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Bonjour, bienvenue à la nourriture de ce mois-ci du monde, la France! Hello, welcome to this month’s Food of the World – France! Let me just start by saying, this Chicken au Champagne is going to blow your mind!! The flavors are absolutely amazing. I am not a Champagne lover, I actually can’t stand the taste of it. When combined with chicken, and tarragon, il est magnifique!
How crazy is it, that I used a cast iron skillet to make a meal with Champagne? It worked perfectly, and adds a nice rustic touch to this gourmet meal. Oh yes, this is a restaurant quality meal that you can surely impress your dinner guests with!
Impressive, elegant, delicious, and simple to prepare. That is a perfect meal in my book. 😉
How do you make Chicken au Champagne?
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat 1 Tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet. Seer the chicken, about three minutes on each side…..
Remove chicken, and place on a plate…..
Remove pan from heat, and add shallots……
Have the champagne ready to go BEFORE you add the shallots. They cook very quickly! Add the champagne…..
My shallots got a bit too brown, but don’t worry, it didn’t ruin the dish. 😉 Scrape the bottom of the pan to remove the cooked bits, and add the chicken back to the pan…..
Baste chicken with the sauce and place in preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes, until thoroughly cooked.
While the chicken is baking, heat butter in a non-stick pan. Add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes…..
Remove chicken from oven, and add the mushrooms and tarragon to the skillet…..
Gently stir to combine and drizzle with fresh lemon juice. Serve with brown rice and Hericot Vert (French green beans)…..
Pour sauce over the chicken and oooh, la la!!
Notes:
- *Disclaimer* I did not use French Champagne – blasphème! I just could not wrap my head around the thought of using a $60 bottle of Veuve Clicquot, in a main dish. That is a champagne to savor and enjoy! I used Korbel Brut, at $14 a bottle it is a much better choice.
- This dish would traditionally be made with skin on, bone in, chicken breasts, but those can be difficult to find. I used chicken thighs, and probably always will. 😉
- Sorry, there is no substitute for the champagne in in this dish.
Here are some additional skillet meals you will love!
Enjoy!!
Chicken au Champagne
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 4 chicken breasts or thighs (skin-on, bone-in)
- sea salt and black pepper (to taste)
- 1 large shallot (minced)
- 1 cup champagne
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 2 Tablespoons fresh tarragon (chopped)
- fresh lemon juice (to garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large skillet.
- Add chicken to skillet and seer for 3 minutes on each side.
- Remove chicken, and place on a plate.
- Remove pan from heat, and add shallots. Heat and stir for 1 minute.
- Add the Champagne and scrape bottom of pan to remove all of the cooked bits.
- Place the chicken back in the pan, baste with the champagne sauce and place in the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until thoroughly cooked.
- Heat butter in a large non-stick pan. Add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes.
- Remove chicken from oven, and add the sauteed mushrooms. Stir in the tarragon and drizzle with lemon juice.
- Serve with brown rice and Haricot Vert (French green beans).
Notes
- *Disclaimer* I did not use French Champagne – blasphème! I just could not wrap my head around the thought of using a $60 bottle of Veuve Clicquot, in a main dish. That is a champagne to savor and enjoy! I used Korbel Brut, at $14 a bottle it is a much better choice.
- This dish would traditionally be made with skin on, bone in, chicken breasts, but those can be difficult to find. I used chicken thighs, and probably always will. ?
- Sorry, there is no substitute for the champagne in in this dish.
- If chicken thighs are small, you can easily fit 6 in the pan.
My family would love this! Thanks for linking up with What’s Cookin’ Wednesday!
Made this for dinner tonight. Quick, easy, and DIVINE! Quick for a weeknight dinner, but “fancy” enough for a dinner party! Love it, thanks!
This was amazing!!! Wow what flavor and so easy! Thank you.
Thank you so much Denise!! I am so glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
This recipe looks great and I don’t anticipate having a problem using the extra bubbly!
Absolutely gorgeous dish!! With Valentine’s Day coming up, this would make a nice special dinner for two! 🙂
I never made this wonderful recipe and I have a lot of sparkling wine from a promotion… can’t wait to check it out. Hope all is well with you.
Trying this tonight. 🙂 Can’t wait! 🙂
Dear Lisa, thank you for sharing this amazing recipe. I prepared it yesterday together with a good friend of mine and we really enjoyed the taste of it. It made a lot of fun using this great amount of different fresh herbs. We had a bottle of Hugo (which is a sparkling wine, flavored with elderflower and mint) with it, which fits perfectly 🙂
p.s. if somebody else is wondering how to heat the oven up to 375 degrees, he or she should convert it from degree Fahrenheit in centigrade 😀 its about 190 °C That caused a bit of confusion in the beginning 😀
Best wishes from Germany 🙂
Thank you so much Alex, I’m so glad that you enjoyed it….and thanks for the tip about converting the oven temperature!! I love the idea of using a flavored sparkling wine! 🙂
French advise : You can also try this receipe with 1/2 cup of cognac instead of champagne and add a little bit of french cream at the end … It taste a little bit different but it is also fabulous… and no need to open a bottle of champagne just to cook.
So I made this tonight for my hubby and my dad. I served with green beans and potatoes. I feel it needs some kind of starch because it’s hard to imagine the chicken and sauce without it. This dish was yummy and made me feel like I was in a fancy traditional French restaurant. And it was boy approved!
I also live in New orleans so if you want more of that creole french feel, this isn’t it. But if you want more of that yummy traditional flavor from the shallots and champagne, this is sure to hit the spot. Great job on the recipe!
This was fantastic, and easy, thanks! We had it over mashed potatoes. I added too much oil to the pan for fear of sticking and it may have prevented some of the browning, so I’ll use less in the future. I don’t cook with tarragon much, but this is going to be added to the regular rotation. The leftover champagne is just a bonus. I am going to try growing tarragon!
i love champangne and would have never thought to use it when cooking chicken! Thanks for the recipe!!’
You’re welcome Janette, I hope you love it as much as we do. Thanks so much for stopping by! 🙂
My neighbor gave me four little bottles of Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvée for New Years (California). Little did she know that I rarely drink and I don’t like the taste. Very happy to find this and other recipes to try 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe! I made this last night for supper and it was divine. Not only was the presentation lovely but the chicken was full of so much flavor! Juicy, sweet and the tarragon gave it just a hint of warmth. Easily one of my new favorites 🙂
https://instagram.com/p/BBCL2i3tx5z/
Thanks for sharing at the #InspirationSpotlight Party @DearCreatives Pinned & shared.
This was amazing and is now my “special occasion” meal. I did it once with thick cut porkchops… Huge win!
Thank you so much, Chrysa! I can’t wait to give the pork chops a try. 🙂