This is not your traditional kitschy Italian restaurant chicken marsala. There will be no attached photos of perfectly browned chicken basking in a caramel-colored marsala cream sauce accented by a few small mushrooms. This is a mountain of rosemary scented roasted mushrooms sandwiched in between creamy mashed potatoes and buttermilk-sage fried chicken. All of this is topped with the marsala cream sauce and either two strips of bacon or bacon crumbles (chef’s choice). It is a hearty dish best served after a salad and alongside a glass of pinot noir.
Please don’t hate me for not creating the sauce in the pan with all the crusty chicken tidbits. If you have an extra thirty minutes or so, then it is worth cooking the sauce in the same pan that you cooked the chicken in. Trying to time when to cook the elements of dinner is always a fun exercise in efficiency. I get my mushrooms and bacon roasting in the oven while the potatoes are boiling. Then, I bread and fry the chicken. When I put the first batch of chicken on to fry, I start the marsala cream sauce. If I time everything correctly, then the sauce will have just reached the right thickness as I pull the last batch of chicken out.
While the last batch of chicken is cooking, I mash the potatoes in a stainless-steel bowl that I then cover with aluminum foil and a few towels to keep warm. Once the chicken is resting on paper towels, I start to assemble the plates. A bed of mashed potatoes forms the base for a mound of roasted mushrooms. Don’t shy away from spooning some of the juices released from the mushrooms over the mashed potatoes. Perch your crispy piece of fried chicken on top of the mushrooms. Then drizzle on the marsala cream sauce followed by the bacon.
I hope that your friends come to love this recipe as much as my friends do. My friend from college, Lucy, loves it so much that she asked me to make it at her bachelorette party in Charleston, South Carolina, where amazing restaurants can be found on every corner. She was eating strictly gluten free at the time, so we just substituted the gluten free flour of her choice, and the recipe still came out great.
Deconstructed Chicken Marsala with Roasted Mushrooms and Mashed Potatoes
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 12–16 servings 1x
Description
This is not your traditional kitschy Italian restaurant chicken marsala. There will be no attached photos of perfectly browned chicken basking in a caramel-colored marsala cream sauce accented by a few small mushrooms. This is a mountain of rosemary scented roasted mushrooms sandwiched in between creamy mashed potatoes and buttermilk-sage fried chicken.
Ingredients
Roasted Mushrooms
- 40 ounces portabella mushrooms or baby Bella mushrooms, cleaned and de-stemmed
- 3 Tbs garlic, chopped
- 1 cup shallots or onions, sliced
- 2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
- 3 Tbs olive oil
- 1 Tbs fresh rosemary, chopped
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Marsala Sauce
- 3 cups marsala wine (most people prefer dry marsala for savory preparations, but you can use sweet marsala wine)
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- Salt and pepper to taste
Chicken
- 6 eggs
- 2 Tbs honey mustard
- 2 Tbs whole grain mustard
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup fresh sage, chopped
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 1/2 pounds chicken breasts or cutlets
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Olive oil for pan frying (at least 1 1/2 cups)
Mashed Potatoes
- 8 cups Yukon gold potatoes
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut in to 1 Tbs pieces
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- Salt and pepper to taste
Bacon
- 1 package of bacon (your choice)
Instructions
- For the roasted mushrooms, preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- If using portabella mushrooms, chop into about 5-6 pieces, cutting lengthwise. If using baby bella mushrooms, then leave whole and do not slice. Place mushrooms in a large baking dish. Sprinkle garlic and shallots on top followed by balsamic vinegar, olive oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Roast for about 45 minutes.
- For the marsala sauce, heat the marsala wine in a saucepan over medium heat until volume reduced by at least half. Whisk in the heavy cream and bring to a low simmer. Allow to reduce until sauce coats the back of a spoon (about 15-20 minutes). Season with salt and pepper.
- For the chicken, in a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the mustards, buttermilk, sage, maple syrup, salt and pepper. Stir to combine. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with salt and pepper, to taste. Set up an assembly line with the chicken at the beginning followed by the egg/buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture. Dunk the chicken into the egg/buttermilk mixture then coat the chicken in the flour. Pour at least 1 ½ cups of olive oil into a sauté pan and heat over medium high heat.
- Once oil is hot, pan fry the chicken until cooked through. The chicken cutlets are perfect size for pan frying because they will completely cook in the oil without burning. If using thicker chicken breasts, then fry in the oil to create a golden crust and then place in an oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit to fully cook the chicken.
- After the chicken is removed from the oil, place on a platter lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Sprinkle with salt, to taste.
- For the mashed potatoes, dice the potatoes and place in a large stock pot. Cover in water so that the potatoes are submerged 2-3 inches in water. Season the water with salt. Bring potatoes to a rolling boil and cook until tender. Remove the potatoes from the heat. In a large bowl, place half of the butter. Strain the potatoes over the butter. Add the remainder of the butter and heavy cream on top of the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Finally, stir or mash the potatoes until they reach your desired consistency.
- Make the bacon. Fry the bacon in a pan over medium heat until crispy. Remove and place on paper towels to cool. Reserve bacon grease for another recipe.
- Assemble your plate by starting with a generous scoop of mashed potatoes. Top with roasted mushrooms. Place chicken on top of the mushrooms. Drizzle marsala cream sauce on top of the chicken. Top with a piece or two of bacon. Mangia y’all.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Category: dinner
- Cuisine: italianish
Keywords: chicken marsala, mushrooms, italianish, hearty dinner