Chicken Breasts with Caper Cream Sauce

I was looking for a new recipe for chicken breasts the other night and ran across a recipe on Allrecipes.com  from mommyto2boys.  It is incredible! As you can probably tell, we love chicken at my house.  I generally prefer it to red meats (only because it is healthier) so we eat a lot of it.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but (after changing just a few ingredients), the results were phenomenal.  One of those meals where you make a “mmmm”  sound every time you take a bite because the flavor is so good.  To be honest, I don’t know if I have ever really used dill weed in a recipe but I am glad it was hiding in my spice cabinet because this recipe now ranks up there in my faves.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 tsp lemon pepper

1 tsp dried dill weed

*(1 tsp salt)

*(1 tsp garlic powder)

* I substituted the salt and the garlic powder for a heavy sprinkling of Fontknow’s Secret seasoning.  I know there aren’t many of you that have it but I know a few of you do.  This gave it just a touch of spiciness which was so yummy.

1/2 cup half-and-half (the recipe called for heavy whipping cream but while I don’t consider myself a low-fat cooker, I try to make the healthier choice if there is one.  Half-and-half has about 1/3 less fat so you don’t feel as much guilt indulging.)

3 Tbsp butter or margarine

1/4 cup white wine

2 Tbsp capers, drained and rinsed

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Rinse chicken and dry with paper towels.  Season with lemon pepper, dill weed, salt and garlic powder (or Fontknow’s).

Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat.  Sometimes I do a little “sizzle test”… I touch just the tip of the chicken in the pan, if it doesn’t give me a nice sizzle, I take it out and keep heating my pan.  This way you don’t end up laying the whole breast in too soon and loosing all of the juices and boiling your chicken to a rubbery pulp. There will be a delicate balance here however because we are using butter which has a lower smoking point than olive oil so keep an eye on your butter and make sure it doesn’t turn brown.  Once you have placed all of your chicken in the pan, you might notice a decrease in the sizzle.  Turn your heat up to high momentarily until you get your sizzle back (ha) then reduce back to medium-high. As always, we want to be very patient and leave the chicken alone until it gets a nice golden brown seer on it before we flip it.  This generally takes about 5 minutes.  Turn the chicken once it is good and seared and do the same on the other side.  Cook chicken until it reaches an internal temp of 155 degrees in the thickest part (remember to submerge your thermometer enough to get a good reading. In the breast this may mean placing the thermometer in horizontally into the thickest end. Your chicken will continue to cook another 5-10 degrees once removed from the pan, so I promise I’m not trying to poison you 🙂 Remove chicken from pan and set aside.

You should have some brown bits at the bottom of your pan.  At this point you are going to reduce heat to medium and add your wine.  It should reduce rather quickly.  Add half-and half and stir constantly until the sauce becomes thick (approx. 5 minutes).  About half way through that 5 minutes, add your capers.  I love capers so I add a good amount more than recipes usually call for. Taste sauce and season with salt and pepper until it tastes perfect.  Pour over chicken and serve.  This is really yummy served over angel hair pasta.