Chicken Cutlets With Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

This recipe for chicken cutlets with sun-dried tomato cream sauce delivers bold, satisfying flavor and relies on items you probably have on hand.

As much as we love roasting a whole chicken or working with bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, we also appreciate the relative ease involved with cooking cutlets. Because the chicken is thin, it doesn't take long to cook, and although the sun-dried tomato cream sauce requires a few minutes of patience as the ingredients reduce and thicken. All told, this is a cinch to put together.

How To Make Chicken Cutlets With Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

The full recipe is below, but here's a brief guide to this 25-minute weeknight chicken dinner.

• Step 1. Prep cutlets: Start with chicken breast cutlets, or, if you have trouble finding cutlets at your local grocery store, you can just turn regular chicken breasts into cutlets by slicing thicker breasts in half and using a mallet to flatten lightly. Once you have your cutlets ready, season them with salt and black pepper.
• Step 2. Add cutlets to hot pan: It's important to give the oil time to heat up in the skillet before adding the cutlets. To avoid overcrowding the chicken and risk uneven cooking, you'll need to cook it in batches, making sure the chicken is cooked to 165°F before transferring to a plate. (If you have a 12-inch skillet, you may only need to cook in one batch.)
• Step 3. Make sauce: Sun-dried tomatoes and chopped shallots are added to the same pan (while chicken rests on a plate nearby) and cooked for about a minute before adding white wine and chicken stock, which will be reduced for about five minutes. At this point, your sauce is ready to get dolled up—whipping cream and Parmesan are largely responsible for this. The dish is finished with fresh basil and seasoned to taste with more salt if you like.

White Wine Substitutions

Many recipes call for wine, which acts as a flavor builder essentially. White wine is often used in dishes featuring seafood, chicken, pork, and mushrooms.

In this dish, a dry vermouth can be used instead. Typically, lemon juice or white wine vinegar can also be substituted, but these alternatives work better when all you need is a splash, not the half a cup that this recipe calls for.

If omitting the wine for any reason, you can double the amount of chicken stock, and the sauce will still be incredibly flavorful. White grape juice is another option for deglazing the pan, though again, maybe just a splash of the stuff and more stock to make up the difference.

Why We Love This Chicken Cutlet Recipe

Juicy, tender chicken pairs wonderfully with a rich but understated light cream sauce that's emboldened by the presence of sun-dried tomatoes. It's the kind of dish that seems more complicated than it is, making it an excellent choice for impromptu weeknight guests or a special at-home date night.

Plus, the sauce turns ordinary vegetables into superstars, and we love serving these chicken cutlets with blanched or sautéed asparagus or blistered Brussels sprouts.

Editorial contributions by Stacey Lastoe.