French Tarragon Chicken Recipe: Easy 30 Minute Meal

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French Tarragon Chicken Recipe – With a beautiful big bunch of fresh French tarragon left in the herb keeper, I made a quick change to the “Sunday dinner with Mom” menu – boneless chicken instead of roast pork.  

Shallots are a required ingredient but garlic is optional. To add another layer of flavor, instead of plain Dijon mustard, use Maille® with Tarragon!. It tastes fabulous in turkey sandwiches!

If you have an upscale market in your neighborhood, buy French crème fraîche épaisse to prepare the sauce.  Thanks to its high fat content ( a minimum of 30%), it is perfect when going for silky smoothness – and flavor – in the sauce.

Sour cream has a lower fat content and is well… slightly sour.    

Don’t Do This!

It never pays to be lazy and think that skipping a step in a recipe will be “all good” in the end.  No, it won’t. Won’t tell you how difficult it was to combine the cream with the braising liquid. Don’t do what I did last Sunday. Take the chicken out of the pan, stir in the cream to combine well then put the chicken back in the pan. I’ve been cooking for how many years? 😌

Low Sodium “Light” French Tarragon Chicken Recipe

Print  

To Make This Recipe…

I used Mom’s only large frying pan!  I decided not to travel with my personal kitchen tools on Sunday.  From experience, it would make it much easier to prepare this type of recipe in a something a little deeper than a regular frying pan.  Have a lid handy to prevent too much evaporation during the cooking process. Silicone kitchen spoons and silicone tipped tongs are super!  No worries about scratching the pan.  

Update(5/4/2018): Recipe With All The Calories!

The recipe was so easy to prepare a couple weeks ago that I prepared it again for a quick but special birthday dinner on Tuesday. This meal was not destined for Mom’s stringent diet so I decided to blow everyone’s diet. My verdict? Rich, super tasty and a really quick one pan meal.  The review below was written by a real foodie – one who’s sampled and reviewed menu offerings at some of the best restaurants from Washington D.C. to the Big Apple and beyond.

This chicken dish with tarragon is a delight for a family meal. The chicken’s savory sauce served with rice will have you wanting to lick the plate clean when no one is looking! A distinct and slightly tangy flavor might remind you of curry but with a less earthy flavor. Herbaceous and flavorful, French Tarragon Chicken will delight your whole family.  You’ll have to make more just to handle requests for seconds or thirds!

Tweaking The Ingredients

Although the chicken pictured in the image does not look as sautéed as in the top recipe, the instructions were followed to the letter with a few exceptions.

• Added 3 heaping teaspoons of Dijon to the crème fraîche
• Used a Dutch oven instead of a frying pan (lesson learned)
• I used 5 to 6 ounces of white wine instead of 8 ounces of chicken broth.  The wine was added to the pan as in the instructions above.  Added 2 teaspoons of chicken base to the wine/shallot mixture and stirred well to combine.   It may sound like very little liquid to braise the chicken but it turned out to be the perfect amount.
• Added the chicken pieces back to the Dutch oven, stirring to make sure the shallots were evenly distributed and covered with pan lid.

Simmered, covered, for 30 minutes.  Complete the recipe as above, using the crème fraîche instead of the sour cream.   Buy Uncle Ben’s® Jasmine rice, make an easy vinaigrette in the bottom of a salad bowl, add a large diced hothouse tomato and top with a bag of baby lettuces. Voilà!  Dinner is ready.

Try These French Country Cuisine Chicken Recipes:

• Easy Ficelle Picarde Recipe: A French Regional Specialty – Country Comfort Food
• White Coq Au Vin
• Cheesy Skillet Chicken Recipe
• Best Poulet Roti Au Four
• Sauteed Veal Kidneys In White Wine Sauce
• French Poule Au Pot Soup

With a busy day in store, instead of a tender juicy pork roast with roasted fingerlings and steamed vegetables so I opted of a quick and easy tarragon chicken recipe over buttered rice. The menu included a salad of mixed baby greens with a mustard vinaigrette.

Quick Poulet À L’Estragon

As quick and easy as this recipe is to prepare, I will say up front that I adjusted the ingredients to accommodate Mom’s restricted diet.

In its closest to “authentic” form, this dish is prepared with chunks of boneless and skinless chicken breasts but I have come across recipe variations where all chicken pieces were used.  Skin on! Personally, I believe that the skin imparts great flavor to any chicken dish so being as I never leave well enough alone… I would not have any second thoughts about using skin-on chicken breasts, thighs and drumsticks.

Chicken Breasts Or Thighs?

For this recipe, I purchased a family pack of boneless and skinless chicken thighs.  Why? Because Mom prefers dark meat and boneless makes it easier for her to eat unassisted.   Peripheral neuropathy is awful! Grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon leaves a lot to be desired.  Choices were limited at the local supermarket. The pack of whole organic cut chicken pieces was considerably more expensive than the skinless thighs. So I made an executive decision.

Ingredient Substitutions

At first, I thought I would use white wine as the braising liquid instead of rich chicken broth – maybe even organic bone broth which was lower in sodium than even “low sodium” broth! A combination of white wine and chicken broth is totally acceptable and that is what I opted for.  Creme Fraiche – 2 pack/8 oz.ea I used light sour cream for Mom’s special diet. A crème fraiche and a Béchamel type egg based sauce is more appropriate to achieve a very thick, rich and creamy coating for the chicken pieces. My sauce was “light” by comparison but very tasty nonetheless.

More Easy Substitutions!

We are lucky enough to find Vermont made Crème Fraîche at our local Wegmans® or Harris Teeter® markets.  But if you can’t find any to buy locally, make your own with this starter culture! At Wegman’s®, the cream is found with other imported creams and butters in the cold case across from the Cheese shop.  At Harris Teeter®, I found in the case with all imported cheeses and specialty items. Is Sherry vinegar not a pantry staple?  Buy a bottle of sherry cooking wine.  You will use the cooking wine faster than the vinegar. Shallots are a required ingredient but garlic is optional. To add another layer of flavor, instead of plain Dijon mustard, use Maille® with Tarragon!. It tastes fabulous in turkey sandwiches!

If you have an upscale market in your neighborhood, buy French crème fraîche épaisse to prepare the sauce.  Thanks to its high fat content ( a minimum of 30%), it is perfect when going for silky smoothness – and flavor – in the sauce.

Sour cream has a lower fat content and is well… slightly sour.    

Don’t Do This!

It never pays to be lazy and think that skipping a step in a recipe will be “all good” in the end.  No, it won’t. Won’t tell you how difficult it was to combine the cream with the braising liquid. Don’t do what I did last Sunday. Take the chicken out of the pan, stir in the cream to combine well then put the chicken back in the pan. I’ve been cooking for how many years? 😌

Low Sodium “Light” French Tarragon Chicken Recipe

Print  

To Make This Recipe…

I used Mom’s only large frying pan!  I decided not to travel with my personal kitchen tools on Sunday.  From experience, it would make it much easier to prepare this type of recipe in a something a little deeper than a regular frying pan.  Have a lid handy to prevent too much evaporation during the cooking process. Silicone kitchen spoons and silicone tipped tongs are super!  No worries about scratching the pan.  

Update(5/4/2018): Recipe With All The Calories!

The recipe was so easy to prepare a couple weeks ago that I prepared it again for a quick but special birthday dinner on Tuesday. This meal was not destined for Mom’s stringent diet so I decided to blow everyone’s diet. My verdict? Rich, super tasty and a really quick one pan meal.  The review below was written by a real foodie – one who’s sampled and reviewed menu offerings at some of the best restaurants from Washington D.C. to the Big Apple and beyond.

This chicken dish with tarragon is a delight for a family meal. The chicken’s savory sauce served with rice will have you wanting to lick the plate clean when no one is looking! A distinct and slightly tangy flavor might remind you of curry but with a less earthy flavor. Herbaceous and flavorful, French Tarragon Chicken will delight your whole family.  You’ll have to make more just to handle requests for seconds or thirds!

Tweaking The Ingredients

Although the chicken pictured in the image does not look as sautéed as in the top recipe, the instructions were followed to the letter with a few exceptions.

• Added 3 heaping teaspoons of Dijon to the crème fraîche
• Used a Dutch oven instead of a frying pan (lesson learned)
• I used 5 to 6 ounces of white wine instead of 8 ounces of chicken broth.  The wine was added to the pan as in the instructions above.  Added 2 teaspoons of chicken base to the wine/shallot mixture and stirred well to combine.   It may sound like very little liquid to braise the chicken but it turned out to be the perfect amount.
• Added the chicken pieces back to the Dutch oven, stirring to make sure the shallots were evenly distributed and covered with pan lid.

Simmered, covered, for 30 minutes.  Complete the recipe as above, using the crème fraîche instead of the sour cream.   Buy Uncle Ben’s® Jasmine rice, make an easy vinaigrette in the bottom of a salad bowl, add a large diced hothouse tomato and top with a bag of baby lettuces. Voilà!  Dinner is ready.

Try These French Country Cuisine Chicken Recipes:

• Easy Ficelle Picarde Recipe: A French Regional Specialty – Country Comfort Food
• White Coq Au Vin
• Cheesy Skillet Chicken Recipe
• Best Poulet Roti Au Four
• Sauteed Veal Kidneys In White Wine Sauce
• French Poule Au Pot Soup