Chicken Breasts With Tomatoes and Capers Recipe (2024)

I'm puzzled too. You can tell from the ingredients that this isn't a standard "red sauce." Capers, a lot of vinegar, wine, etc. It's intended to be sour! I simmered it longer to let the sauce thicken up a bit. It's a braise, so the chicken didn't dry out. I had planned to serve it with pasta, but after I tasted it I ruled that out (sour thin sauces aren't the best for pasta). So I quickly boiled some mini potatoes (potatoes love vinegar!) and they went really well together.

So...I asked my husband to take the chicken breasts out of the freezer so I could make this. When I got home I found pork chops defrosting in the sink. No worries I thought. This recipe should work for pork too. It did! served it with a side of petite green beans sautéed with onion and corn with a little butter.

Made provencale by using herbs de Provence and olives. Served with brown rice

I raise my glass again to M. Franey.
But reading some of the notes, I'm puzzled--not for the first time--by comments, e.g., on capers being too strong, and the vinegar itself making the dish too acidic, etc. Surely many readers are presumably beyond the rank-beginners' slavish level! Hey guys, you can rinse drained capers in the same small sieve you drained 'em in--just turn on the cold water! And if you're not wild about a strong vinegar flavor in any dish, just cut it with up to 1/2 water.

Made this the other night with chicken thighs. Used fresh roma tomatoes. Used less vinegar, more capers and anchovy paste as well. I omitted the wine based on other comments about runny sauce and ended up with a wonderfully rich thick sauce that I served over spaghetti squash.

You do not need to get the chicken breasts to 170 degrees and will overcook and dry them out if you try. The USDA says 165 degrees is safe. That is conservative. I take them off the heat at 160, and they continue to cook with residual heat to 165 and are juicy and perfect.

Next time I will take the chicken out of the pan and boil down the sauce before serving. We loved this one as printed and will make it again soon. Full of complex flavor without the need to add a hot red pepper ingredient as so many of my chicken sauté recipes do. Rather low-fat, too. Thanks for this one!

Using fresh local tomatoes, this was easy to make and delicious. I liked that it wasn't sweet and never add sugar to any kind of tomato sauce. The next time I'm going to cut the chicken into strips so diners can make their own portions and more of the chicken is exposed to the sauce.

I'm not fond of capers,so I leave them out but add sauteed mushrooms, kalamata olives and marinated artichokes. Delish!

Saw this this morning. Made it tonight. It was, as always a wonderful dish. Used shallots in butter, fresh Campari tomatoes and a squirt of Pomi tomato sauce, tarragon vinegar, white wine, chicken broth in a box. lots of tarragon & parsley, capers. Add sautéed chick back in. White rice, green salade, baguette, rose' wine. what's wrong with this? Yum

Look at the original recipe. It calls for half of almost everything but the chicken.

This is a technique Pierre uses in other recipes and I find it hard to prevent over-cooking the breasts. It helps to check them frequently in step 4 and remove them when done to your liking, then finish by reducing the sauce to thicken.

This would be fantastic in the summer with scallops, shrimp, and/or white fish (or tuna steaks!) especially with the fresh tomato version of the base sauce. As is, the chicken came out flavorful for chicken breasts and wasn’t dry at all. I used a stir brand red wine vinegar. Quality here would likely level this recipe up a bit. Ditto on the wine.

Excellent. I omitted the red Wine vinegar in cooking and sprinkled on a good quality sherry vinegar before serving.

My wife doesn't like Tarragon, and beauty of this recipe is that it works with almost any kind of herbs. Absolute beauty in its simplicity.

I would use an enameled skillet as the iron skillets can react with tomatoes to give off an unsavory irony metallic flavor.

Delicious and very easy. I followed the advice of others: no tomato paste, and cook the sauce after the chicken is browned and removed from the pan. Very reminiscent of Harlot’s Sauce for pasta, so any sauce from this dish you have left save it for pasta night!

This is a keeper. So tasty and not hard in any way. I love the shallots and capers. I was out of Tarragon and used Basil - sure it gave it a different taste, but it was great. When I made it again with the Tarragon it was equally good. You can't miss with this.

Take chicken out after browning and boil sauce to thicken

This was wonderful and easy to make. Given other comments, I left out the tomato paste. I used an onion instead of shallot, since that’s what had. I served it with couscous, which worked very well. The kids seem to like it ok, which is a huge endorsem*nt. I’ll definitely make it again.

This is delicious! I had run out of Tarragon and used Basil and it was fine. I also deleted the tomato paste. The flavor was still wonderful and unique. It got rave reviews as well.

Leave it to Pierre Francy to come up with such a simple yet wonderful dish. We ate it with white rice and cauliflower. Wonderful!

This turned out great. To the recommendation of many others I took out the chicken breasts after browning, made the sauce, and then added them back in. I think it was a bit too much wine, next time I’ll use a little less than a cup. The vinegar taste is quite strong, but I balanced this out by adding two sugar cubes. I salted the chicken before cooking as well as the tomatoes, and then a little bit along the way. Used a mix of fresh and canned tomatoes. I also added Kalamata olives! Perfect.

Wow, super good, relatively easy. I had a bunch of flavor bomb cherry tomatoes so I used those....do this if you can!!! No chopping either, just rinse, toss in, and it yields such a deep, rich flavor! Served this over pasta with an arugula/watermelon salad.

I really thought this dish was tasteless. The sauce had no body and it didn’t stick to or enhance the chicken breasts that always need help!

Nice sauce. Would use thighs next time because I found the breasts a little dry. Served with bread but maybe would try this with potatoes next time.

Not a fan. Too many ingredients for what amounts to a basic tomato sauce with tarragon.