The Best Chicken Marsala
Prep
15m
Cook
25m
Total
40m
Bigly says
We need to talk about chicken marsala. The greatest chicken marsala in the history of chicken marsala — and chicken marsala has a HISTORY, an Italian-American history, it came over on the boats, it landed in New York and New Jersey and it CONQUERED the catering hall. Every wedding, every banquet, every retirement party for forty years. Chicken marsala is on a chafing dish somewhere RIGHT NOW, this very second, glowing under a heat lamp. I respect that. That's longevity. That's CULTURE.
But catering-hall chicken marsala — and I have eaten more catering-hall chicken marsala than any single human being on Earth, I've had people verify the numbers, the numbers don't lie — is not what we're making here. The catering-hall version is sad. It's been sitting. The sauce has broken. The mushrooms have become rubbery little erasers. The chicken is dry. A TRAGEDY in a steam tray. We are doing the REAL version. The fresh version. The version where you eat it five minutes after it's cooked and you understand, finally, why this dish became famous in the first place.
Here's what nobody tells you — and they don't tell you because the other recipe sites are too busy showing you a 'Pin This Recipe!' popup, a 'Sign Up For Our Newsletter!' popup, a 'We Use Cookies!' popup, and a 'Hi! Are You Enjoying The Site?' popup, all AT THE SAME TIME, four popups stacked like a layer cake of garbage while I'm trying to find the OVEN TEMPERATURE, what is this world — the secret is dry Marsala. DRY. Not sweet. Sweet Marsala is for tiramisu and dessert wines. Dry Marsala is for the savory sauce, the SERIOUS sauce, the sauce that makes the chicken sing. You use sweet, your dish tastes like cough syrup, total disaster, the family turns on you. Use the dry. End of discussion.
Ingredients
- 2 large (about 1.5 lb)boneless skinless chicken breasts(halved horizontally and pounded to 1/2-inch thick)
- 1 tspkosher salt
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 1/2 cup, for dredgingall-purpose flour
- 3 tbspolive oil
- 5 tbsp, dividedunsalted butter
- 3 ozpancetta, finely diced(or thick-cut bacon if you must, but pancetta is the right answer)
- 1 lbcremini mushrooms, sliced(the mushrooms are the soul of this dish, do not skimp)
- 1 mediumshallot, minced
- 3 clovesgarlic, minced
- 3/4 cupdry Marsala wine(DRY, not sweet, the bottle will say which one, read the bottle)
- 1 cuplow-sodium chicken broth
- 1/4 cupheavy cream
- 1 tspfresh thyme leaves
- 2 tbspfresh parsley, chopped
Steps
- 1
Pat the chicken cutlets dry with paper towels. Season both sides with the salt and pepper.
- 2
Spread the flour on a shallow plate. Dredge each cutlet in the flour, shaking off the excess.
- 3
Heat the olive oil and 2 tbsp of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter foams, add the cutlets in a single layer (in batches if needed) and cook 3-4 minutes per side until deeply golden and just cooked through. Transfer to a plate.
- 4
Reduce heat to medium. Add the pancetta to the same skillet and cook 4-5 minutes until crisp and the fat has rendered. Transfer with a slotted spoon to the plate with the chicken.
- 5
Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan in a single layer. Do not stir for the first 3 minutes — let them release their water and start to brown. Then stir and cook another 5-6 minutes until deeply golden.
- 6
Add the shallot and cook 1 minute. Stir in the garlic and cook 30 seconds until fragrant.
- 7
Pour in the Marsala and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Simmer 3-4 minutes until reduced by about half.
- 8
Add the chicken broth and thyme. Simmer 4-5 minutes until the sauce has reduced and thickened slightly and the mushrooms are glazed.
- 9
Stir in the heavy cream and simmer 1 minute more.
- 10
Remove the pan from the heat. Swirl in the remaining 3 tbsp butter, one tablespoon at a time, until the sauce is glossy.
- 11
Return the chicken and the crisped pancetta to the pan along with any resting juices. Spoon the sauce and mushrooms over the top to coat.
- 12
Sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately over buttered egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or polenta.
One more thing
This is the kind of dish that makes a Tuesday feel like a Saturday. You walk in the door, you're tired, the day was a lot — three different password reset requests for accounts you don't remember creating, the modern world is RELENTLESS — and you make this chicken marsala, and forty minutes later you're sitting down to something that tastes like it took all day. It didn't. Forty minutes. Nobody needs to know that. Let them think you slaved. Take the credit. You earned it. Now go eat.
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Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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