Love this recipe but want to make it in the slow cooker? Check out my Crock Pot Chicken Marsala. This amazing Chicken Marsala is a huge hit with my family. The sauce is the perfect balance of earthy mushroom flavor and deep marsala wine with the added bonus of delicious creaminess. We love it over fettuccine noodles. It is a dinner that seems fancy but comes together so quickly for the perfect weeknight meal.
How to Make Chicken Marsala
This is a brief overview of how to make this delicious recipe. For the full recipe with all of the measurements, see the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
What is Chicken Marsala
Chicken Marsala is a traditional Italian dish that is made by coating chicken in flour, pan frying it and then making a sauce with marsala wine. Traditionally, it is served on its own. In this recipe, we are simplifying this amazing classic dish to make it an easy weeknight dinner.
What Makes this Chicken Marsala Easy
This recipe varies from traditional Chicken Marsala in order to make it a fast family dinner.
We skip pounding the chicken thin. Instead, we cut the chicken in half to make chicken cutlets. If your chicken is still too thick, you can do a little extra pounding. This makes the chicken cook very quickly. We skip dredging the chicken in flour. Instead, we add some flour to some melted butter to make a roux that thickens up the sauce nicely.
How to Make a Roux
One of the things that makes the sauce so perfect and creamy is making a roux. A roux is a combination of fat and flour and is a great thickening agent for sauces. The fat coats the flour, and keeps it suspended in the sauce. Here we use the butter we sauté the mushrooms in as the fat and then add some all purpose flour. When making a roux, it is important to let the butter and flour cook for about thirty seconds once it is fully combined. This eliminates the taste of flour. Then slowly whisk in chicken stock and the marsala wine.
Tips for Cooking Fettuccine
There are a few things that will make the fettuccine you serve this with perfect.
Bring the water to a roaring boil. We should see big giant bubbles before we add the dry noodles. Salt the water. Add a good two teaspoons of kosher salt (or 1 teaspoon of table salt) to the water after you add the noodles. Stir the noodles. Make sure to stir the noodles a lot, especially when you first add them to the water. It is very easy for fettuccine to stick together when cooking. Cook the noodles for the time indicated on the box. I always set a timer for my pasta, especially when it is just one part of a meal. That way it doesn’t get over cooked because I got busy with something else.
Using Marsala Wine
A majority of the flavor of marsala sauce comes from the marsala wine. I would not normally suggest using something called cooking wine. In general, it isn’t as high of quality as bottled drinking wine, and the flavor of wine intensifies with cooking. That being said, this recipe is the exception. Marsala wine can be very difficult to find, so I do use Marsala cooking wine when I make this. While some of the alcohol will cook off, it takes a full three hours for all of the alcohol to cook of when cooking with wine. Because the marsala wine is so essential for this dish, I suggest that if you are cooking for someone who can’t have alcohol, you choose a different dish like Chicken Piccata or Baked Chicken Parmesan.
Serving Chicken Marsala
Traditionally Chicken Marsala isn’t served with pasta, but Americans have Americanized it and started serving it on noodles. I will say that if you want to go traditional, any of the side dishes below will be perfect with this and you can skip the noodles. That said, the sauce that you make for this dish is spectacular when you drown some noodles in it. This would also be delicious over mashed potatoes or if you are looking to stay low carb, my mashed cauliflower recipe is phenomenal.
Crockpot Chicken Marsala
If you would like to make this recipe in the slow cooker, I have adapted it for that. While this is a very fast stove-top recipe, sometimes it’s lovely to have a hands cooking solution.
What to Serve with Chicken Marsala
Oven Roasted Asparagus Creamed Spinach Arugula Salad Recipe Crispy Brussel Sprouts
If you make this recipe or any of my other recipes, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Reheat over very low heat in a covered skillet. You may need to add more heavy cream or marsala wine if the sauce thickens too much as it is reheating. As with all leftovers, use your best discretion.
