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Creamy Peppercorn Chicken or Chicken Au Poivre is the perfect chicken dish to make on a weeknight. Tender chicken breast or thighs loaded with a creamy sauce speckled with rosemary, shallots, and black peppercorns.
Wanna achieve chefs status with your fam?
Make Peppercorn Chicken.
Think about this for a second: deliciously tender chicken breasts (or boneless thighs if that’s your thing) soaking in a beautiful garlic, shallot, rosemary and black peppercorn cream sauce.
Ugh, it’s magical ✨
Take it from me, this was just a big hit with my family that we could’ve guzzled the sauce with a spoon standing right over the stove.
I’ve been known to take a few ingredients and create some killer chicken dishes. See this one as proof, it’s been a hit on LSJ for a number of years.
So when I saw that Peppercorn Chicken was having a moment on the internet right now – albeit it was a bone-in, skin-on weekend sort of affair. I knew I had to create a quick and easy weeknight friendly chicken au poivre that is covered in creamy peppercorn sauce for those of us that need dinner on the table in under 40 minutes.
Enter: the perfect dinner with just 10 simple ingredients. Serve this alongside roasted garlicky potatoes and a simple salad. Heck, if you’re serving this for the holidays (which, you totally could) I’d opt for this festive salad and say you’re all set.
If you’re still on the fence, think about this as a steak house style peppercorn sauce that’s thinned out and perfect to drizzle over mashed potatoes or soak up with no knead bread.
Now how could you go wrong with that?
Ingredients for Creamy Peppercorn Chicken
- Chicken Breasts: you can also use boneless, skinless chicken thighs or even tenders if you prefer. Just be sure to pound the chicken down so that they all cook up in roughly the same amount of time.
- Seasonings: you’ll need kosher salt and of course an abundance of both freshly cracked black pepper and whole peppercorns that we’ll pound down into a coarse grind. Feel free to make this recipe your own by using a peppercorn medley. That typically contains, green, white, black, and pink peppercorns. I’ve used 1 tablespoon of black peppercorns in the past, and we’ve found that it was slightly too much peppercorn for our taste. Feel free to play around with this until you find what you like! A good starting point is 1½ teaspoons.
- Oil: you’ll need a tablespoon of anything that is meant for high heat cooking. we typically use avocado oil. I suggest avoiding olive oil since we’re roasting the chicken at 425ºF.
- Butter: you’ll need just a tablespoon here. I typically don’t like to use all butter for this recipe as you run the risk of it burning while we sear the chicken.
- Rosemary: freshly chopped works best for this recipe
- Shallots: you can use finely minced red onion here as well but shallots give this a less harsh bite.
- Garlic Clove: you’ll need a handful of garlic cloves. Feel free to grate them on a microplane of mince them finely before adding it to the peppercorn cream sauce.
- Chicken Broth or Chicken Stock: we’ll need just a splash to give the chicken plenty of sauce to cook in.
- Heavy Cream: you’ll need some of the cream sauce. We’ll add all the aromatics to the cream and then allow the chicken to roast with the sauce until perfectly tender and juicy.
Recipe Tip
This recipe makes just enough sauce to serve with mashed potatoes for 4 servings.
If you plan on serving the chicken over egg noodles (or other pastas) I would advise doubling the ingredients for the sauce. That way, there’s plenty for you to toss freshly cooking pasta with!
Serving Suggestions
Other Creamy Chicken Recipes
Creamy Peppercorn Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 small chicken breasts or boneless, skinless thighs (~2 pounds)
- 1½ teaspoons all purpose seasoning or kosher salt, plus more
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon high heat oil such as avocado
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 ½-2 teaspoons whole peppercorns coarse ground
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary heaping, chopped
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 small shallot chopped (~3 tablespoons)
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- Parsley for finishing
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes for serving
- Blanched green beans for serving
Instructions
- PREP: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425ºF. Pound the thickest part of the chicken breast using the flat portion of a meat mallet for evening cooking.4 small chicken breasts
- SEASON: Season both sides of the chicken breasts with the all purpose seasoning (or kosher salt) and black pepper.1½ teaspoons all purpose seasoning, ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- SEAR: Add the oil to a cast iron skillet (or other oven safe skillet) over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the chicken breasts in a single layer and sear for 1-2 minutes on each side or until lightly golden. Turn the stove off and remove from heat.1 tablespoon high heat oil, 1 tablespoon butter
- SAUCE: Add the crushed up whole peppercorns, chopped rosemary, garlic, shallots, chicken stock, heavy cream, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt to a measuring cup. Pour the sauce around the chicken. Don’t worry about covering the chicken in the sauce just yet.1 ½-2 teaspoons whole peppercorns, 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, 5 cloves garlic, 1 small shallot, ¼ cup chicken stock, ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- ROAST: place the skillet in the oven and allow the chicken to cook for 10-14 minutes depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts. Check the chicken at the 8 minute mark to see how much longer it may need to reach an internal temperature of 160ºF.
- REMOVE: Once at 160ºF, remove the pan from the oven. Cover the chicken in the sauce from the pan using a spoon. Then allow the chicken to rest for 8-10 minutes. Carry over cooking will get the chicken to 165ºF.
- SERVE: serve warm with freshly baked focaccia bread or crusty bread to pick up on the sauce, homemade mashed potatoes, or a side salad.Parsley
Notes
- Sauce. This recipe makes just enough sauce to serve with mashed potatoes for 4 servings. If you plan on serving the chicken over egg noodles (or other pastas) I would advise doubling the ingredients for the sauce. That way, there’s plenty for you to toss freshly cooking pasta with!
- Leftovers: store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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