Chicken Francaise

Chicken Francaise is an American-Italian dish (despite it's name!) made with quick-seared chicken cutlets accompanied by a simple lemon butter pan sauce. Easy and yum!

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Chicken Francaise

  • Prep Time: 10 m
  • Cook Time: 6 m
  • Total Time: 16 m
  • Servings:
    4

Ingredients

  • 4 5-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup white wine
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • juice of half a lemon
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley

Instructions

  1. Place the chicken breasts in between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and pound with the flat side of a meat mallet or small frying pan until they are roughly ¼-inch thick.
  2. Combine the flour, salt and freshly ground black pepper in a shallow bowl. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Dredge the chicken breasts in the flour first, then dip them into the eggs, allow any excess egg to drip off the chicken and place immediately into the pan with the hot oil. Fry for about 3 minutes per side, until the chicken is golden brown. Transfer the cooked chicken to a plate lined with paper towel and tent with aluminum foil while you finish the sauce.
  3. Pour or wipe out the oil remaining in the pan. Deglaze with the white wine, scraping up any bits of the chicken left in the pan. Add the chicken stock and lemon juice and simmer until reduced by half. When the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, it is ready. Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter and fresh chopped parsley. Swirl the pan to melt the butter and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
  4. Transfer the chicken to a serving dish and pour warm sauce over the top. Garnish with fresh parsley and lemon slices and serve with noodles or angel hair pasta.
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Comments (14)Post a Reply

  1. 5 stars
    Meredith, you did it again! This used to be one of my mother’s favorite dishes. Unfortunately, while she was alive, I bought it from a local Italian eatery. This was perfect! It had enough lemon (one of mom’s biggest complaints — “they didn’t put enough lemon!”) Delicious and easy to make. This will go into my weekly rotation.

  2. 5 stars
    Easy and delicious! I made it with noodles on the side. Next time I think angel hair pasta would be far better! I loved it!

  3. 5 stars
    I have made the fricassee thanks for posting it it tastes just like my daddy cook it when I was a Youngster thank you Blue Jean Chef

  4. A great way to make the egg dip is too just break the egg yolks but do not make scrambled egg, add parmesan cheese to the egg mixture with parsley. This will give your battered chicken our flounder a great flavor!!! Mike

  5. This is on of my favorite Italian restaurant dishes to order for dinner. I miss eating out due to pandemic restrictions, but I now know how to make this at home. On my very first try of your Chicken Francaise recipe, I was successful. It wasn’t difficult, I made no changes, and it was simply delicious and very cheering after going long without a taste of it. I had a crusty Italian bread to enjoy the extra sauce with to complete my kitchen “restaurant” experience. Thanks for a fine recipe that tastes “authentic” and gives me plenty of inspiration to do it again.

  6. 5 stars
    Love your recipes. This one is a real keeper. My son loves this and used to get this at restaurants. He loved this one too. Spot on recipe. Thank you. I enjoy your emails and your pictures of the “kids” . lol Have quite a few of your books and just ordered another. Thanks so much.

    1. Hi Kate. Unless you’re using wine in a dessert, I always use dry (not sweet) wine. I like to use a wine that I enjoy drinking (because you rarely use the whole bottle in the cooking), but if you don’t drink wine pick a modestly priced bottle and then store the leftovers in the refrigerator. You can also freeze wine in a freezer bag for another time. It won’t freeze rock solid, but it will be preserved for longer.

    1. Capers would be a good addition to this sauce. It would be similar to a Picatta sauce.

  7. Thank you for your recipei of chicken Francese – just like you said easy to make and the result was a work of art thanks to you.

    1. You can increase the amount of wine and stock added to the pan. Simmer a few minutes longer to thicken the sauce and then finish with the butter and parsley.

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