Chicken Piccata
Chicken Piccata has tender golden brown chicken breasts served with a delicious lemon butter and caper sauce. This impressive dish is surprisingly simple to make!
Chicken piccata, along with Chicken Parmesan, has always been one of my favorite dishes to order out at an Italian restaurant. These days, with five young kids, going out to eat is a rare occurrence. That’s ok though, because I’ve learned to cook many of my favorite restaurant dishes at home.
With this chicken piccata recipe, you can enjoy delicious made from scratch chicken piccata that is every bit as good as what you might order out. The chicken is dredged in flour and then cooked until it’s golden brown, tender and juicy.
The sauce for this easy chicken piccata recipe is made with lemon juice, white wine, butter and capers. It’s rich and flavorful, but also light and bright thanks to the lemon and briny capers. I love this dish because it’s easy enough to make on a weeknight and also fancy enough to serve to dinner guests.
Chicken Piccata Ingredients
- Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts: You can purchase thin sliced chicken breasts or slice the breasts into thin chicken cutlets yourself.
- Salt and Black Pepper: Be generous with the salt and pepper to ensure that the dish is well seasoned.
- All-Purpose Flour: Dredging the chicken in flour before cooking helps to make a beautiful golden brown crust on the meat.
- Olive Oil and Butter: The base of the lemon butter sauce, the butter adds richness and the olive oil lightens things up.
- Lemon Juice: The lemon juice adds brightness and balances out the richness of the buttery sauce.
- Dry White Wine: The wine adds flavor to the lemon caper sauce. If you prefer to not cook with wine, you can substitute chicken broth.
- Capers: Capers add a pop of salty, briny flavor to the dish.
- Chopped Fresh Parsley and Lemon Slices: The perfect garnishes for this fancy-feeling entrée!
Find the full printable recipe with ingredient amounts and instructions in the recipe card below.
How to Make Chicken Piccata
- Slice the chicken breasts in half horizontally to get 4 thin chicken cutlets. If the cutlets are uneven in thickness or thicker than 1/2-inch, pound them with a meat mallet or rolling pin to get an even thickness. You can place the chicken between two slices of plastic wrap or parchment paper, or in a zip-top plastic bag, to prevent splattering.
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
- Coat the chicken pieces with flour.
- Heat the olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet.
- Brown the chicken on both sides and then transfer it to a clean plate. The chicken should be almost, but not fully, cooked at this point.
- Add the lemon juice, white wine and capers to the skillet. Cook for 2 minutes, scraping up any flavorful browned bits that are stuck to the bottom of the skillet.
- Return the chicken to the pan and cook until cooked through. The chicken is done when the center is 165° F, as measured by an instant read thermometer. Place chicken on a clean serving plate.
- Add the remaining tablespoon of butter to the pan and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
- Pour the sauce over the chicken. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and lemon slices. Serve and enjoy!
Recipe Tips
- Don’t skip the step of slicing the chicken breasts into thin cutlets or the chicken won’t cook through well. I also highly recommend pounding the chicken as this helps to make the meat more tender.
- This delicious dish gets its flavor from just a few simple ingredients, so it’s important to season the chicken well with salt and pepper. Don’t go overboard though, as you can always taste and add more salt and pepper to the chicken and/or sauce, to taste, after cooking.
- For the best chicken piccata, use fresh squeezed lemon juice.
- If you’d like the sauce to be extra creamy, you can stir in a tablespoon or two of heavy cream along with the butter in the last step of the recipe.
What to Serve with Chicken Piccata
There are so many tasty options for side dishes to serve with this chicken piccata recipe. Here are my favorites:
- Pasta: Angel hair is an especially good choice. This thin pasta won’t compete with the chicken as the main course.
- Mashed Potatoes: A comforting alternative to pasta, Mashed Potatoes or Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes are extra delicious if you spoon some of the lemon butter sauce on top. Garlic Mashed Potatoes pair especially well with chicken piccata.
- Salad: Try an Italian Salad, this light and fresh Lemon Parmesan Kale Salad or a simple Green Salad.
- Vegetable: I’d suggest a green veggie, such as Roasted Broccoli, Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts, Roasted Brussels Sprouts or Green Beans.
- Bread: French bread, Garlic Bread, Garlic Knots or Dinner Rolls would be perfect for soaking up extra sauce.
More Easy Chicken Breast Recipes
- Air Fryer Chicken Breast
- Grilled Chicken
- Poached Chicken
- Baked Chicken Breast
- Honey Garlic Instant Pot Chicken Breasts
- Chicken Stir Fry
- Chicken Marsala
Chicken Piccata
Chicken Piccata is an easy yet impressive dish that's ready in just 30 minutes. Tender golden brown chicken breasts are served with a delicious lemon butter and caper sauce.
Ingredients
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 1.5 pounds chicken
- salt and pepper
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- ½ cup dry white wine, or chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons capers
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- lemon slices, for serving
Instructions
- Slice the chicken breasts in half horizontally to get 4 thin chicken cutlets. If the chicken cutlets are thicker than ½-inch or uneven in thickness, pound them with a meat mallet or rolling pin to an even thickness, no thicker than ½-inch. (Cover the chicken with a piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper or place in a zip-top bag before pounding to prevent splattering.)
- Season both sides of the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper.
- Place the flour in a bowl or shallow baking dish. Coat each piece of chicken in the flour, gently shaking off any excess flour.
- Heat the olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches if needed to not overcrowd the pan, brown the chicken on both sides, about 4-5 minutes per side. The chicken should be almost, but not fully, cooked through at this point. Remove browned chicken to a clean plate. (If browning chicken in two batches, you may need to add an extra tablespoon or two of olive oil for the second batch.)
- Add the lemon juice, white wine (or chicken broth) and capers to the skillet. Cook, stirring and scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan, for about 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, if needed.
- Return the chicken to the pan and cook in the sauce until the internal temperature reaches 165° F. Remove chicken to a clean serving plate.
- Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter to the skillet and whisk/stir for 1 minute. Remove sauce from heat. Drizzle sauce over chicken. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and lemon slices and serve.
Notes
- Leftover chicken piccata can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat gently in the microwave or place chicken and sauce in a covered dish and reheat in a 350° F oven until hot.
Calories: 319kcal, Carbohydrates: 14g, Protein: 14g, Fat: 21g, Saturated Fat: 7g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 10g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 59mg, Sodium: 236mg, Potassium: 279mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 457IU, Vitamin C: 9mg, Calcium: 17mg, Iron: 1mg
Nutrition information is an estimate.
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I’m a little confused on the servings. I changed the servings to 10 for when my family comes and then I see the recipe only calls for 5 chicken breast. This isn’t even 1 breast per person(10 people). This looks delicious, but it won’t work with only 5 breast but if I up the servings then the other ingredients looks like its wayyyy tooo much. What would you recommend?
It will depend on the size of your chicken breasts and the appetites of the people you are serving. You can use more chicken breasts if needed (you may also need more flour to coat them), but not increase the sauce as much. The chicken breasts at my store are usually huge, so after slicing them in half (as directed in the first step in the recipe), half of a breast is a big enough serving for one person. So the original recipe calls for 2 breasts to serve 4 people. I hope that helps!
Excellent recipe and so easy to make. The flavor was wonderful and it looked and tasted like a fancy meal with the wine and capers. I will absolutely make this again.