Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Marsala

For Christmas, my son and husband bought me two of the Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks. I like her recipes. They’re down to earth with a dash of high society every once in awhile. She lets her “city” shine through in flashes.

I’ve never cooked chicken marsala before. I’ve eaten it at restaurants and never particularly cared for it. That being said, when I saw the picture of her recipe, I thought…well, that doesn’t look half bad!

INGREDIENTS:

• Thinly sliced chicken breasts
• Flour
• Oil
• Marsala wine
• Beef broth
• Butter
• White button mushrooms
• Cornstarch
• Heavy cream
• Mashed potatoes or noodles for serving
• Chopped parsley for serving

Ingredient Substitutions: In her cookbook, she gives suggestions of things you can add to the base recipe to kick it up a notch. On Ree’s suggestion, I did add chopped onion and garlic. It was the only addition/substitution I made.

SUMMARIZED METHOD:

The recipe calls for a quick season of the chicken breasts. They will then be dusted in the flour. A pan is headed with olive oil (I used sunflower oil) and butter. When the pan is nice and hot, the chicken cutlets are cooked 2-3 minutes per side. The cutlets should be fairly thin. Once cooked through, you place the cutlets aside to rest. Using the pan drippings, you add the sliced mushrooms and cook until golden brown. The Marsala and broth are then added to deglaze the pan. Reduce the liquid by half, then add the cornstarch/cream mixture. Bring to a simmer and then cut the heat. Stir in some butter to finish the sauce. Then serve on top of mashed potatoes or noodles.

ChibiChonk’s Thoughts

I actually have nothing bad to say about this recipe. The family absolutely loved it and it will enter our meal rotation.

Preparation Time. I had this meal on the table in less than 45 minutes. That makes it a perfect weeknight candidate.

Flavor. For as simple as the ingredient’s list is, the flavor was amazing. We used cheap Marsala wine that you can find with the vinegars on the vinegar aisle. It was nothing special, but the flavor was there. I used basic salt and pepper to season the chicken. I believe allowing the chicken to rest before eating helped it maintain its moisture.

Definitely add the onion and garlic. Honestly, cooking food without one or both is weird to me, so I definitely recommend taking Ree’s variation suggestion and adding the onions and garlic while cooking the mushrooms.

WHERE TO FIND THE FULL RECIPE:

You can pick up Ree’s cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime at any retailer, but it is currently on Amazon for $14.80. Overall, I really like all of my Pioneer Woman cookbooks and her recipes almost always turn out pretty good.