How To Make the Easiest 20-Minute Chicken Piccata

Chicken piccata, with its signature briny sauce, is a recipe every home cook should have in their back pocket, ready to whip out on any given weeknight. Not only does it taste incredibly luxe and flavorful, but it will also be on your table in just 20 minutes. Now that’s a winning chicken dinner.

While the Italian-American classic may very well be your go-to order at your favorite red-sauce joint, it’s incredibly easy to make yourself since it relies on so few ingredients, many of which you likely already have on hand.

You’ll want to start with thin, quick-cooking chicken cutlets instead of standard chicken breasts. These can be prepped by your grocery store butcher — just expect to pay a little more for them. Alternatively, if you already have chicken breasts on hand, you can trim them into cutlets at home. Simply halve the breasts horizontally starting at the thick end into 1/4-inch-thick cutlets (this is also known as butterflying).

When you’re all set up with your cutlets, you’ll dredge them in a bit of flour, which ensures they’ll be crispy and golden-brown when pan-fried in a flavorful mix of butter and olive oil. The sauce is a simple combination of chicken broth, lemon juice, and capers, which simmer together in the same skillet used to cook the chicken. A bit of flour left over in the pan helps bind these ingredients into a slightly thickened sauce that’s a little tangy, a little rich, and completely hard to resist.

There’s really no wrong way to serve chicken piccata, but you do want to take full advantage of its signature sauce. That means serving it over rice, mashed potatoes, or, better yet, buttered noodles, which will ensure no drop is left behind.