Sautéed Chicken Breasts with Shallots and Garlic

Not only is this a delicious chicken recipe, it is great way to demonstrate the proper way to sauté. And once you know how to saute a chicken breast properly, you can create dozens of other meals just by changing the ingredients for the pan sauce.

This recipe requires you to reduce 1 cup of homemade chicken stock for the sauce. Stock reductions are often used in professional kitchens to make sauces. If you don't want to spend the time reducing stocks, you can try making your own stock reductions or glaces yourself. An alternative is to buy professional quality stock reductions at your gourmet market or online. For learn more and a great source to buy online, check out my stock reduction page.

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1-1/2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 1-1/2 tablespoons of olive oil (or vegetable oil)
• Salt and ground pepper
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup of dry white wine
• 1 cup of homemade chicken stock
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

Finely chop the shallots and garlic. Have the rest of the ingredients ready to go.

Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper on both sides.

Heat butter and oil in a heavy bottomed pan over high heat until butter stops foaming and just starts to turn a light brown.

Sauté the breasts until they are lightly browned on one side, approx. 3 minutes.

Turn breasts over and sauté for another 3 minutes, again until lightly browned. (At this point the meat should be firm to the touch.)

Transfer the breasts to a plate, cover with aluminum foil, and keep warm in the oven or toaster oven set at low.

Remove the pan from the head source, and add half of the wine to deglaze the pan, stirring to dissolve the flavorful brown particles stuck to the pan.

Return pan to the stove and add the shallots and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes.

Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, making sure the garlic doesn’t burn. (It makes the dish bitter if it does)

Add the remaining wine and reduce (boil) until only a trace of wine is left in the pan.

Add the chicken stock and reduce to half the original amount, approx. 6-7 minutes.

Add the cream, and again reduce until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon.

Spoon sauce over cutlets and serve.

Chicken Recipes

Chicken Marsala, Piccata, duck, turkey,
capon, stuffed, sauteed, baked & grilled

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