This Crispy Chicken Piccata is the most requested dinner 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 it over buttery noodles, or mashed potatoes, and watch it disappear in seconds!
Crispy Chicken Piccata
Chicken piccata is traditionally a very simple 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 Italian recipe by breading the chicken breast in panko style breadcrumbs and pan frying it until it’s golden.
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.
While Crispy 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.
How To Thin Your Chicken Breasts
The most important part to making perfect Crispy 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!
Ingredients
These ingredients could not be simpler and you only need eight of them:
- 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: drained
**Recipe Tip: 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!
How To Make Crispy Chicken Piccata
Step 1: It is an important step to have the chicken pounded thin, this allows for quick frying time and helps to keep the chicken fork tender. 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.
Step 2: Season both sides of chicken breasts with garlic salt and pepper. Place bread crumbs on a plate and coat the chicken breast with breadcrumbs on both sides.
Step 3: Heat the olive oil and butter in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add in the breaded chicken breast and cook for 3 minutes.
Step 4: Flip once and continue to cook for 3 more minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Remove from pan and place on a serving tray.
Step 5: 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.
Step 6: Add in the remaining butter and capers, sauté over low heat for 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice, stirring constantly for 1 minute.
Step 7: Pour the capers and sauce over the chicken and serve immediately!
Tips for Successful Crispy Chicken Piccata
- 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 Any 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, caulimash or rice can all make a great base too.
For a lighter green side, broccoli or a nice green side salad can help brighten the dish and compliment the flavors well.
What About Leftovers?
Well….. if you have any leftovers, store them in an air tight 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!
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.
Want More Capers?
Go for it! It is really a personal preference and we will never judge. Most of the time I do not measure my capers I just add however much looks good. You can also serve your chicken piccata with extra lemon wedges on the side for anyone that wants an extra burst of lemon flavor!
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!
We hope you give our version of chicken piccata a try, we just know you are going to love it! Please leave a review/comment below letting us know how it turns out for you.
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.
