Creamy Chicken Marsala | Easy Chicken Recipe | Mantitlement (2024)

FAQs

What is creamy Marsala sauce made of? ›

Marsala Sauce:

3/4 cup dry Marsala wine. 1 1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth (or stock) 3/4 cup heavy cream (thickened cream, evaporated milk or half and half may also be used)** 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley.

To make this recipe a little lighter than your traditional Italian chicken marsala, you will see that I've created this recipe using full fat coconut milk instead of heavy cream. If that's not your thing, feel free to stick to the heavy cream.

Simmer the Sauce and Thicken it

The chicken will cook through while simmering in the sauce. Once it's done, you can thicken the sauce with a cornstarch slurry.

However, when we tried both styles in recipes for chicken Marsala, mushroom stuffing, and zabaglione, tasters preferred the dry style in all instances. Though both were acceptable, tasters found that dry Marsala offered more depth of flavor, while sweet Marsala added sweetness and some flavor but wasn't as complex.

Dry Marsala is typically used for savory entrées where it adds a nutty flavor and caramelization to beef tenderloin, mushrooms, turkey and veal. Sweet Marsala is typically used to make very sweet and viscous sauces. You'll commonly find it used in desserts such as zabaglione and main dishes with chicken or pork loin.

Sour cream is an easy replacement for heavy cream. It can be easily stirred into a dish and offers another flavor profile to soups, stews and sauces. Plus, using it as a heavy cream substitute is a great way to use up that lingering tub in the fridge.

Evaporated milk can be used as a substitute in recipes in which heavy cream is used as a liquid ingredient, such as in baked goods, but it doesn't whip well. Substitute the heavy cream in your recipes with an equal amount of evaporated milk.

Similarly to half-and-half, milk makes a good heavy cream substitute when it's combined with melted butter. Combine 3/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup melted butter for every cup of heavy cream.

Thicken the sauce with flour mixed with olive oil left in the pan from browning onions and vegetables. Deglaze the pan with a sweet Marsala wine and let it bubble away until it reduces. Finally, add a splash of cream over low heat at the very end.

Butter does not provide any thickening to a sauce, since it is made of just fat and water. But a chunk of butter, salted or unsalted, swirled into a sauce at the end, can temporarily emulsify a sauce, while adding richness and sheen, all of which are good things.

How long does it take Marsala sauce to thicken? ›

Deglaze the pan by pouring in the marsala, and cook for about 2 minutes. Increase heat to medium, stir in beef broth and port, and cook until sauce starts to reduce and thicken to your preference, 10 to 12 minutes.

Chicken Marsala is a dish that pairs wonderfully with wine. The sweet and savory marsala sauce is a great match with the complex notes of red wines, while the chicken itself pairs well with white wines. The key to pairing wine with chicken marsala is to find one that complements the marsala sauce.

A big red like a Cabernet, Sangiovese or Zinfandel will simply overwhelm not only the chicken, but the subtle sweetness of the Marsala sauce. You're better off going with a full bodied white like Chardonnay, Viognier, Chenin Blanc, etc., or a light to medium bodied red like Gamay, Pinot Noir, Frappato or Grenache Gris.

Marsala is a fortified wine and can be sweet or dry, though most usually the dry version would be used for cooking. Possible substitutes would be a dry Madeira wine or a darker sherry such as Oloroso. If you don't have these then you could also use port or red vermouth.

What can I use instead of marsala wine? The best substitute for marsala wine is madeira, another kind of fortified wine with a similar flavour profile. Other alternatives include other fortified wines such as commandaria, sherry, vermouth, and port.

Marsala Flavor Profile

On the palate, a true Marsala will have flavors of dried apricot, honey, nuts, tobacco, brown sugar, vanilla, and tamarind.

Marsala Wine (Potassium Metabisulfite), Mushrooms, Water, Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Butter, Modified Food Starch, Contains Less Than 2% Of: Salt, Garlic, Sugar, Spices, Soy Lecithin, Citric Acid.