What is Picatta Sauce?
Picatta is an Italian dish of veal that is sliced, sautéed and served with a lemon-caper butter sauce. The style of cooking and delicious sauce has been applied more commonly to chicken in the USA, but it also works perfectly for pork and so… pork picatta!
How to Make Pork Picatta
Pork picatta starts with a pork tenderloin – one of the most tender cuts of pork. The first step in making anything picatta is to slice it, so the tenderloin is sliced into pieces that are about 1½-inches thick and then pounded thin. Dredge the pork in seasoned flour and jump into the second picatta step – sauté it to give it a nice brown color on both sides, just barely cooking it through. The third step is to make the picatta sauce, which comes together in less than 10 minutes with shallots, garlic, chicken stock, lemon juice, capers, butter and parsley. Return the pork to the pan, and you’re done!
Substitute for Capers in Picatta
Capers are a delicious, briney, salty ingredient that I love in so many dishes, but there are folks who just don’t like them. One important step when using capers is to rinse them before adding them to a recipe. Many people forget about (or didn’t know in the first place) rinsing capers. If you’re one of those people who don’t like capers, perhaps you didn’t rinse them first? If I can’t convince you to jump on the caper band wagon even after you’ve rinsed them, try substituting chopped green olives in this recipe instead.
What to Serve with Picatta
I love pork picatta over thin angel hair or spaghetti, but any long pasta will do – fettucine, pappardelle egg noodles, etc.. If you’re not one for pasta, picatta would also be delicious with some mashed potatoes or basmati rice to soak up the sauce. Then, a side salad or a cooked vegetable like broccoli or asparagus would be a good choice. A glass of white wine next to the plate would make it perfect!
Absolutely delicious!!! But yours always are.
Do you really mean 1 inch flatten to 3/4 inch? How about 1/2 inch flatten to 1/4 inch?
Hi David. Yes, I flatten the pork to about ¾-inch thick. That is thick enough so that it gets some color on the outside without drying out inside. If you’d prefer them thinner, you can certainly do that, but make sure you reduce the cooking time in the pan too.
ML
The veal piccata recipe is awesome! Tasty, flavorful, made me look like a real chef the only thing missing was a big puffy white hat! I did omit the capers, I am not a fan of capers and I did substitute onions for the shallots because onions is what I had on hand and I was anxious to get this recipe going! Delicious… Simply delicious! I want to impress your company: MAKE THIS!!!
Like the pork piccata recipe. I can’t use chicken anything- I am allergic- what can I replace with- vegetable stock?wine
Yes, you can substitute vegetable stock or mushroom stock would be nice too.
I was looking for something easy for dinner tonight, and I just happened to find my Blue Jean Chef newsletter for Quick and Easy Dinners in my email. I took a look and saw this recipe, so I made it. Wow! It’s a knockout! I used boneless pork chops that I just cut in half and pounded out instead of the pork tenderloin, and it was delicious! My wife took one bite and said it must be added to our favorites immediately.
Three tablespoons capers???? One clove garlic??? You must be kidding! This dish had the potential to be a great recipe but the ingredients were either too heavy handed….capers or not enough…garlic. Lemon slices, lemon juice, shallots combined with a gallatically heavy use of capers was way off the mark. My lips are still puckered up a day later. Will try again but NOT as you recommend.
Hi Bill. The beauty of cooking at home is that you can tailor recipes to suit different tastes. I am not a lover of garlic and more than one clove would do me in, but you should feel free to add as much as you like. As for the capers, make sure you drain and rinse capers before you use them and don’t add the brine that they come in. That takes away the acid and leaves you with a salty ingredient instead. The cup of chicken stock and 2 tablespoons of butter to ¼ cup of lemon juice should be enough fat to counteract the acid in the recipe, but again, if you don’t like acidic ingredients decrease the amount of fresh lemon juice that you are using to make this recipe your own. Hope you do find a version that you like.
ML
Made this dish tonight and absolutely loved it! Great way to use a pork tenderloin and was really simple to make. Thanks for an amazing recipe!
Thanks I haven’t made this in a looong time so I forgot. I used to sneak anchovies into sauce for briny taste and no-one knew. Thanks for reminding me and bringing it back
Can this be made with chicken as well?
Sure! Just slice the chicken into thin medallions and/or pound them to an even thickness.
I just made this for my family. It was delicious. Even my husband who steers clear of lemony foods raved. Meredith, you are the best. It came together very nicely, easy dish.
can this be made the day before and reheated for next day lunch?
Sure, Patricia!
This is the simplest picatta recipe I’ve found and it’s delicious. Quick, easy, delicious what more could you ask for. It’s become part of my regular rotation.
Absolutely delicious!!
I just finished eating this and had to stop in to comment. This was excellent! I used thin boneless pork chops and pounded them even thinner, then cut into medallion like pieces. Can’t wait to try with the pork tenderloin though. Only thing I did different was cut the chicken stock and the lemon and capers back by half since I was only cooking for 2. This will be in my regular rotation now and will definitely try with chicken as well. The method and instructions were very thorough and easy to follow! Give this one a try and don’t forget if you don’t like a lot of capers or lemon just use less and it will be delicious!
Absolutely delicious! Rave reviews from my husband.
This recipe was perfect. All flavors were balanced. No changes needed.
This is a keeper.
Thank you Meredith
This was delicious! I didn’t have a whole lemon so I just used lemon juice. I also used onions instead of shallots and I added a jar of artichoke hearts. I also added some white wine and a little flour to the sauce. We will definitely have it again!
Absolutely beautiful I added a bit more liquid and had it on top of fettuccine.
Will definitely be adding this to my favourites. I will also try this with chicken
Delicious! I didn’t have flour or a lemon or capers so used bottled lemon juice and no flour and chopped kalamata olives. My husband loved it too 😁
Made this tonight. So easy and delicious. A nice new addition to my collection!
Tender and delicious! I’ve made this a few times and it always comes out great. Thanks!