Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

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Tender and moist pan-seared chicken is topped with a luxuriously creamy mushroom sauce and served with your favorite carb and vegetable. It’s simple yet elegant and will bring restaurant-quality flavors to your table. Whether you’re cooking for yourself, your family, a special occasion or a dinner party, this Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce recipe promises to be a showstopper!

Why I Love This Recipe

• Quick & Easy: Ready to serve in 40 minutes, it’s perfect for a busy weeknight.
• Flavorful & Satisfying: The perfect combination of tender and juicy chicken with a velvety cream sauce with an incredible depth of flavor.
• Perfect for Every Occasion: Whether you’re going for a casual family dinner, romantic evening in, holiday or special occasion, or formal dinner party, this fits the bill for any occasion.

I love pan-seared chicken because you not only get that wonderful flavor from the sear, it also locks in the moisture, giving you that tender, juicy meat. Just some salt and pepper gives you the perfect blank canvas for topping the pan-seared chicken breasts with your favorite sauces.

These pan-fried chicken breasts are topped with a luscious creamy mushroom sauce. It’s made in the same pan the chicken was seared in, so you have that gorgeous caramelized chicken fond that adds flavor depth to the mushroom sauce. Onions and garlic are sauteed in butter followed by the mushrooms until they release their juices and turn golden brown. Then the pan is deglazed with a splash of white wine followed by chicken broth, seasonings and heavy cream and simmered to a velvety consistency.

Ingredients in Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

This dish is simple to make and requires just a handful of ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need to make it:

• Chicken Breasts: To serve 4 you’ll need 2 large chicken breasts which you’ll cut in half horizontally to make 4 chicken cutlets. If you prefer, you can also use 4 boneless chicken thighs. This mushroom sauce is also delicious on fried pork chops.
• Onions and Garlic: Aromatics to add flavor to your gravy.
• Mushrooms: The star of the mushroom sauce show. Button or cremini mushrooms are the most readily available, but you can use any mushroom of your choice. Our 15 year old son will every now and then go foraging in our forest for mushrooms and bring me back things like oyster mushrooms, chicken of the wood, and cauliflower mushrooms, all of which make for delicious sauces. If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ve also seen me recommend dried porcini mushrooms as one of my favorite “secret ingredients”. Ground into a powder and added to any sauce, you only need a couple or so teaspoons to add the most incredible depth of flavor. So I highly recommend getting some dried porcini mushrooms if you can. You can find them online and some higher end grocery stores carry them.
• Thyme: Because I can’t resist some savory herbyness in a cream sauce.
• White Wine: Just a splash to deglaze the pan and to infuse your mushroom sauce with a touch of elegance.
• Flour: This is added to thicken your sauce. If you’re gluten free you can instead dissolve 2 teaspoons of cornstarch in a tablespoon of water and stir that into the sauce at the very end, letting it simmer for a minute or two until thickened.
• Butter: Because everything, and I mean everything, tastes better with butter.
• Chicken Broth: Because we can’t add only heavy cream to our sauce. (I mean, we could, but we won’t.) And besides, the chicken broth contributes flavor.
• Heavy Cream: This is the base for our mushroom cream sauce. If you’re trying to cut calories you can use half and half. Want to make it even more luxurious? Add a few tablespoons of cream cheese at the end and stir until dissolved.
• Parmesan: Because cheese + cream sauce just belong together. It also helps to thicken the sauce.
• Parsley, Tarragon or Chives: This is optional and you can either stir it into your sauce at the end and sprinkle it over the plated dish for garnish.

Tips for the Best Results

• Pound the chicken breasts slightly to ensure they cook evenly.
• Don’t overcrowd the pan; this helps achieve a beautiful sear.
• Adjust the sauce’s thickness by adding more or less broth or cream to your preference.

Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce Recipe

Let’s get started!

Prepare the Chicken: Pat the chicken breasts dry with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat the oil and ghee or butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook for 6-7 minutes on each side until golden and cooked through (internal temperature should be 165°F/75°C). Transfer to a plate and tend with foil.

Prepare the Creamy Mushroom Sauce: Add the butter to the skillet, increase the temperature to medium-high heat and cook the onions until soft and translucent, 4-5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add the mushrooms, dried ground porcini mushrooms and thyme and cook another 5-6 minutes until the mushrooms have released their juices and are golden. Add the wine and boil for 1 minute.

Add the flour and cook for two minutes (this will cook off the flour flavor). Add the chicken broth, salt and pepper and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until thickened.

Add the cream, bring it to a simmer, reduce the heat, and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add the Parmesan cheese and parsley, tarragon or chives (or reserve to sprinkle on as garnish after the chicken and sauce is plated) and stir until dissolved and incorporated. If you’d like it thicker, simmer a little longer.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serving Recommendations

Place the chicken breasts on each plate and spoon some of the creamy mushroom sauce over. Serve the chicken with creamy mushroom sauce with your favorite carb and/or vegetable. Here are a few ideas:

• Mashed potatoes or Mashed Potatoes with Parsnips
• Buttered egg noodles or zucchini noodles for a low carb option
• Steamed rice
• Steamed, sauteed or roasted asparagus spears or Chilled Asparagus with Lemon-Dijon Vinaigrette
• Steamed broccoli or carrots
• Sauteed greens, roasted Spiralized Beets, Green Beans Almondine, Grilled Eggplant
• Leafy green salad, German carrot salad, Four Bean Salad, Pea Salad, German Cucumber Salad

Enjoy!

For more chicken recipes perfect for dinner guests be sure to try my:

• Chicken Roll Ups
• Chicken Wellington
• Chicken Marsala
• Coq Au Vin
• Chicken Piccata
• Chicken Cacciatore
• Moroccan Chicken
• Smothered Chicken