This Crispy Chicken Piccata is the most requested chicken dish in our house! Perfectly crispy, pan-fried chicken is coated in a buttery, lemon, and caper-filled sauce to create your new favorite family dinner. Serve lemon chicken piccata over buttery noodles or mashed potatoes, and watch it disappear in seconds!
Why This is the Best Chicken Piccata Recipe
This crispy chicken piccata is a family recipe that I have been making since my girls were little. They now make it in their homes as adults and it’s my son in laws absolute favorite dinner. He requests it for his birthday every year! Here’s why you’ll love it too:
- Twist on a Classic: This easy chicken piccata is a very simple traditional Italian dish made of sautéed chicken breasts with a lemon, butter and caper sauce served on top. We put an American twist on this classic by breading the chicken breast in panko style breadcrumbs and pan frying it until it’s golden.
- That Sauce: The tender, crispy fried chicken is perfectly paired with the traditional lemon piccata sauce. The breading soaks up a little of the sauce and it’s seriously irresistible after that first bite. We love to serve it over buttery parmesan noodles or mashed potatoes, both ways are delicious.
- So Quick: While our lemon chicken piccata is loaded with flavor, it is ready in less than 30 minutes! This is one of those dinners that will taste like you have put way more effort into it than is actually required. We love that these simple ingredients deliver so much flavor with very minimal effort.
Looking for some more ways to spice up your normal chicken dinners? Try our crockpot French onion chicken, our stuffing stuffed chicken breasts, or our yum yum chicken. You’ll be saying ‘yum!’ after just one bite!
What You’ll Need
These ingredients could not be simpler and you only need eight of them. Scroll down to the recipe card for exact amounts.
- Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast
- Garlic Salt
- Black Pepper
- Seasoned Panko Breadcrumbs: You must use panko breadcrumbs or they will not stick to your chicken.
- Olive Oil
- Butter
- Fresh Lemon Juice
- Capers: Give these a light rinse and drain before adding to the sauce.
How to Make Lemon Chicken Piccata
A restaurant quality dish ready in less than 30 minutes? Yes please! Check out the recipe card for more detailed instructions.
- Tenderize: Place the chicken breast on a cutting board and slice the chicken breasts in half lengthwise. Use a meat tenderizer to pound the chicken even and flat on both sides. This will make the frying time shorter and keeps the chicken nice and tender.
- Fry: Season both sides of the chicken and then coat with breadcrumbs. Cook the chicken in hot oil for 3 minutes on both sides until golden brown and cooked through.
- Sauce: Scrape out any burnt breading and leave just 1 tablespoon of grease in the pan. Add in the remaining butter and capers and sauté over low heat for a few minutes. Add the lemon juice and whisk constantly until a nice sauce has formed (about a minute).
- Serve: Pour the capers and sauce over the chicken and serve immediately!
How To Thin Your Chicken Breasts
The most important part to making perfect chicken piccata are thin, tenderized chicken breasts. You can achieve these by purchasing already thin sliced chicken breasts at the grocery store and tenderizing them at home with a meat tenderizer.
Or, we like to purchase standard boneless, skinless chicken breasts and slice them in half lengthwise, creating two long and thin chicken breasts. Then pounding them out with a meat tenderizer.
When tenderizing your chicken breasts, you want to ensure that you pound them out so that they are even and flat on both sides. This will ensure that your chicken cooks evenly and quickly.
**Tenderizing Tip: If you want, you can place your chicken breasts in a ziplock bag and then pound them to tenderize them. This will help make less of a raw chicken mess!
Tips and Tricks
If you’re not super familiar with making this easy chicken piccata recipe, here are a few tips to make sure it goes perfectly.
- Prep is Important: Gather your ingredients and have them all ready to go before frying your chicken. Once you being frying your chicken, everything will move very quickly!
- Thin Chicken Breasts: Make sure you use thin chicken breasts and get your chicken pounded our evenly. This is a really important tip when making piccata. By pounding out the chicken into thin pieces, it makes it fork tender and helps the chicken to cook very quickly.
- Ask the Butcher: If you are running short on time or you just do not enjoy tenderizing chicken breast, you can ask your butcher to run the breast through the tenderizer at the meat counter. I am not gonna lie….tenderizing some chicken can really let off a lot of stress from the day, but sometimes it is just easier to let someone else handle it.
- Frying In Batches: Depending on how much chicken you are frying and the size of your pan, you may need to fry your chicken in batches. When cooking in batches, you may need to add more olive oil to the frying pan as you are frying. I keep the olive oil by the stove when frying the chicken and add as needed.
- Breadcrumbs: Really press the breadcrumbs into the chicken breast as it helps to keep them on when frying. If you like a little heavier breading mix in a 1/2 cup of regular seasoned breadcrumbs with the Panko breadcrumbs.
- Removing Burnt Breading: After removing the fried chicken from the pan, you may notice that some of the breadcrumbs burned. Scoop those out, but leave the ones that are not burned they add so much more flavor to the sauce.
What to Serve With Chicken Piccata
The best sides for piccata are the ones that can hold onto the sauce! Buttery angel hair pasta or vermicelli noodles are delicious with the chicken and sauce served over them. Mashed potatoes, cauliflower mash or rice (coconut rice would be really great with these flavors!) can all make a great base too. We love serving our dish with extra lemon wedges on the side for anyone who wants an extra burst of lemon flavor!
For a lighter green side, broccoli or a nice green side salad like our strawberry spinach salad can help brighten the dish and compliment the flavors well.
How to Store and Reheat Leftovers
Well….. if you have any leftovers, they’ll keep really well! Here’s how to handle them.
- Store: Store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. But we doubt you are going to have any of that fried chicken left! We never do!
- Reheat: The best way to crisp up cold chicken piccata is in the air fryer or oven on 375°F for 3-5 minutes. It won’t be as good as fresh, but it is still tasty! You can also microwave the chicken piccata for a couple of minutes, flipping halfway through.
- Freeze: You can freeze any leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Let the chicken thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating.
More Easy Chicken Recipes
Crispy Chicken Piccata
Ingredients
- 4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1 ½ teaspoons garlic salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons black pepper
- 1 ½ cups seasoned panko breadcrumbs
- 4-6 tablespoons olive oil, as needed
- 1 stick 1/2 cup butter, divided
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup drained capers
Instructions
- Place the chicken breast on a cutting board and slice the chicken breasts in half lengthwise to create 8 thinly sliced chicken breasts.
Use a meat tenderizer to pound chicken even and flat on both sides. Season chicken breasts with garlic salt and pepper on both sides.
Place breadcrumbs into a large shallow bowl and press chicken breasts into the breadcrumbs on both sides to coat chicken in breadcrumbs.
- In a large frying pan, heat 4 tablespoons olive oil and 3 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat. Once hot, add chicken breasts to the pan and cook for 3 minutes.
- Flip chicken and continue to cook for 3 more minutes, until cooked through. Remove chicken from the pan and place on a serving platter. You may need to cook the chicken breasts in batches depending on the size of your pan and add a little extra olive oil as needed while frying.
- Scrape out any extra burnt pieces of breading leftover in the pan and leave only about 1 tablespoon of grease. Return pan to stove and reduce the heat to low.
Add in remaining 5 tablespoons of butter and drained capers. Sauté over low heat for 3 minutes.
- Add lemon juice, stirring constantly for 1 minute, and immediately remove sauce from heat and pour over cooked chicken.
- Serve immediately.
