When I was single I spent a lot of time watching Food Network. It was good mindless entertainment and it was a way to feed my love for food without actually cooking. I was not into creating elaborate meals for one so I’d watch Food Network and log all of the recipes that I liked and wanted to try. I especially liked the shows with Italian dishes. Now that I cook for my family on the regular I’ll adapt recipes from the cooks that I enjoyed watching, like this Chicken Piccata one from Giada De Laurentiis. The link to Giada’s full recipe is here.
We eat a lot of chicken in our house for a couple of reasons…it’s easy to prepare, it’s non-inflammatory/easy to process, and it’s wallet friendly. While eating chicken night after night can be boring, dressing it up with two of my favorite ingredients: butter and lemon, makes this Chicken Piccata dish a winner!
My Chicken Piccata recipe (for 3 of us):
- 5 Chicken Cutlets
- All-purpose flour, for dredging
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- Juice of 1 lemon
- ½ cup chicken broth
- ¼ cup of capers
- Salt and pepper, to taste
To prep the chicken, trim any fatty bits. If you like your cutlets on the thinner side, put a cutlet in between two pieces of wax paper or plastic wrap and pound with a meat hammer or the side of a cleaver. Salt and pepper the cutlets and dredge in flour. This can be done in advance if you want to prep your chicken and work on side dishes before cooking the cutlets. When you’re ready to cook, heat up a medium skillet and add 2 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Once the butter melts and the mixture starts to sizzle add in 2 chicken cutlets. Cook 3-4 minutes on each side then transfer to a platter. Repeat this process until all of your chicken is cooked, using butter and oil as needed.
Once the chicken is cooked, add lemon, chicken broth and capers into the pan. Stir to combine then add the chicken back to the pan and simmer for 4-5 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and add remaining butter into the sauce and stir to combine and melt the butter. Once the butter is melted pour the sauce over your chicken and serve.
This recipe seems complicated but it is super easy to follow and turns out a restaurant quality dish for about a quarter of the price. Enjoy!
