This family recipe dates back to my grandmother’s French grandparents. On any website, I have never seen a recipe like this. It’s a thick, creamy sauce that goes well with chicken and mashed potatoes. A wonderful dish for Christmas or Easter.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 30 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup margarine
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- 4 egg yolks
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch, or as needed (Optional)
- 4 cooked chicken breasts, broken into chunks
Instructions
- Mix flour and margarine together in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the flour and margarine form a paste.
- Whisk cream into flour mixture about 1/2 cup at a time until smoothly combined; whisk in chicken broth and parsley. Bring sauce to a simmer, whisking constantly until thickened.
- Whisk egg yolks and lemon juice together in a bowl.
- Whisk egg yolk mixture slowly into cream mixture, about 1 tablespoon at a time, until the sauce barely comes to a simmer and coats the back of a spoon. Do not boil.
- If thicker sauce is desired, whisk cornstarch and 1/4 cup of sauce in a small bowl; stir cornstarch mixture back into sauce until thickened, about 2 minutes.
- Stir chicken breast pieces into sauce until chicken is heated through.
- To make a lighter version, use light cream, low-sodium chicken broth, and light margarine.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 693 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 13 g |
| Cholesterol | 415 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 23 g |
| Saturated Fat | 31 g |
| Sodium | 703 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 62 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I can’t tell you how happy I was to come across this recipe. I was raised in the 60’s so the lunch women actually cooked our food from scratch. It was so good that they published a recipe book. Unfortunately ours disappeared. One of my fave lunch’s was Chicken Fricasse over potatos. I’ve tried every recipe I’ve come across but this is the ONLY one that tastes as good as I remember. It’s funny that you mention it is your French grandma’s recipe. The school cook was Miss Boisvert! You’ve made this old gal a happy baby boomer! PS… I could tell by the color and texture of the sauce in your pic that this one was going to be a winner. None of the other’s even came close…
This is a great base recipe. My mom used to make this all the time except she’d use whole milk instead of heavy cream. She also started adding a Rosemary sprig from her garden into the white sauce. We’d put it on white rice, crumble some bacon on top and Yum! So, so good.
I made this instead of turkey for Thanksgiving, 2020. It’s going to be creamy and lovely with roasted red potatoes and roasted broccoli. I am letting it sit for a couple hours to let the juices settle. Yum!
I think this dish is simple and delicious! I can’t understand why someone would write anything negative about it. If desired, add onions or veggies. But it definitely doesn’t deserve a negative review. It’s so hard to believe that grown adults cannot mind their manners and feel the need to write such awful things. Some people need to grow up and learn some respect. I give this recipe 5 stars because there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I personally will probably add onions to the margarine flour mix at the beginning next time. I put it over rice and steamed broccoli. My mother makes a very similar sauce and adds the onions to it. She uses the sauce to make a broccoli and cauliflower casserole. This is a simple recipe that is delicious. It’s like comfort food to me 🙂
I made this recipe as prescribed to give it the benefit of the doubt. I wish I hadn’t. 1/4 cup of lemon juice? The end result of that particular ingredient is a disgusting and inedible waste of food!
The secret is, it has no taste. Where’s the onions, celery, garlic, salt, pepper…ANYTHING! This is NOT Chicken Fricassee. This is chicken in a yellow gravy. Sorry.
This was okay. I liked it, though not necessarily enough to cook it again, but my husband couldn’t eat it. However, he won’t eat several creamy sauces. The chicken and sauce was good served on the mashed potatoes. My sauce separated but tasted fine.
Tastes really good, similar to hollandaise sauce. It tasted even better with the mashed potatoes. I think next time I will put some veggies in it and try it with noodles or rice. I also wonder how I can make it not separate, it was probably the margarine I was using but it sucks when it separates because it doesn’t look as appetizing as it really is. Also the recipe makes a ton which is why next time I will half it. of course I didn’t use 4 chicken breasts because we usually get full with 2 or 3 cut up in sauce no matter what it is. But I don’t think 4 chicken breasts would suffice with the amount it makes. definitely worth trying and tweaking to your tastes although the original is still very good!
This is really tasty! You can use skim milk you’ll just need to add a little more flour for your roux. Don’t let this recipe intimidate you, its easy and great for leftover chicken!