Easy Skinny Chicken Piccata Recipe

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This recipe gets you 90% of the flavor with a lot less work, time, and calories.

Once you get this down, it’s easy enough and skinny enough to make during the week.

I love Piccata of any type (veal, pork, or chicken). The traditional method, where you pound and flour each piece, is not THAT much work, and it certainly is delicious. However, I’m always looking to save time and calories, so this is my best shot at doing both.

Time savers:

  • No pounding needed. Partially freezing the breasts ahead of time enables you to cut them very thin.

  • No flouring each piece, and cleaning up the mess. The flour goes in the sauce, which is prepared initially in the microwave.

Calorie savers:

  • Less oil:

    • Cooking the chicken without flour on it uses a lot less oil, but you still get the flour at the end.

    • Tossing the chicken lightly in oil, instead of adding oil to the pan, uses the least possible amount for sauteing.

  • Land O’ Lakes light butter with canola oil is delicious but only has 50 calories per tablespoon (vs 100 for real butter).

Flavor secret:

  • I use double-strength chicken broth to compensate for not coating each piece in flour.

Making the sauce separately saves time and reduces the total amount of flour and oil needed.

TOTAL TIME: 30 min

  • Prep: 20 min

  • Cook: 10 min

YIELD:   2 servings

LEVEL:  Easy

DIRECTIONS

Make the sauce in advance. Make the DOUBLE strength chicken bouillon in a microwavable container like a measuring cup. Add butter and lemon juice, then microwave for 1 minute or so to melt butter (without boiling it). Add Wondra or flour, then whisk to mix. Add capers, pepper, and salt, and stir again.

Prep the chicken for sauteing. Cut chicken breasts diagonally across the grain (across the short side), as thin as you practically can, e.g. 1/8” thick. Then toss the pieces lightly in oil - just enough so they won’t stick to the pan.

NOTE: if your chicken is not partially frozen the slices will be much thicker and will be more tender and favorful if you pound each slice piece flat. I like to cover the chicken pieces with a Ziploc bag and hit them with the flat side of a kitchen hammer, screaming “Bad chicken!” over and over again:)

Cook the chicken. Bring a large skillet to medium high heat. Sautee the chicken in batches, depending how many will fit in the skillet at a time. After one side is lightly browned (a couple of minutes), flip and continue for another couple minutes until the chicken is done. If you have an instant-read thermometer, use it to make sure all of the chicken is at least 150F but not too far past that. Remove the chicken from the skillet.

TIP: Use different tongs or spatulas for touching uncooked chicken than you use for the finished, cooked pieces.

Deglaze and finish. Immediately add the sauce to the pan with the skillet still hot. There should be a lot of steam. Deglaze by scraping the bottom of the pan with a spatula to mix the fond (brown bits on bottom) with the sauce. Add the chicken and simmer on lower heat for several minutes until everything is hot and the sauce is thick. Serve.

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 pound partially frozen chicken breasts, full (not split)

  • 2 tbsp light butter*

  • Olive oil for sauteing

  • 1 tbsp flour or Wondra (clumps less)

  • 1/3 cup double strength chicken broth

  • 3 tbsp lemon juice

  • 2 tbsp drained small capers (optional)

  • 1 tsp Pepper

  • 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

    * Land O’ Lakes Light Butter with Canola Oil recommended

SPECIAL KITCHEN TOOLS

  • Instant-read thermometer if you have one.

More Photos

MAKE THE SAUCE IN ADVANCE. It’s super easy. Using double-strength bouillon adds more flavor, compensating for not flouring each piece.

An instant-read thermometer, like the Thermapen MK4, helps to make sure the chicken is cooked just right. All the brown stuff on the pan is the fond, which will become part of your final sauce.

Here’s what deglazing looks like. Add the sauce while the pan is still hot, then scrape the fond off the pan and into the sauce.

Final Step: Add the chicken back to the pan. Reduce heat, and let simmer a few minutes. In this photo I have 2 full breasts, about 1.4 lbs, so you can see there is a little less sauce than I typically like to have.