Upscale Chicken Piccata Recipe
So you've just finished Season 1, Episode 4 of "The Bear," and now you're craving the crispy, glossy, buttery chicken piccata that left even hard-headed Chef Tina speechless. Don't worry: We watched Chef Carmy monter au beurre over and over so that you don't have to. The Berzatto family recipe differs slightly from a traditional chicken piccata; like his late mother, Carmy (played by Jeremy Allen White) lightly fries the chicken, then adds his own fine-dining flair by zesting lemon and sprinkling sea salt on the crispy outsides. His technique for the buttery sauce is classic: a base of aromatics doused in white wine and swirled together with hot broth and butter until golden and glossy.
While the techniques Carmy uses are near-elite, the results are still a timeless, classic, buttery lemon chicken piccata. With the recipe below, you can create Michelin-level chicken piccata in your own kitchen with ease.
Gather your chicken piccata ingredients
To make Michelin-worthy chicken piccata like that on "The Bear," you only need a few extra ingredients from a simple chicken piccata. Start with your staple ingredients: lemons, capers, butter, white wine, broth, salt, pepper, and chicken breast cutlets. To that, add a dredge of flour, egg, Parmesan cheese, and breadcrumbs. Add in some parsley, shallot, and garlic, and you have what you need for a flavorful, masterful chicken piccata right at home.
Make sure your chicken is worked into cutlets by the butcher, or do it yourself at home so that the chicken is pounded flat. This makes a tender, juicy fried chicken in just minutes.
Begin by dredging the chicken cutlets
Working with three separate shallow bowls filled with flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, respectively, dredge your thin chicken cutlets through the flour, then the egg, and finally the breadcrumbs, making sure the cutlet is completely coated. Work in batches until each chicken is breaded. Set them aside while the oil in your frying pan heats to 350 F.
Fry and season the breaded chicken
Because the chicken cutlets are so thin, you only need ¼ inch to ½ inch of oil in your skillet. Once it's reached the proper temperature, place the chicken into the skillet and fry on each side until golden brown and crispy. Dry on a paper towel lined plate. While it's drying, sprinkle with salt (a flaky sea salt such as Maldon is great here) and generously zest a lemon on top. Cover loosely with foil (or place in the oven on the warming setting) to keep warm while making the sauce.
Make the base of the lemon piccata sauce
You can chop and mince the aromatics however you wish, but slicing the garlic prevents any burning throughout the cooking process and allows a strong but delicate garlic flavor in the final sauce. Add it along with the shallot to the pan.
Once the shallot and garlic are softened and browning on the edges — or caramelizing, as Carmy describes it — add capers and a splash of wine to deglaze. Reduce the wine until the liquid in the skillet is halved. The liquid left will be opaque, creamy, and a little thick.
Pour in hot chicken broth and whisk in the butter
We're going to need hot broth here. You can heat the broth over the stove, but an easy shortcut is to just microwave it shortly before reaching this step. Adding hot broth to the reduced wine mixture is a technique also used in risottos to keep the contents of the pan hot while introducing new liquid. It keeps the cooking process going without shocking any of the already warm ingredients. After stirring in the broth, whisk in the cold butter to form the thick, glossy piccata sauce. This is what Carmy begins to describe as "monter au beurre", or a technique defined in culinary school as whisking cold butter into hot liquid in order to thicken and emulsify into a sauce. It's fancy when it's in French!
Add a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of parsley, and serve
Bring the sauce together with a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and a generous amount of chopped parsley. Swirl the ingredients together, then pour over individual portions of your breaded chicken. Pour about ¼ cup over each piece, and add any extra sauce afterwards. If saving leftovers, keep the sauce and chicken separate; to reheat the chicken so that it stays crispy, heat in the oven at 350 F for 5 to 10 minutes or until warm. Reheat the sauce in the microwave or on the stove, whisking well with a spoonful of hot water to combine any broken ingredients.
Lemon chicken piccata is best served with pasta, which you could keep plain, dressed with remaining piccata sauce, or in a simple aglio e olio (garlic and oil). You can also serve alongside crusty garlic bread and a Caesar salad, or do like "The Bear" and enjoy with a big slice of chocolate cake!
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, divided
- 1 ½ teaspoons pepper, divided
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 ½ cups plain breadcrumbs
- ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- 4 chicken cutlets, or chicken breasts pounded into ¼-inch cutlets
- canola or vegetable oil, for frying (about 2 cups)
- 1 lemon
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
- 1 shallot, finely diced
- 4 cloves garlic, sliced
- 2 tablespoons capers
- ½ cup dry white wine
- ½ cup chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
- ½ teaspoon flaky Maldon sea salt
- Combine 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper with flour in a large shallow bowl. Whisk eggs in a second low bowl. In a third bowl, stir together the breadcrumbs and parmesan.
- Working with one cutlet at a time, dredge chicken in flour, then dip into egg, coat lightly in breadcrumb mixture, then set aside. Repeat until all cutlets are lightly breaded.
- Heat oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Once oil reaches 350 F, add chicken and fry until both sides are golden brown and crispy and internal temperature reaches 165 F. Work in batches if needed to avoid crowding the pan. Transfer fried cutlets to a paper towel-lined plate and sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon kosher salt or ½ teaspoon Maldon salt. Zest lemon over chicken and set aside. Reserve the lemon for later.
- To make the sauce, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a shallow skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and sauté until caramelized, about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Stir in the capers, then add white wine and bring to a simmer.
- Reduce the wine by half, about 4 to 5 minutes; remaining liquid will be thicker and opaque. As the wine is reducing, heat the chicken broth until hot (either in the microwave or on the stove).
- Add hot broth to reduced wine mixture and stir to incorporate. Once simmering, whisk in the remaining 6 tablespoons of butter and continue whisking to combine. Sauce will become glossy and thicken.
- Once butter is combined, add remaining salt and pepper to taste. Whisk in the juice of the lemon, and once incorporated, stir in parsley.
- To serve, pour or spoon sauce over prepared chicken.
| Calories per Serving | 1,219 |
| Total Fat | 76.0 g |
| Saturated Fat | 16.0 g |
| Trans Fat | 0.9 g |
| Cholesterol | 222.2 mg |
| Total Carbohydrates | 73.1 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 4.5 g |
| Total Sugars | 5.2 g |
| Sodium | 1,036.2 mg |
| Protein | 54.4 g |
