by Alyssa RiversThis website may contain affiliate links and advertising so that we can provide recipes to you. Read my privacy policy.
A quick and easy one pot meal that is on the dinner table in 30 minutes! Tender breaded chicken in a creamy lemon sauce that the entire family will love!
Chicken is a favorite protein around here with its mild flavor, you can do so many delicious recipes! You have to try these favorites, Lemon Chicken, Fried Rice and Noodle Soup!
Easy Lemon Chicken Piccata
One of our favorite meals of the week was this Creamy Lemon Chicken Piccata. My favorite part was that it was a one pot meal and ready on the dinner table in 30 minutes! It is just like the classic chicken piccata dish, but with the added lemon tang. It gives it such a fresh and delicious taste to this creamy sauce. The chicken has a delicious breading on the outside and it is perfect served over some pasta. Everyone in my family loved this meal. It had such a delicious flavor and will be one that we make again and again!
This American Italian favorite is so creamy and delicious. Piccata literally means, pounded flat and cooked in a sauce of lemon, parsley and butter. Done in one pan and in 30 minutes means you can have an incredible meal on the table in no time. Do not be scared of the capers. They really make the dish amazing. If you have never had them, this is the perfect dish to try them with. You have to try this creamy lemon piccata!
Ingredients for Lemon Chicken
Super simple ingredients come together to make an irresistible meal. Serve this with a nice green salad and some rolls and you have dinner made!
- Chicken: Boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded flat if needed.
- Salt and Pepper:To taste.
- Flour: Creates a nice breading on the chicken.
- Butter: Adds flavor besides a frying agent.
- Olive Oil: Also used to cook and add flavor.
- Chicken Broth: Flavoring and adds to the sauce.
- Lemons: Fresh whole lemons
- Heavy Cream: Can substitute half and half, but won’t be as creamy in texture.
- Capers: Look for these with the pickles and jarred pepperoncinis
- Parsley: this is optional.
- Angel Hair Pasta: Can substitute spaghetti noodles if you would like.
Making Perfect Lemon Chicken Piccata
Take the time if you need to, to pound your chicken the same size or at least thinned out. You won’t regret it. They will cook faster and more evenly.
- Chicken: Heat 2 Tablespoons butter and 2 Tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Salt and pepper each side of the chicken breasts
- If They Are Thick: If the chicken breasts are overly thick, pound them to be thinner. Cooking time will be shorter.
- Flour: Dredge the chicken in the flour
- Brown: Put the chicken breasts in the skillet. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side, or until it is cooked throughout and no longer pink. Remove from the skillet and set aside on a plate.
- Sauce: Turn the heat to medium low. Add broth juice from both lemons, heavy cream, and capers. Bring the sauce to a boil and return to medium low heat. Test the sauce and season with salt and pepper as needed. Allow the sauce to cook and bubble for about 3 minutes.
- Dish: Serve the chicken over cooked pasta and spoon the sauce over broth. Sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley.
What are Capers?
If you have never had capers before, this is the perfect introduction. Typically served alongside of chicken and salmon dishes, they add a ton of flavor. Capers are under ripened flower buds of plant known as the caper bush. The capers are picked and dried. Then they are pickled to create this tangy, salty, and briny flavor that is out of this world yummy.
These little pea sized condiments produce big flavor. A little goes a long way. Use them in salads, pasta and chicken. Because of their lemony like flavor they are favorite with fish. Give these other recipes a try that spotlight the wonders of capers. Pan Seared Scallops with Lemon Caper Sauce, Pasta Puttanesca with Chicken and Lemon Salmon Piccata.
Tips and Variations for Creamy Chicken Piccata
There are a few tips and variations you can do with chicken piccata, but this recipe is perfect just the way it is.
- Noodles: Truly any kind of pasta can be used to serve this scrumptious lemon piccata dish with. You can also serve it over steamed vegetables, rice, zucchini noodles, or anything else that seems delicious.
- Chicken: Make sure your chicken is thin, you can pound it thin or slice it in half, either way will create the size you are looking for.
- Flour: You need the flour to create the great crust on the chicken and for the sauce to stick to.
- Fresh Lemons: Do not use bottled lemon juice. It will not taste the same and could actually ruin your dish. In this recipe, keep it to the real thing.
- Capers: Some find the capers to salty, if you are afraid of that, just rinse the capers before adding.
How to Store Creamy Lemon Chicken Piccata
Keep this in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 4 days. Warm leftovers in the microwave. It is best to store it seperate from the pasta or whatever you are serving it with if you can.
More Chicken Recipes to Try
Chicken is so versatile. It can be used in all sorts of cuisines. American, Italian, Chinese, Mexican and everything in between. Chicken is relatively cheap protein making it an economical family friendly dish. You can boil it, fry it, grill it, bake it and roast it. And don’t forget the latest ways of cooking, instant pot and air fryer. All incredible ways to prepare chicken, so when you need a new recipe to try, look no further than here. I have you covered.
- The Very Best Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole
- Sticky Asian Glazed Chicken
- Grilled California Avocado Chicken
- Crispy Air Fryer “‘Fried” Chicken
- Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
Creamy Lemon Chicken Piccata
Ingredients
- 4 Chicken Breasts Whole Boneless Skinless
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 Lemons whole
- 3/4 Cup Heavy Cream
- 1/4 cup capers
- parsley for garnish, chopped
- 1 pound Angel Hair Pasta
Instructions
- Heat 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. (If the chicken breasts are overly thick, pound them to be thinner. Cooking time will be shorter.) Salt and pepper each side of the chicken breasts.
- Dredge the chicken in the flour.
- Put the chicken breasts in the skillet. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side, or until it is cooked throughout and no longer pink. Remove from the skillet and set aside on a plate.
- Turn the heat to medium low. Add broth, juice from both lemons, heavy cream, and capers. Bring the sauce to a boil and return to medium low heat. Test the sauce and season with salt and pepper as needed. Allow the sauce to cook and bubble for about 3 minutes.
- Serve the chicken over cooked pasta and spoon the sauce over both. Sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley.
Nutrition
Serves: 4
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.
Looks Yummy
I made this recipe last night and it was divine!!! My fiancé was pleasantly surprised and wants me to put this on our meal rotation! Thank you for sharing!!
If you love Lemon and Capers you’ll love this recipe. I’m not a huge fan of capers so I didn’t enjoy it has much as I would have like to. The Lemon gives the dish a nice flavor and the chicken was nice and moist. My son enjoyed it, he ate a second plate. I will say when I made his plate I didn’t add the capers, because the capers are salty I thought he would bite into one and ate the dish. Next time I serve the dish I will serve it with the capers to see what he thinks. Thank you for sharing your recipe 🙂
Rinsing the capers before adding them to the dish will help knock off some of the saltiness. I rinse mine because I like to be able to taste all the different ingredients, not just the salty stuff. Hope that helps!
My family loved this dinner and thanked me tremendously for making it. The best recipe I’ve tried yet!
Love lemon and chicken together! Thanks for the recipe!
I made this for dinner last night–easy AND absolutely delicious!! Will be making this again soon!
This was actually pretty good, at least as far as the chicken goes. That was amazing! I think next time if I made it I’d probably use slightly less capers, it was way too overpowering for me.
do you have a cook book i can order? That would be wonderful if you did.
I love, love, love this dish! It was a big hit and super easy to make.
Simple, fast and yummy I like it! It was delicious, however, my little heart would’ve been content with the juice of only one lemon. Also, I’d recommend putting the sauce in a ramekin because it is quite calorie-dense with the cream so your less likely to eat a whole lot of it if it’s served separate from the chicken/noodles.
Overall great recipe, thanks for sharing :O)
Made this for dinner last night and it was SO GOOD! Thank you for the recipe! I’ll definitely be making this again! I bought 2 lemons but they were both very ripe, so I only used one – perfect! 🙂
Is it okay to leave out the capers? Any good substitutes? I can’t wait to try this recipe, it sounds delicious!
Yes you can! I think the dish would still be great without them and no need to substitute anything. 🙂
The picture of the recipe shows sliced lemons in there, however, recipe does not call for slices of lemon. Please advise.
I just used sliced lemons for garnish.
I loved the dish but my son couldn’t eat it. The lemon was very overpowering. My lemons were very juicy so next time I will add a little juice at a time. This is a great fast meal. I give it 4 stars for now. I’m sure it will be a five next time with a little less lemon 🙂
This is a great dish! I made it for my family and they devoured it. I served over brown rice instead of pasta. Yummy!!
I am making this but have never been a fan of capers, so for our family’s taste buds, have added garlic and a little creole seasoning to the sauce. It smells divine!!
Update: I also added some flour and water mixed for thickness and a little whole milk to cut the lemon because it packed quite a bite.
This dish is amazing!!! The only thing I changed was actually emerging the chicken breasts in the sauce while the noodles were cooking. It made everything super tender and delicious!!!
Is there any way you could lighten this recipe for those of us trying to slim down?
You could always substitute the heavy cream for half and half or even milk. It might just not be as creamy. 🙂
in my humble opinion, this dish does not really need cream or milk…
If you want to skip the heavy cream, you can use very small amounts of flour to thicken the sauce. You’ll need a little more broth. I also used 1/4 cup of carton unsweetened coconut milk. It worked out perfectly.
I came across this on pintrest and I made it, was SO DELICIOUS! Thank you!
Absolutely delicious, so easy and so quick to make! Win- win!
Made this tonight and it was delicious. I only had drums and thighs, so I used them in place of the breasts, and placed them in the oven to finish cooking till the sauce finished. My two lemons produced about half cup of juice, and the sauce had a very assertive lemon flavor, but it was still so delish. Thank you for sharing a quick and flavorful dish!
His just wanted to know would I be able to use without the flour? I’m afraid that it’ll make the chicken breast soggy…
I made this tonight using the juice from one lemon and shredded cauliflower instead of pasta. It was fantastic! Thank you for sharing!
The chicken was great. I seasoned the chicken and the flour and it came out perfect. I made this and the sauce ended up having a funny taste. I love capers but for some reason instead of releasing the great caper taste, it made the sauce more bitter. The sauce also wasn’t enough for one pound so I would double it.
Maybe if you rinse & thoroughly drain the capers, that should take away the “brine” flavor leaving just the delicious caper flavor without the overpowering brine flavor
Did you use salted or unsalted butter?
I always have salted on hand but either would work.
Making this tonight…Have you ever used wine instead of chicken broth or both?
I have but it seemed to be to tangy for me. The broth was more subtle. 🙂
My husband adored this dish. It was super simple to make and I appreciated the creaminess of the dish without feeling too guilty about the 3/4 C. heavy cream. 🙂
I read the recipe three times to make sure I followed it correctly, it didn’t come out as expected without some tweaks. The juice of 2 whole lemons was too much so I needed to double the cream , broth and capers. Also when lemon juice and a milk product are combined the milk looks curdled. I needed to boil sauce for a good 20 min before it started to look creamy. After that it was a good meal
The adjustments I made were: 1 1/2 lemons, replaced capers with 1/4 cup of chopped black olives, 1/2 tsp taragon, 1/2 tsp dill, 1/2 tsp rosemary to sauce. To counter balance the acidity I added 1 tbsp honey and 2 tbsp brown sugar. Sautéed chicken and put in a 9×13 added sauce sautéed an onion and pepper which I added to the sauce and put in a 375 deg oven for 20 min.
Served with rice and stir fried asparagus, mushrooms and bell peppers. Turned out amazing!!
That is not even the same recipe!
No kidding!
Calling this an adjustment had me falling over. You completely rewrote your own recipie. Perhaps you should start your own blog.
My husband (the cook in our family) made this tonight and it was SO AMAZING! One of the best meals Ive had in a very long time! He says he will tweak it next time, adjust the chicken stock and heavy cream both to 1/2 cup just to get a thicker, more creamy sauce. However I thought it was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT when he perfectly followed this recipe.
How do you keep the lemon from curdling the cream?
My sauce was really runny. is it supposed to be that way? I’m not sure if I did something wrong or if its supposed to be that way. I saw on other recipes that they reduce the broth and lemon juice before adding the cream.
Made this tonight. We all loved it & will add it to my recipe box. Thank you !
I’ve made this a few times and it is hands down one of my current favorites. So easy and oh so yummy!!!!
I made this tonight and it was delicious! I kept the chicken and sauce separate for picky eaters at my table, but when I put it all together….ah-mazing! I didn’t change anything.
What am I missing? No one has questioned cooking a chicken breast for 3 minutes on a side and that’s all? ‘Or until no longer pink’ would be at least 20 minutes longer. This is very similar to Giada’s recipe, and I love that one. But after the sauce is made and the chicken browned, the chicken is simmered in the broth for 30 minutes. I always double the sauce and finish cooking the angel hair pasta in the yummy sauce. I could eat the whole recipe by myself over a 2 day period. LOL
It all just depends on the thickness of your chicken. That is why I include until no longer pink. I use pretty thin chicken pieces which do take about 3 minutes on each side.
This was really good! The chicken came out perfectly. The sauce was really lemon-y and kind of thin, so I ended up mixing some cornstarch into milk and adding it to both thicken the sauce and cut some of the tartness. Super yummy! We had seconds. Definitely adding this to the dinner rotation, thanks!
I love this recipe! I’ve made it several times and keep coming back to it. Lovely creamy lemon flavor with a kick of saltiness from the capers.
Alyssa,
I am making this right now and the sauce seems a bit thin? It has thickened up since I figured out how to post though. Hope it will be ok. I have a meeting tonight and wanted to have a meal that just needed rehearing.
This was awesome! Everyone ate it without complaining! Served it with pasta and garlic bread!
Way too much lemon for me. Had to add something to cut it, but regardless thank you for the recipe. Very good!
My husband and I love this recipe. I’m making it again for the third time tonight and think it’s so flavorful and delicious. I use whole milk, since that’s typically what I have and 1 lemon (since I’m always short on lemons) and it always turns out great!
Just made it tonight and used just one lemon. Omg, the lemon was overwhelming. It is so sour. Help!
I LOVEEE LEMON so i will be doing it just as recipe indicates! Thank you so much
Pretty good. There was way too much pasta for the sauce though, I probably only used half of it. The sauce was very thin, but I didn’t mind that too much. I didn’t use much lemon because my family that I was cooking for doesn’t like too much and the comments were saying it was too overpowering, but I should have put a little more. I also added broccoli instead of the capers. Also do not use low sodium chicken broth, because it will make the sauce have less flavor.
Have you tried to do this with a white fish fillet like tilapia? Did you change the recipe at all for that?
Unfortunately I have not tried any other meats with this meal. If you try it with tilapia please let me know how it tastes! I would love to know! Thanks for the suggestions and idea! Xo
Your Recipe Critic,
Alyssa
I loved it. Used one juicy lemon and did rinse the capers. I cooked rigatoni still chewy and added It to the sauce with the chicken. OMG I wanted to lick the pan. Thanks.
That is SO good to hear! I am glad it turned out so great! Thanks for sharing! Xo
Your Recipe Critic,
Alyssa
Alyssa, I’ve seen some recipes with garlic added. What do you think? I’m planning on making this for dinner tomorrow night. I can’t wait!
I have not made it with garlic before. It sounds good! The garlic may over power the lemon and may alter the taste. If you do try it, let me know how you like it!!
This was a easy and great tasting dinner. A keeper for sure!
That is great to hear and makes me SO happy! Thanks so much for sharing! XOXO
CAN THIS CREAMY CHICKEN PICCATTA BE SUBSTITUTED WITH BONELESS CHICKEN THIGHS?
I LOVE this recipe!!! This sauce is a nice light light-bodied sauce with tons of flavor. The first night I had a lot of sauce left over since I served it over sauteed spinach. So, I reserved the sauce and made it the next night with steamed broccoli and Angel Hair pasta. My son even said it was the best chicken ever and had it the next day for lunch even though there were plenty of other options LOL. SO EASY!!!
Any recommendations for making this for 8 people?
I would double the recipe for 8 people. There will be enough and a little more in case someone would like seconds.