Chicken Piccata Pasta Toss, a Family Favorite

Chicken Piccata Pasta Toss is an easy weeknight meal that will quickly become a family favorite. It has all the flavors of chicken piccata without all the fuss.

​Chef Inspiration for Chicken Piccata Pasta Toss

Over the years, I’ve had a great many cooks I’ve followed – celebrity and non-celebrity – who have shaped who I am as a recipe developer and photographer. One of those was Rachael Ray.

What I’ve always loved about her is how accessible she makes cooking seem. She loves good food, but she doesn’t use hard-to-find ingredients or hard-to-master techniques in her recipes.

This easy chicken piccata pasta recipe is one of my earlier creations and followed those tenets of readily available ingredients, ease of preparation, and ease of cooking. In this case, I’m taking a classic Italian dish and making it accessible to many others.

And, it doesn’t hurt that this is a wonderful comfort food my family has loved for years! It’s one of their favorite chicken dinners and a great zesty pasta dish.

Readily Available Ingredients

Part of creating a simple recipe is making sure you can easily find the ingredients. While there are a number of ingredients listed below, a lot of these are pantry staples or can be easily found at your local grocery store.

Nice, juicy chicken breasts, boxed pasta, and fresh produce are usually readily available where we do our grocery shopping. And, then you have items like butter, olive oil and flour that are typically always in your pantry.

And, while you may not be big wine drinkers, you can easily substitute more chicken stock in place of the wine, if necessary.

Ease of Preparation

I know some people don’t believe they have great knife skills and that sometimes turns them away from certain recipes. This great recipe does not require chef-level knife skills.

• The chicken breasts need to be cut up into 1 inch chicken pieces.
• The only other little bit of chopping required is for the garlic, parsley and shallots.
• You need juice from a lemon. You can use a lemon juicer or simply cut the lemon half and squeeze into a small bowl by hand.

Other than measuring out the rest of the ingredients, that’s the extent of your prep for the full recipe!

Ease of Cooking

A traditional chicken piccata involves dredging chicken breasts in flour and sautéing in butter and/or oil. That’s along with making the chicken piccata sauce.

This particular recipe greatly simplifies that process while keeping the same great flavor of a traditionally-prepared chicken piccata.

You actually simply season the chicken cubes, saute in some olive oil until no longer pink in the middle and achieves a golden brown color. Then set aside. No need to dredge an entire chicken breast and make that mess.

In the same skillet, you then create the chicken piccata sauce. Once completed, you place chicken back in the skillet along with the hot pasta you were preparing while you were cooking the rest of the dish.

And that is the easy, quick way to prepare a wonderful chicken piccata dinner!

Tips and Tricks

• This recipe cooks very quickly, so I always make sure that my ingredients are all prepped before starting to cook.
• I start my heating my pasta water a few minutes before I start cooking the sauce. That way the pasta should be done about the same time as the sauce.
• If you prefer a different type of pasta, that is fine. I have found that any short cut pasta works well for this recipe.
• If the sauce is ready before the pasta is done, I cover it and turn the heat to simmer.

Ingredients Needed to Make Chicken Piccata Pasta Toss

Full instructions can be found below in the printable recipe card

• Penne pasta – You can substitute a different short cut pasta, such as rotini or farfalle.
• Boneless chicken breast – I use the boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
• Olive oil – I love the flavor that olive oil imparts on this dish. But, if you don’t have any on hand, substitute vegetable oil.
• Butter – I recommend unsalted so that I can better control the sodium content.
• Shallots – These add a milder onion flavor than a yellow or red onion.
• Fresh garlic – This enhances the flavor of the dish.
• All-purpose flour – This is used to thicken the sauce.
• White wine – If you don’t want to use wine you can add extra chicken stock.
• Chicken stock – I prefer stock over broth because I feel like it has a richer flavor. But, if broth is what you have on hand, go ahead and use that.
• Lemon – The juice of the lemon adds a brightness to the sauce.
• Capers – These add a salty brininess to the recipe.
• Fresh parsley – This adds color and flavor to the dish.
• Salt
• Black pepper

How to Make Chicken Piccata Pasta Toss

• Season chicken with salt and black pepper.
• Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
• Add chicken and saute until no longer pink.
• Remove from skillet and set aside.
• Add remaining tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp butter to skillet.
• Stir in shallots and saute for about 3 minutes.
• Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
• Sprinkle flour over shallot mixture, combine and allow to cook for a minute.
• Whisk in wine, then chicken stock and lemon juice.
• Stir in capers and parsley.
• Stir final tbsp of butter in and season to taste with salt and black pepper.
• Return chicken to skillet and stir cooked pasta into mixture.
• Serve immediately.

More Easy Pasta Recipes

• One Pot Shrimp Scampi
• Quick Chicken Cacciatore
• Grilled Chicken Pesto Pasta
• The Italian Wonder Pot
• Tortellini Butternut Squash Pasta with Pancetta and Spinach

ENJOY!

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