This New York restaurant-style Chicken Saltimbocca is served with a silky white wine sauce that will make you feel like you're sitting in a dark Italian restaurant somewhere in the Bronx! Chicken Saltimbocca is thinly sliced chicken breast topped with sage and prosciutto, lightly fried, and finished in a rich lemon wine sauce, perfect for a special dinner!

Chicken saltimbocca on a serving plate topped with fresh sage leaves.

If you love classics like saltimbocca, you'll loveAuthentic Italian Braciole, Easy Chicken Cacciatore, or Italian Baked Ziti.

A Quick Look at The Recipe

✅Recipe Name: Chicken Saltimbocca
⏲️Ready in: 45 minutes
👪Makes: 6 servings
📋Main ingredients: Chicken breast, prosiciutto, sage, and white wine.
⭐Why You'll Love This Recipe: This recipe will make you feel like your eating at a top notch New York Red Sauce joint with simple high quality ingredients that bring out the natural flavors of these fresh ingredients.

[feast_advanced_jump_to]

Why this Recipe

Chicken Saltimbocca is a classic Italian-American adaptation of the Italian Veal Saltimbocca. It's a crispy pan fried chicken breast topped with sage leaves and prosciutto di parma, finished in our lemon/white wine butter sauce.

When I first attempted to recreate chicken saltimbocca, I ended up with a Spicy Chicken with Prosciutto and Cheese. Definitely not the classic saltimbocca that I remembered. But still a classic in my mind, though, as a learning experience of course.

Saltimbocca has always been one of my favorite chicken/veal dishes, although Chicken Piccata is a close second. This dish is delicately cooked with the perfect white wine butter sauce. It's delicious, and with a little patience, it's not too difficult to make.

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

Chicken breast: Saltimbocca is traditionally made in veal in Italy, but like most Italian recipes that came over to America, chicken has replaced veal because it is more accessible. Veal is more tender than chicken breast so in order to make it tender, chicken breast needs to be sliced thin and pounded. The same technique works when making Chicken Marsala vs. Authentic Veal Marsala.
Prosciutto: This salty and crispy addition to saltimbocca is a signature piece of the dish. The best prosciutto is sliced fresh that day so try to avoid buying packaged when possible.
Sage: Sage is what makes saltimbocca such a unique flavor. While most recipes just place a sage leaf underneath each piece of prosciutto, I find that my technique of flavoring the oil with sage adds to the flavor of the whole dish.
White Wine: I use sauvignon blanc for this recipe. You want to stick with something dry to avoid adding unneccesary sweetness to the dish.
Butter: Cold unsalted butter needs to be used to finish the sauce and give it its thick silky texture and rich flavor. Room temperature butter will not emulsify and can end up breaking the sauce. See Pro-Tips below on how to fix a broken sauce.

*Please see the recipe card below for more information on the ingredients.

How to Make Chicken Saltimbocca

A true saltimbocca is a difficult dish because the thinly sliced chicken can overcook quickly, similar to Authentic Veal Marsala. The sauce can turn into a watery mess. Or the prosciutto can cook into a gray piece of bologna.

I have made all of these mistakes. This recipe works because it takes you step-by-step through the process and explains each step and how to fix any mistakes.

Prepping chicken breast for saltimbocca.

Step 1: Prepare chicken by slicing it thin and pounding it out with a meat tenderizer. Normally, saltimbocca is made with veal, not chicken. Veal is thinner and more tender than chicken, so it is important that we make the chicken as tender as the veal can be. Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper.

Topping chicken breast with sage leaves and prosciutto.

Step 2: Top each chicken cutlet with 1 sage leaf and then a slice of prosciutto. Smack the prosciutto on, to make it stick. When I say smack it on, I'm being literal. Place the prosciutto over the sage and smack it. This will adhere it to the chicken.

Frying chicken with prosciutto, prosciutto side down.

Step 3: In a large frying pan, heat 2 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. Dredge the chicken in flour. Place the chicken, prosciutto side down for 30 seconds, and then flip to the chicken side. You want the prosciutto to become crispy but not overcook. Frying the prosciutto for too long will leave it dull and flavor less.

Frying chicken in olive oil and transferring to a cooling rack.

Step 4: Pan fry chicken side down for 3-4 minutes until the chicken becomes golden brown. Transfer the chicken to a cooling rack.

Making a lemon white wine sauce with fond from the chicken.

Step 5: Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the same pan you cooked the chicken and lower the heat to medium. Take sage leaves and stir them in the olive oil for fifteen seconds. Then add in the lemon juice and white wine. Bring to a simmer and use a wooden spoon to break up all the brown bits (fond) on the pan. Reduce the sauce by half.

Finishing the chicken in the lemon white wine sauce.

Step 6: Once the sauce is simmering, return the chicken to the sauce and simmer until the chicken reaches 160°F. Then remove the chicken from the sauce.

Step 7: Turn off the heat and add the chopped cold butter to the sauce. Keep stirring until the butter complete mixes in (emulsifies) with the sauce.

Returning the chicken to the finished sauce.

Step 8: Return the chicken to the sauce or pour the sauce over your chicken and serve!

Serve Chicken Saltimbocca over Stewed Italian Broad Beans (Fava Beans) or with Crispy Garlic Parmesan Potatoes! It also goes perfectly with Sauteed Rapini with Garlic and Mushroom Truffle Risotto.

Pro-Tip

Dredge in flour immediately before frying. If you dredge even 10 minutes in advance, the chicken will start to soak up the flour and be more likely to stick to the pan.
When searing the prosciutto side, you're trying to get the slightest crust on the prosciutto. You're not cooking it. So just 30 seconds on that side is plenty.
It is very easy for the white wine sauce to separate and become oily. It should be an opaque yellowish color. If you start seeing the oil separate, add 2 tablespoon of water. Stir it and it should come together and look yellowish and creamy again.
The prosciutto and chicken naturally hold together, but you can use a toothpick to thread through the prosciutto and chicken to help it stick if you are worried about it.

Reheating Chicken Saltimbocca

This dish is not easy to reheat because of how thin the chicken is. It is best served fresh because of this. The microwave will dry out the chicken and the taste will not be the same because the prosciutto will overcook.

When reheating, add a tablespoon of butter in a pan with the remaing sauce over low heat. Once the sauce begins to liquify, add the chicken in and heat until 160°F. This is how I reheat it, and it is very close to tasting fresh!

Recipe FAQs

What Does chicken saltimbocca taste like?

The most abundant flavor is the sage which is leveled out by the bright lemon wine sauce and savory prosciutto.

Is Chicken Saltimbocca difficult to make?

Yes. A Restaurant-style chicken saltimbocca is a difficult dish but can absolutely be mastered by reading THIS BLOG. It's important to know what steps are coming next because everything happens quickly with saltimbocca. It took me a couple of times to get the sauce right!

What is Chicken Saltimbocca sauce made of?

The sauce that chicken saltimbocca is finished in is a simple lemon and white wine sauce with butter. Simple flavors highlighting the chicken and prosciutto.

Why did my saltimbocca sauce separate?

Likely because the butter wasn't cold and melted into the sauce too quickly or because the heat was still on when you added the butter. Not to worry. A little splash of water or lemon whisked into the sauce will help pull it back together.