Chicken Marsala – Golden crispy cutlets, rich creamy Marsala wine sauce. Comforting yet luxurious. Midweek-fast yet restaurant-worthy. Economical. Easy. The perfect meal!
Chicken Marsala
Chicken Marsala is an Italian-American classic, one of those dishes born from blending Italian recipes with American tastes. A dish that is now so beloved that it’s a staple in restaurants across the States and well beyond.
One bite is all it takes to be hooked for life, just as I was!
It’s essentially a variation of traditional Italian scaloppine dishes. A thin chicken cutlet is coated in flour then pan fried until crispy and golden, then smothered in a rich sauce that is flavoured with Marsala which is a fortified Italian wine.
Marsala is one of those secret weapon ingredients. A splash of that, and it’s like you added stock, honey, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce with a touch woody nuttiness into the sauce. The flavour that goes so well with chicken, especially with a little bit of cream to finish it off.
That sauce! It’s absolutely stunning. Thank you Mr Marsala!
This one’s for the grown-ups 🙂
And in case you’re worried, no, the sauce doesn’t taste “alcoholic” at all. The Marsala wine is simmered rapidly to cook out most of the alcohol, leaving behind just the flavour.
Having said that though, this dish uses more than the usual small splash of wine I use in other recipes so it’s not one I’d recommend for the kids. I’d recommend the Chicken in Creamy Mushroom Sauce instead – everyone can enjoy that!
Ingredients in chicken marsala
As noted above, the key ingredient in Chicken Marsala Sauce is marsala which is a fortified wine (like port) from the Marsala region of Italy. It’s got a sweet, nutty flavour that’s more complex and richer than red wine.
Use a dry marsala rather than sweet marsala which is more commonly used in desserts.
It’s a standard item at liquor stores and while premium marsala is pricey, there’s no need to go crazy here. The marsala pictured below cost around $20 but you can pick up bottles for less than $10. It will last “forever” and can be used in place of port in dishes like Slow Cooked Pork Braised Lamb Shanks.
Substitutes – Port wine, sherry, or madeira. For non alcoholic version of this recipe, use Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce!
Everything else you need
And here’s the other ingredients you need.
Chicken breast – 2 large ones which we split in 2 horizontally to create 4 steaks in total. Substitute with four boneless chicken thighs.
Cream – To add a little luxuriousness to the sauce. To reduce calories a bit, you can substitute with evaporated milk as cream is not the primary ingredient in this sauce. The sauce will not have the same creamy mouthful but it will still have the same beautiful marsala flavour.
Chicken stock/broth – To add savouriness into the sauce. Without it, it’s just lacking a bit of flavour.
Eschalot / French onion (called shallots in the US) – I like using eschalots in this dish because they are sweeter and also finer so they kind of meld into the finished sauce better, rather than having chunky lumps of onion. However, you can substitute with 1/2 small onion OR 1/4 cup of the white part of green onions (split in half lengthwise then slice into 1cm / 1/3″ squares).
Mushrooms – White mushrooms or Swiss brown/cremini. Whichever you prefer!
Butter and oil – For cooking the chicken and making the sauce. We want the butter for flavour, but it burns if we only use butter so it’s best to use oil as well.
Flour – To add a lovely golden crust on the chicken that the sauce can cling to!
Garlic – Because…garlic!
Parsley – Just an optional garnish!
How to make Chicken Marsala
Chicken Marsala is made by cooking the chicken first until golden and crispy. Then it’s set aside on a plate while the sauce is made in the same pan (we want all those tasty chicken drippings in the sauce!) , then added back into the sauce at the end just to warm through again.
Pound chicken Cut each breast in half to form 2 thin steaks (so you have 4 in total). Cover with a freezer bag or Go-Between and pound to 1 cm / 0.4″ thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin. Go-between is like cling wrap but it’s thicker and doesn’t stick to itself. Sold alongside cling wrap at the grocery store, it’s useful for keeping stacked food in the freezer from sticking to each other, and protecting meat from being damaged when pounding.
Why we pound the meat – To make the chicken even thickness so it cooks through evenly as well as tenderising it.
Season and dust – Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Then sprinkle with flour and lightly rub it across the surface with your hands.
Shake off excess flour before cooking, else you’ll end up with lots of excess flour in the pan which will burn.
Sear chicken – Melt the butter and heat the oil in a large non-stick pan over medium high heat. When the butter is foamy, cook the chicken for 4 minutes until golden and crispy. Turn the chicken then cook the other side for 2 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
Remove the chicken onto a plate and set aside while we make the sauce in the same pan. It will cool down but that’s ok because we reheat the chicken in the sauce just before serving.
Make sauce – Using the same pan, because we want all the tasty flavour left by searing the chicken, melt the remaining butter and oil. Sauté the eschalots and garlic for just 1 minute – this gives them a head start as well as flavouring the butter/oil. Then cook the mushrooms until they soften – this takes around 4 to 5 minutes.
Reduce marsala – Next, rapidly simmer the marsala for a few minutes until it reduces by half. This not only cooks out most of the alcohol flavour but also reduces and concentrates the flavour.
Creamy and thickened – Pour in the cream, salt and pepper. Then simmer for 3 to 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens to a cream consistency. Initially the sauce will be quite pale but it will darken as it reduces.
Don’t let it reduce and thicken too much as we are simmering it for a further 1 minute to re-warm the chicken and the sauce thickens a surprising amount as it cools when serving.
Re-warm chicken – Put the chicken into the sauce and let it simmer for 1 minute, just to reheat. Don’t forget to pour in any juices pooled on the plate – never waste free flavour!
What to serve with Chicken Marsala
A sauce this good requires some form of starchy vehicle for sauce soaking / mopping. Mashed potato (pictured), creamy polenta, pasta (long, short, small), even rice. I can totally see myself serving this with garlic butter kale rice!
For a blow-out Italian meal, add a Mega Italian Salad and Garlic Bread on the side. If you’ve made the salad before, you’ll understand the name! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Chicken Marsala
Ingredients
Golden crusted chicken:
- 2 large chicken breasts (300g/10oz each), cut in half horizontally (or 4 thighs, Note 1)
- 1/2 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 cup flour , plain/all-purpose
Marsala sauce:
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp / 30g unsalted butter
- 2 eschalots (US: shallots), peeled and cut into 1cm / 1/3″ squares (Note 2)
- 1 garlic , finely minced
- 2 cups white mushrooms , sliced 0.5cm / 1/5" thick
- 1 cup dry marsala wine (Note 3)
- 1/2 cup chicken stock/broth , low sodium
- 1/2 cup thickened / heavy cream (Note 4)
- 1/4 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley , for garnish (optional)
Instructions
Chicken escalopes:
- Pound – Cut each breast in half to form 2 thin steaks. Cover with a freezer bag or Go-Between (Note 5) and pound to 1 cm / 0.4″ thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin. This tenderises and ensures even cooking of the chicken.
- Dust – Sprinkle the surface with half the salt, pepper then flour. Lightly rub flour across surface, turn and repeat with remaining salt, pepper and flour. Shake excess flour off each piece just before cooking.
- Cook – Put half the butter and oil in a large non-stick pan over medium high heat. Once the butter is melted and foamy, place chicken in, then cook for 3 to 4 minutes until it's gorgeously golden and crispy. Turn and cook the other side for 2 minutes. Remove onto a plate.
Creamy marsala sauce:
- Sauté aromatics – In the same pan, add remaining butter and oil. Once butter is melted, add eschalots and garlic. Cook for 1 minute.
- Cook mushrooms – Add mushrooms. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Reduce marsala – Add marsala, turn up heat to high and boil for 3 minutes or until reduced by half.
- Thicken sauce – Add chicken stock, cream, salt and pepper. Stir, then lower heat so it's simmering (not boiling rapidly) and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes until the sauce thickens to a cream consistency (not too thick, will thicken more).
- Rewarm chicken – Nestle chicken into sauce and leave for 30 seconds to reheat.
- Serve! Take off the stove. Sprinkle with parsley, serve over starchy vehicle of choice (I chose mash. Rice, small pasta, polenta or bread for plate mopping also work well!).
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
I spent this morning in a photography studio with a team of professionals shooting recipes for a magazine. Dozer came. So much food, so many people to harass. He was in his element! (And his conversion rate was extremely high).
Pictured below with Rob Palmer (photographer) and Emma Knowles (stylist). I love working with these two!
My wife and I love this dish. Thank you for sharing!
Sorry to say, this is the first recipe from Nagi out of many that I’ve made, I didn’t like. I followed the recipe exactly. It never really thickened to what I’m used to in a Masala Sauce and I found it somewhat bland. I like to use demi-glacé instead of chicken stock and corn starch instead of cream as a thickener. I find it richer and more flavorful.
Hi Nagi, I would love to make this Marsala Chicken and I bought a bottle of Boronia brand Marsala to put in the sauce. However, Boronia Marsala is sweet, not dry, so can I still use it in the Marsala Chicken? Thank you Nagi for your help. Cheers from Amanda Jones in Melbourne.
Amanda, we use the boronia brand Marsala to make this and it’s delish!!!
I just made this using Boronia Marsala and it worked out fine. Be sure to season with salt. Taste the sauce again after it has reduced and add more salt and pepper if needed. This was the second time I made this recipe and I doubled all the liquid ingredients because it’s a little lacking in sauce otherwise.
I loved cooking, making up my own recipes… but then my mental health crashed and I didn’t want to do anything, let alone cook. Your recipes have pulled me back into the kitchen and I enjoy cooking again. Thank you Nagi. From the bottom of my heart.
OMGoodness, so so yummy. I did increase the garlic (you can’t have too much), but other than that kept to the recipe. It was delicious and I’ll be making it again soon.
Hi Nagi. I have just cooked chicken marsala using your recipe. I used Boronia as the marsala, but it tastes sweet. I have used it before and the sauce wasn’t sweet. Is there anything I can do to fix the sauce to make it less sweet please. Jenny
Everyone loved this. Thankyou!
Last week I made this as per the recipe and gave it 5 stars. It was fantastic! This week I experimented and tried to cut down on the saturated fat, so I used almond milk that I thickened with 1 tsp of cornflour instead of using the cream! Well, it was still a nice flavor but nothing spectacular like last week’s attempt. I will stick with the cream in future!
Why would you rate this recipe a 3 when YOU modified it with almond milk and cornflour? The recipe, as it is written, is great!
ma’am, why did you rate the recipe 3 stars when YOU modified the original recipe?
A wonderfully easy recipe with great taste. I wouldn’t change a thing!
Loved this fast delicious dinner! I wanted a bit more marsala “tang” in the sauce and shrooms. Did you use dry or sweet Marsala? Can I mixed the two?!
We had chicken scnitties the other night so I’ll be swapping out and doing the VEAL marsala tomorrow. Mushroom sauce/gravy along with baked jacket spuds and steamed beans/carrots. Everything else the same. Yummo
this was to die for my family and I loved it we made it with mash and broccolini keep up the fantastic recipes! { i would love a free cook book just saying }
I still have a bookshelf full of old cookbooks that I rarely refer to but ‘loved’ to buy back in the day ( book freak ). If you have a computer/pad or phone the easiest thing to do is go to Youtube or Google, type in Recipe Tin Eats and find whatever your heart desires. Benefit of the ‘on-line’ approach is that 99.999% of her recipes are accompanied by a video of the process….which you can’t get from a book. Love it and hers is the first site I go to.
There is a QR code link to a demonstration video for all recipes in Nagis books😉
My daughter and I made this tonight and it was fantastic. Entire family loved it.
This was stunning. Moaned when toasting the mushroom haha. Is the nutritional value per 100g?
I made your chicken marsala recipe tonight and it was amazing. The whole family loved it. I used diced chicken instead of the cutlets though. I also added some spinach, and pasta in the skillet prior to serving it. Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe. I will definitely be making it again.
Cooked this tonight and it was absolutely DELISH!! The chicken breasts were so moist and the sauce was just devine. I served it on a bed of sweet potato mash with some greens!
Oh my goodness! This was absolutely sensational. Tastes like a French restaurant dish. Loved it. Thanks Nagi
Very good! Really juicy chicken, which is not the usual outcome when I cook boneless breasts. I cut them a little different–cut off the triangular tip, about a third of the breast, and then split the rest in half horizontally, making three pieces from each breast. Then smack ’em with a meat mallet until each piece is the same thickness. I did everything else the same! Turned out that the marsala I bought was on the sweet side, but it tasted fine. Thank you, Nagi!
Truly delicious, I’m seriously late to the party but certainly very happy I tried this recipe. I only had a few ingredients in the fridge and Nagi you turned them into something remarkable 💃💃
The science behind the ofrten quoted “all the alcohol burns off” has long shown that claim to be entirely false, yet “chefs” repeatedly make the claim as is done here. COme on NAgi, stick to facts and stop repeating false facts