Difference Between Chicken Piccata And Chicken Marsala
Both Chicken Piccata and Chicken Marsala are cooked in nearly the same fashion, with a flour dredged chicken breast thats pan seared and then finished in a sauce.
However, the flavor profiles are very different.
Chicken Piccata has a light lemon flavored sauce thats studded with salty capers, while Chicken Marsalas sauce has a rich & savory caramelized flavor with mushrooms and onions.
How To Make Chicken Marsala Sauce
Chicken Marsala is an Italian-American dish of golden pan-fried chicken cutlets and mushrooms in a rich Marsala wine sauce.
Reading: how to make chicken marsala sauce
Chicken Marsala is an Italian-American dish of golden pan-fried chicken cutlets and mushrooms in a rich Marsala wine sauce. Though its a classic restaurant dish, its really easy to make at home. With just one pan, you can have it on the dinner table in 45 minutes. The recipe makes a lovely sauce that is delicious over pasta, polenta, rice, or mashed potatoes.
What Can I Serve With It
Pasta, rice or mashed potatoes all work exceptionally well with this chicken recipe.
If you wish to serve a multi course Italian meal, I would recommend to start it with the classic appetiser recipe Bruschetta.
Finish your fabulous dinner with Salted Caramel Affogato, a delicious espresso and ice cream concoction.
Tag me on Instagram when you are sharing your delicious plates! Are you following me on ? If not, lets be friends!
More chicken breast recipes:
- ½cup/125 ml marsala wine
- 1cup/250 ml chicken stock
- flat leaf parsley
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Choosing Marsala Wine Storing It And What To Do With It
We call for dry Marsala wine in our recipe, but if you already have it on hand, sweet will work. We like to buy mid-priced Marsala wine over the $5 or less options you can sometimes find in grocery stores. The mid-priced options tend to have a bit more flavor. In general, buy something you could actually see someone drink.
If you are worried about buying a whole bottle of wine for just one recipe here are two recipes you might like that will help use up the bottle: Our Tiramisu Recipe, this Spaghetti with Spinach Pesto and Turkey Meatballs. Or, keep it just for this recipe. The nice thing about Marsala wine is that it will last for quite some time . Either store it in the refrigerator or keep in a cooler, darker area of your kitchen. This goes for other fortified wines, too think Madeira wine.
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Recipe updated, originally posted March 2015. Since posting this in 2015, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear. Adam and Joanne
What Is Chicken Marsala Served With
Ready to make Chicken Marsala but not sure what to serve with it? While this Italian-American dish is typically served with a side of freshly cooked pasta , you can also serve it with Creamy Mashed Potatoes or Garlic Parmesan Rice. Here are a few more vegetable sides to pair with Chicken Marsala
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How To Make Marsala Sauce
- Normally chicken Marsala does not include any cream. However, I found during testing that cream was needed for our tastes to balance out the strong flavour coming from the wine.
- You can use heavy cream or thickened cream in the sauce.
- For a lightened up sauce, use evaporated milk or half and half. If using half and half, be careful not to bring your sauce to a rapid boil or it may curdle.
- The Marsala sauce will not thicken immediately after adding in your cream. Once you add your chicken back into the pan, the flour from the chicken will thicken your sauce.
How To Make Chicken Marsala
If your chicken breasts are large, like the ones in the photo above, its best to first cut them in half horizontally.
Once youve got four flat filets, pound them each to an even 1/4-inch thickness.
Place the flour, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a ziplock bag.
Add the chicken to the bag seal the bag tightly and shake to coat chicken evenly. Set aside.
Heat the oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Place the flour-dusted chicken in the pan, shaking off any excess first.
Cook, turning once, until the chicken is golden and just barely cooked through, about 5 to 6 minutes total. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside.
Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in the pan. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms begin to brown, 3 to 4 minutes.
Add the shallots, garlic, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more.
Add the broth, wine, heavy cream, thyme, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper use a wooden spoon to scrape any brown bits from the pan into the liquid. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium.
Gently boil, uncovered, until the sauce is reduced by about half, slightly thickened, and darkened in color, 10 to 15 minutes .
Add the chicken back to the pan, along with any juices that accumulated on the plate. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the chicken is warmed through and the sauce thickens a bit more, 2 to 3 minutes.
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Italian Chicken Marsala Recipe
Bring your favorite Italian restaurant to your own house with this very easy-to-make delicious Italian Chicken Marsala Recipe.
We obviously love Italian food because Im clearly Italian, see Parisi. If you are looking to try out some new dishes from my beloved ancestorial country, then try out my gnudi recipe or Sicilian style grilled swordfish.
Dredge The Surface With Flour
To give a light crust on the surface, dip the chicken cutlets in flour. I do this for my chicken piccata recipe, and its delicious! Season the meat first with salt and pepper and then flour to prevent it from tasting bland. The proteins brown and stick to the surface, creating a lovely contrast of textures. Make sure to shake off the excess flour. You only need just enough to coat.
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How Long Does Chicken Marsala Keep
- Serve: dont leave your chicken marsala out at room temperature for longer than 2 hours, or things will start to grow on it.
- Store: leftover chicken is good in the fridge for up to 3 days, so you can reheat your left overs from last night for a quick, tasty dinner.
- Freeze: you can freeze cooked chicken for up to 4 months in an airtight container.
This is the best Chicken Marsala recipe youll find that you can make at home with just a few ingredients. You dont have to spend all day over the stove to make a main course worthy of your favorite Italian restaurant!
Pin this recipe now to remember it later
About the Author: Sabrina Snyder
Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.
Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.
She is also the author of the upcoming cookbook: Dinner, then Dessert Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients which is being published by Harper Collins.
She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.
Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.
Tips For The Best Chicken Marsala Recipe
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The Best Chicken Marsala Sauce
That classic, mushroom-dotted, creamy chicken marsala sauce is one of the many reasons we love this recipe. Its so very simple to make and so very hard to mess upa terrific combo. There are a few tricks to making the very best chicken marsala sauce:
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As you add cream or stock to the pan, take time to really scrape up any little bits of mushroom or shallot that have stuck to the bottom of the skillet.
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Use the best chicken stock you can! Homemade, if youve got it!
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Give the sauce time. We dont mean a lot of time, but dont cut down on the simmer times we call foryou want to give the cream sauce time to reduce and thicken. All that wine-y, mushroomy goodness will be worth the wait.
What To Serve With Chicken Marsala
So many things go with chicken marsala. Its so flavorful and satisfying, it doesnt need much accompaniment to become a hearty and lovely supper. Our very favorite thing to serve with chicken marsala is pastatwirl the noodles around your fork with a bite of tender, Marsala sauced chicken and maybe catch a mushroom in there, too! But its also lovely served over a bed of creamy polenta. If youre hoping to keep things a little more low-carb, thats easy enough to do. Simply serve the chicken Marsala with a green salad on the side and call dinner good to go, or, if youre really wanting to be ambitious, try it with our cauliflower gnocchi!
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What To Serve This Creamy Balsamic Mushroom Chicken Marsala With
Well, you guys know me, I love my carbs. I served this saucy, creamy chicken over my slow cooker mashed potatoes. Twas delicious.
Other sides that would be great? Definitely any kind of pasta, steamed rice, or if you are looking for something on the lighter side, spaghetti squash is always a delicious, healthy option.
You cant go wrong either way. The sauce makes just about anything you serve alongside it great. One thing that is a must? Crusty bread for moping up the extra sauce. You just have to do it.
My mom taught me well.
Looking for other simple dinners? Here are my favorites:
How To Make Chicken Marsala Sauce:
It’s insanely easy to make homemade chicken marsala sauce.
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A Few Simple Rules For Perfect Chicken Marsala
The British deserve at least partial credit for the creation of chicken Marsala, even if that might make more than a few Italians cringe. The dish, which has its roots in Sicily and is a staple of Italian-American restaurants and homes, cannot be made without Marsala wine, which refers to wine produced specifically around the city of Marsala in Sicily. And yet that’s where the British influence comes inthey were instrumental in spreading fortified wines like Port and Marsala around the world to their various colonial outposts. Because of its higher alcohol content , fortified wine was able to withstand, and to even be improved by, weeks and months on the open sea.
In the case of Marsala specifically, an Englishman named John Woodhouse was responsible for deciding to sell a fortified version of the local Sicilian wine abroad. Eventually that wine found its way into the kitchen, and chicken Marsala was born. The dish itself features pounded chicken cutlets in a glaze-like sauce flavored with mushrooms and Marsala wine. At its heart, though, it’s just a basic chicken-with-pan-sauce dish, and so the fundamental rules of making a good pan sauce apply here. Master those rules, and chicken Marsala will quickly become one of those weeknight staples you can whip up in no time.
How To Make The Chicken Marsala Sauce
Butter adds flavor first. Sautéing the shallot and mushroom in melted butter adds fat, and that adds flavor. Use half of the butter here, and save the rest.
Some recipes suggest adding the marsala wine first to cook down with the mushrooms, then adding in the chicken broth. Ive followed that technique before, but after forgetting to do it in two steps, I discovered it didnt matter. Now I add the Marsala and chicken broth to the mushroom and shallots at the same time, where I found doing so infuses deepens the sauces flavor even more as it reduces.
The last touchmore butter! Adding butter while reducing the sauce at the end, a classic technique, gives the sauce its body and gloss. It thickens the sauce and adds another layer of lush creaminess.
TIP: Dont reduce the sauce too much where it can evaporate and disappear! Taste the sauce as it reduces by half, where the wine flavor will mellow and the sauce will thicken.
Also, dont mistake the sauce for gravy. It should still be glossy, light, and easy to drizzle.
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Grilled Tequila Lime Chicken
Also known as margarita chicken, this tequila lime chicken is loaded with bright Southwestern flavor.
Tequila Lime Chicken, a.k.a. Margarita Chicken, is one of those dishes that just screams fun. The marinade is a combination of tequila, lime, garlic and spices and its loaded with bright Southwestern flavor.
Contrary to what you might think, this recipe is family friendly. The tequila is mild and the chicken isnt too spicy. Pair it with my black bean salad with corn, avocado and lime vinaigrette, restaurant-style salsa, cornbread muffins, and .
Chicken Fricassee With Apples
This creamy, comforting chicken fricassee is made with apples and is a perfect marriage of sweet and savory.
Halfway between a sauté and a stew, chicken fricassee is an old-fashioned dish of golden sautéed chicken in a creamy sauce. This updated version with apples, adapted from Cooks Country, is perfect for fall. The sauce is made with equal parts chicken broth, apple cider and cream, giving the dish a savory yet fruity and rich complexity, while a splash of cider vinegar at the end adds brightness. The sautéed apples add tart-sweet flavor and also make the dish feel a little fancy.
I buy two large chicken breasts and slice them in half horizontally, which makes four nice portions that cook quickly in one batch. I dont recommend using the pre-sliced chicken breasts sold at the supermarket they are typically very thin, which means youd need more of them and would have to cook the chicken in two batches. If you dont want to bother with slicing the chicken breasts yourself, chicken tenderloins are a great alternative. Serve the chicken and apples with a simple green vegetable, like roasted Brussels sprouts, along with rice, egg noodles, or mashed potatoes.
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What Is Chicken Marsala
Chicken Marsala is the American version of a classic Italian Scaloppine. It’s a popular chicken dish that is tossed in a delicious and creamy sauce made with marsala wine and packed with mushrooms. The best part? You can make this restaurant dish at home in just 30 minutes.
I am all about easy 30-minute dinners around here. Some of my other quick and easy dinners are: Creamy Lemon Chicken Piccata, Swedish Meatballs, Creamy Garlic Shrimp, Glazed Honey Balsamic Pork Chops, and General Tso’s Chicken.
How Do You Cut A Large Chicken Breast In Half
I like to slice my chicken breasts in half or buy them thinly sliced so that they cook quickly and easily. Place one chicken breast half on a cutting board, flat/smooth side down. Put the palm of your non-cutting hand on the top of the breast, and, using a very sharp knife, slowly cut horizontally through the breast, starting with cutting into the long, thick side.
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How Do You Make Creamy Chicken Marsala
- In a large skillet over medium heat add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the pan. Add the chicken and lightly salt and pepper. Cook until lightly brown and cooked throughout. Remove chicken and set aside on plate.
- Add 1 Tablespoon olive oil and sauté the mushrooms for 1-2 minutes. Add marsala wine and bring to a boil over medium high heat for 1-2 minutes. This allows the alcohol to burn out. Add the chicken broth, heavy whipping cream, ground mustard, and garlic powder. Bring to a boil and reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes or until it starts to thicken. Place chicken back in the sauce and continue to simmer for about 1-2 minutes.
Rule : Finish With Fat And Extra Flavorings
To finish the sauce, I like to whisk in butter, which will give it a beautiful sheen and richness. I also add a splash of soy sauce, which, while untraditional, has an earthy savoriness that rounds out the sauce perfectly and plays well with the mushrooms any overt flavor of soy sauce won’t be noticeable, so there’s no need to worry about that.
Because Marsala can be slightly sweet, especially when reduced, you’ll want to taste the sauce at this point, and then add white wine vinegar until the sauce is properly balancedit should have a brightness that keeps those sweet and savory flavors in check.
All that’s left is to add the chicken back to the pan and warm it through in the simmering sauce, then serve.
Rooted in Italy, indebted to the British, popular in the United States, and boosted with a key Asian ingredient…this chicken Marsala truly is a global dish.
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