Chicken Breast in Creamy Mushroom Sauce

A quick 20-minute chicken dinner that’s simple enough for midweek but elegant enough for company, my versatile Creamy Mushroom Sauce served with a lightly crusted chicken breast. It’s as tasty as it looks and is very, very, very good!

Quick Chicken Breast recipe that’s good enough for company!

This is a recipe I shared on Good Food Australia last month which I saw made their list for the 20 Most Popular Recipes for September. Actually, it topped the class!

Thus I’ve deemed it a recipe I must also have on my own website!

The Creamy Mushroom Sauce is the real hero in this dish. It’s an excellent sauce option for lean chicken breast meat, adding richness and wow factor!

What goes in Chicken Breast with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

The creamy mushroom sauce in this recipe is an excellent sauce for chicken breast, adding richness to what is an otherwise very lean meat.

And it’s a notch above the usual basic mushroom sauce recipes, thanks to a splash of white wine, parmesan and chicken stock/broth. These are all well-established flavour enhancers / umami-boosters that I use regularly and I don’t hold back!

• Chicken breast – just 2 which we cut in half horizontally to make 4 steaks (which will serve 4 if you used big breasts). Boneless thigh fillets work as well. If using thighs, I recommend pounding the meat to even out the thickness and for more flat surface area, so it pan-fries to a more even crispness;

• Flour – this is to dust the chicken which gives it a light crispy coating and gives the sauce something to cling to. Without it, the sauce slips off the surface of the chicken. This is not a big deal as such, but it is nicer when the sauce stays on the chicken when you spoon it on!

• Mushrooms – any type of small sliceable mushrooms will work here. Swiss/Cremini mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms are great – I’ve just used standard white button mushrooms;

• Garlic – because where there are mushrooms, there is always garlic! (At least, in my world … )

• Butter – because also in my world, where there are mushrooms and garlic, butter must make an appearance too. Butter is flavour (and so much more!) However olive oil, margarine and other alternatives will work just fine too because this sauce has other flavourings in it (ie. cream and parmesan);

• Cream – because we’re making a creamy sauce here! Lower fat alternative: evaporated milk. This actually works better than low fat cream because the consistency is thicker, and is ~30% lower in calories than full fat cream.

• White wine – Ah, the secret ingredient! A little splash of white wine goes a long way to add depth of flavour to simple sauces like this, especially when used to deglaze the pan. Deglazing is when you use a liquid (wine in this case) to dissolve the golden bits stuck on the base of the pan after pan serving the chicken. Those golden bits – properly called fond – are free flavour and underpins of the incredible taste in this otherwise simple creamy sauce!

• Parmesan – the flavour turbocharger! Parmesan heightens the savouriness even further and adds another layer of flavour. Plus for this recipe, it helps thicken the sauce rather than needing gallons of cream; and

• Chicken stock/broth – to add even more body to this creamy sauce!

How to make Chicken in Creamy Mushroom Sauce

This is a truly nice and quick chicken recipe:

• 4 minutes to cook the chicken to golden

• 5 minutes to sauté the mushrooms

• 3 minutes to finish the sauce

1. Split chicken: Cut chicken in half horizontally to give two thin steaks per breast so you have four steaks in total. Cutting the breast in this way is an excellent way to cook chicken breast on the stove as it cooks faster and more evenly. By contrast, a whole breast is much thicker, so the outer rim and the thin tail-end overcooks and dries out before the middle of the thickest part cooks through (unless you pound them to an even thickness);

2. Season and dust: Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper, then flour;

3. Pan-fry chicken in butter until golden and crispy – just 2 minutes on each side will do because the chicken is now cut helpfully thinner;

4. Cook mushrooms: Remove the chicken, then melt some more butter to cook the mushrooms in until golden. Pro tip: Add the garlic towards the end otherwise it burns well before the mushrooms are done;

5. Deglaze pan: Add the wine – it will be bubble vigorously and be steamy! We’re going to simmer rapidly to cook out the alcohol and just leave behind the flavour. Also, as it simmers, all the brown stuff on the bottom of the skillet from browning the chicken AND mushrooms (this is called fond) will dissolve into the liquid which makes the sauce even tastier!

6. Make it creamy: Add the cream and parmesan;

7. Simmer for a couple of minutes to reduce and thicken; and

8. Serve! Return the chicken to the pan to warm through and coat the base with sauce. Then serve!

Oh and just in case you were in any way concerned, this dish comes with plenty of sauce. Nobody has ever accused me of skimping on sauce! So rest assured that whatever starchy vehicle of choice you serve this with will be well-soaked with the creamy mushroom sauce.👌🏻

This rich, creamy Mushroom Sauce is particularly excellent with lean chicken breast!

What to serve with this dish

A sauce this good calls for something worthy of soaking and mopping up this liquid gold!

• Creamy Mashed Potato rates highly amongst my picks (or here’s the low carb version – Creamy Mashed Cauliflower)

• Pasta, polenta, mashed beans or plain rice (brown, white, jasmine, basmati – find them all here)

• Crusty bread or soft dinner rolls are always good for mopping

Then something green and clean to complete your plate. The chicken is pictured with store-bought mixed greens with my reliable Everyday Salad Dressing (any vinegar, oil, mustard). Use for everything – and I really do. Fresh leafy greens, chopped juicy veg (cucumber, tomato), shaved raw veg (fennel, asparagus), or even steamed vegetables (broccoli, beans, peas!). Enjoy! – Nagi x

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Watch how to make it

This is a recipe I originally created for Good Food Australia which I deemed too good not share on my own website!

Life of Dozer

Dozer on the job, using his highly developed palette to ensure the chicken is perfectly cooked. (He gobbled it down so fast he wasn’t sure, calling for another piece to try again… and again and again….)