hate chicken piccata?
Chandler: Noo.
Ross: You didn’t want to share your tomatoes, tomatoes are very important to you.
Chandler: No, it’s like all of the sudden, we were this couple. And this alarm started going off in my head: ‘Run for your life! Get out of the building!’
Rachel: Men are unbelievable.
So yes, this recipe is pretty much dedicated to Chandler and Janice because that’s the only thing that comes to mind when I think of chicken piccata.
Except it’s really just a super fancy-looking chicken dish that’s unbelievably easy to whip up with ingredients you already have on hand, making it perfect for date night, Sunday Supper, or even a busy weeknight.
But more importantly, can we talk about the lemon cream sauce? I mean, you could even double the sauce, skip the chicken and just put it on a bed of pasta.
I mean, the chicken would honestly just get in the way anyway.
Tools For This Recipe
Large cast iron skillet
Easy Lemon Chicken Piccata: Frequently Asked Questions
Additional chicken broth can be used for white wine as a non-alcoholic substitute.
Heavy cream (or heavy whipping cream) has one of the highest fat contents with about 36-40% fat. Half and half or whole milk are suitable substitutes, but will yield a lighter result.
You can serve with these easy skillet dinner rolls, buttery mashed potatoes, sauteed garlic butter mushrooms and cauliflower, or a light salad.
Easy Lemon Chicken Piccata
Ingredients
- 1 pound spaghetti
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut crosswise in half
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ cup diced shallots
- ¾ cup chicken broth
- ¼ cup dry white wine*
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup capers, drained
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; drain well.
- Season chicken with salt and pepper, to taste. Working one at a time, dredge chicken in flour.
- Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken and cook, flipping once, until cooked through, about 4-5 minutes on each side. Set aside and keep warm.
- Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in the skillet. Add garlic and shallots, and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in chicken broth, wine and lemon juice. Cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes.
- Gradually whisk in heavy cream until slightly thickened, about 3-4 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in capers.
- Serve immediately with pasta and chicken, garnished with parsley, if desired.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
A delicious recipe! It’s as good or better than any chicken picatta I’ve had in a restaurant. I did as much prep as possible the night before, so it only took a few minutes to throw everything together and get dinner on the table after I got home from work today. This recipe is definitely a keeper!
Literally, this is the MOST AMAZING chicken dish I have ever had or made!!!! FABULOUS!!! No, DAMN DELICIOUS!!!!
I did double the sauce and I then added a small bit of cornstarch slurry to thicken up the sauce a little.
EXCELLENT!
This was amazing. I sent the link to my mom and a couple of friends because everyone should have such easy, delicious food. Thank you!
The flavor is great. The chicken was nice and tender, but the sauce was way too runny. I would’ve had to crank up the heat and reduce it for ten minutes. Just use half the liquids and it’s fine.
So damn delicious, I impressed myself!!!
Yum, yum and yum! This recipe is amazing! I’ve probably made it five times in the past two months! I use ghee and olive oil to fry the chicken, and it renders the sauce extra rich. I wouldn’t change anything about this! My husband is eternally grateful!!!
Just delicious. Now we know that chicken piccata isn’t traditionally creamy but this version is easy positivity scrumptious so I decided to take it one step further and add freshly grated parmesan. Oh. My. Goodness. Just amazing. Truly an easy and delicious dish that makes you feel like a rock star chef! Another great recipe, thanks so much!
Tastes good but my sauce did not thicken.
I just made this last night and it was amazing. I doubled the lemon juice, chicken broth, wine, and heavy cream so that my sauce was extra saucy. I also added artichokes at the end just for a little extra.
So good. I only used 1/2 a lemon, I regret not doubling the sauce.
Super good and quick to make. First time to make but making again for dinner tonight. Only thing I did not have was capers. I did not miss them since I do not know anything about them. thanks for this recipe. I did it your way.
I’ve made many variations of this recipe but yours nailed it!
My husband had seconds and asked me to put this in our meal plan rotation!
Thank you!!!
BEST chicken piccata. I cut the pasta in half (or otherwise known as doubling the sauce) and I could have even had MORE sauce. It was so good I was literally licking the pan clean.
I do this recipe by browning the chicken breast in chunks (no flour) to lower the carbs and serve with either zoodles or spaghetti squash. So tasty!
This is a great dish! I had to leave out shallots as I am allergic to those and red onions, but for future, can I use white onions as a substitute?
I love damn delicious, most recently, bought the cookbook about meal prep and it has saved me countless hours!
Yes, this is really delicious and I have been following Damn-delicious for a long time. Her food is the best. But I have a problem now in that a family member has pancreatitis and can not have oil or butter. This was his favorite food. So the challenge becomes how to fix this without any butter or oil and produce something similar? There are millions of Americans now with pancreatitis but have no way to turn because there are no recipes that are outstanding without butter, oil or fried. Any ideas?
cook the chicken in the oven with seasoning then add to the pan after or maybe you can use olive oil or a butter substitute?
Use chicken broth instead of the butter and oil. Just make sure the broth doesn’t have any oil. You can still have the lemon and wine, so it will be delicious.
Absolutely delicious and it was easy for me to make. It was received well even for those who don’t normally like to eat Italian. I had the butcher slice the chicken breast thin for me, made more sauce than in the recipe and probably added a little extra butter, but the recipe probably calls for enough. I also reduced it a little, but because I wanted a slightly thicker sauce and didn’t want to wait too much time, I used the method of adding flour to thicken it more – little flour in a bowl then add some sauce and stir, then add to the remaining sauce. Not sure if that takes away from authenticity. I really loved this and this dish is not normally what I order. My husband said he would order this at a restaurant and the in laws loved it as well. I plan to make this over and over again. Thanks!
I made this minus the shallots, and used jasmine rice with thyme & steamed broccoli with feta cheese. The sauce was drenched all over the entire dish. Definitely a repeat dinner
The photographs look as delicious as this dish tastes. It is one of the best Chicken Piccata recipes I have made. It is a breeze to make with little prep. It most definitely a great summer evening diner dish everyone will love even the little ones. I did omit the the dredging of the chicken. I also used coconut cream instead of heavy cream and 1/2 the amount of butter recipe called for. Everyone loved it!!!