Crunchy Chicken with White Wine Lemon Butter Sauce

This version of panko-breaded chicken with white wine lemon butter sauce is one of our all time favorite chicken dishes! You'll absolutely love the Crunchy Chicken with White Wine Lemon Butter Sauce.

Most people have had breaded chicken in some form or another at least once in their life. Maybe close to everyone has! But how many times is it underwhelming (assuming you are over the age of 14)?

I can remember at various times eating a dish like this and having tasteless chicken, soggy breadcrumbs, a breading that completely separates from the chicken and a dryness in the chicken that screams for a sauce just to give my mouth something that doesn't resemble West Texas in the middle of July.

Well, all of those problems and many more have been solved! Our version of crunchy chicken with white wine lemon butter sauce is amazing. This dish combines simple ingredients, simple techniques, great flavors and a perfect texture.

And, the fact that Crunchy Chicken will accompany about 100 side dishes or more as well, you really can’t go wrong! We love it with creamy mashed potatoes, such as THESE, and some green beans, but really anything you like will work well with this.

The Best Breaded Chicken You Will Ever Eat

So, what makes this Crunchy Chicken so good? There are several things, but let’s start with the breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs.

Panko bread crumbs maintain a great crunch throughout the cooking process and even if there are leftovers, they re-crisp perfectly. These days they are quite easy to find, so make sure you use Panko for the breading. We prefer THIS kind, but try a few and figure out your favorites.

And guess what! You can even use Gluten Free Panko bread crumbs if gluten is your enemy and you still want to enjoy panko breaded chicken. We have done this a few times and hardly notice the difference. You're welcome gluten free fam!

Seasoning.

Season the chicken! You don’t have to go crazy with the seasoning but put something in there and you’ll be rewarded. We like to use lemon pepper and salt only, since the lemon pepper will complement the lemon butter sauce.

Feel free to experiment with the seasoning. The most important part is that the seasoning goes on the chicken BEFORE you coat it in flour, egg, and panko bread crumbs.

Breading Technique.

The third thing that makes this work well is just a basic technique. Make sure you coat the chicken with flour, coat the flour with a slightly water-diluted egg and coat the egg mixture with the breadcrumbs. IN THIS ORDER! This will ensure your coating will stay right on the chicken and you’ll get the maximum out of this dish.

How do I make the White Wine Lemon Butter sauce?

Finally, the sauce completes the deal here. This white wine lemon butter sauce, also known as lemon beurre blanc, is the perfect accompaniment to this chicken. Making a beurre blanc requires a little bit of technique, but follow our instructions below and you should be perfectly fine.

Something we do is reduce the white wine and lemon down to almost nothing - well two tablespoons. This gives the sauce an extreme amount of flavor and makes it a thicker consistency once you add the butter.

If you prefer a bit thinner of a sauce, it's super easy to do at the end - just add a touch of water and whisk a bit more to make it thinner. But thinning it out after the butter is added is slightly more challenging, so reducing the wine and lemon first will help you later on in the process to achieve the perfect consistency.

The other important thing to remember when making the sauce is that you want to use cold butter cut into 1 tablespoon pieces. You should remove the reduction from the heat before slowly adding each tablespoon of butter.

There is a lot of whisking to make this perfect, because the key is for the butter to emulsify to become creamy. Although the sauce looks creamy, traditional beurre blanc sauce does not have ANY cream in it. It is the process of whisking in the butter slowly to emulsify it that gives it that creamy, silky texture!

This sauce is absolutely delicious and will leave you running back for more! We promise you this! But, really, anything works (even plain old ketchup) with this Crunchy Chicken, just in case you have picky eaters or children (or both).

Enjoy!

We hope you enjoy this Crunchy Chicken recipe! We are not lying when we say it is one of our favorites! If you give it a try leave us a comment below or tag us on Instagram @cooking_with_wine!

If you like this recipe, check out a few of our other favorites below:

• Coq au Vin – Chicken in Red Wine
• Saltimbocca alla Romana
• Veal and Beef Shepherd’s Pie
• Summer Pasta (Pasta D’Estate)
• Farmhouse Ranch Smashed Potatoes