Chicken francese – or francaise, as some spell it – is a light and bright dish perfect for quick yet homey dinners. The dish’s name means French-style chicken. Ironically, the Italian-American community, not the French, brought it to the US. Regardless, people from all backgrounds enjoy it.
While speaking of enjoying chicken francese, here’s a tip: it’s best to serve it with these side dishes: carbs, veggies, and salads. Carbs, like pasta and bread, help absorb the sauce. Meanwhile, veggies and salads provide freshness and nutrients. You’ll find options and recipe ideas about what to serve with chicken francese for all those types in this article.
1. Garlic Knots
Carb-based side dishes, like bread and pasta, are perfect for chicken francese because they are great for soaking up sauces. Some classic choices are garlic bread, dinner rolls, breadsticks, and bread twists. However, make these garlic knots if you want something bite-sized yet packed with flavor! They offer intense garlic, buttery, and herby flavors. To sum up, these knots are cute and intricate versions of garlic bread.
2. French Baguette
Crusty and artisan bread types, like a French baguette, are also fantastic with chicken francese. Like garlic-flavored bread, they absorb the lemon sauce well. Their texture is also remarkable: crisp outside, with a fluffy and airy interior. The catch is that making these types of bread takes time and effort. Indeed, even this “quick, easy” baguette recipe isn’t so quick – it takes more than two hours to complete!
3. Rice
If you prefer something other than bread, rice is an excellent carb-based alternative. While often associated with Asian dishes, rice works well with many dishes, especially saucy ones like chicken francese. Moreover, it takes less effort and time to make than homemade bread. You can cook it over the stove, in the oven, or a microwave. Life tip, though, stovetop rice is the best.
4. Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are often served with gravy on top. But imagine replacing that gravy with chicken francese’s lemon butter sauce? If you love the idea, check out this recipe for homemade mashed potatoes! It has a melt-on-your-mouth creamy texture, as well as incredible flavor. However, you can only achieve that using starchy potatoes like Russets or Yukon Golds. Remember that when you’re grabbing ingredients.
5. Homemade Pasta
Simple, cooked pasta is the usual side dish for chicken francese because you can use the sauce to coat the pasta strands. You can use any type, but the most recommended are fettuccine, spaghetti, linguine, angel hair, and penne. This recipe teaches you how to make three of those at home! It can be intimidating and takes more time and effort than boxed pasta, but the quality is irresistible.
6. Creamy Garlic Buttered Noodles
You can rely on your chicken francese to flavor your noodles or pasta. But if you want your side dish to have a unique taste that can contribute to the meal, make these creamy garlic buttered noodles. It’s savory, delicious, and rich, perfect for elevating a simple dinner. Moreover, its flavors don’t wholly deviate from chicken francese because it has a touch of lemon juice for tanginess.
7. Scalloped Potatoes
Layered potato dishes, like scalloped potatoes or au gratin, bring elegance to a meal. Thus, if you want a fancy dinner vibe, serve your chicken francese with either. The differences between the two are subtle, with scalloped potatoes often described as simpler. Either way, they’re creamy, cheesy, and delectable. However, these scalloped potatoes’ flavors may be sharper because cheddar cheese is used.
8. Roasted Asparagus
Chicken francese with asparagus is a timeless combination. Firstly, asparagus is effortless to make: you lay the spears on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil, season, and wait for it to bake! It can’t get any easier than that, can it? Besides the convenience, asparagus is delicious and healthy and perfectly balances crisp and tender textures. Lastly, it’s quick: within fifteen minutes, you already have a hot side dish!
9. Glazed Carrots
Steamed and roasted carrots make great side dishes. But if you want to maximize the sweetness carrots offer, make this glazed carrots recipe. It draws out the veggies’ natural sugars and makes them tender. Besides that, it builds on those sugars by coating the carrots with a glaze made from maple syrup, butter, and lemon juice. Hence, aside from the sweetness, you get hints of tanginess and butteriness.
10. Oven Roasted Vegetables
This oven-roasted vegetables recipe is perfect for those who don’t want to choose between one or two vegetables. With this, broccoli, cauliflower, portobello mushrooms, baby carrots, bell peppers, and onions are on one plate. The medley of caramelized tastes, textures, and colors is impressive, but that’s not all there is to it. The veggies are also flavored with Italian seasoning, olive oil, pepper, and salt!
11. Garden Salad
Garden salads are fresh and delicious but also highly customizable. Indeed, hardly two recipes are the same. For instance, this one from Veena Azmanov has lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, parsley, hard-boiled eggs, strawberries, pomegranate seeds, and cheddar cheese. Some elements are classic to garden salads, but some are unique. Thus, when making one, feel free to switch up anything according to your taste and preference!
12. Italian Salad
Honor chicken francese’s Italian-American roots by serving it with a hearty and delicious Italian salad. It has Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, artichokes, tomatoes, black olives, avocado, parmesan cheese, and croutons. You can also add some pepperoncini and Italian meats, such as salami! But what makes this salad special is the homemade dressing, consisting of Italian parsley, basil, oregano, garlic, red wine vinegar, white sugar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
13. Caesar Salad
A classic Caesar salad makes an excellent tandem with chicken dishes, including chicken francese. It shares elements with Italian salad, like the lettuce and croutons, but Caesar has a fresher and lighter feel. It may be because it only has three distinct components: Romaine lettuce, croutons, and Parmesan cheese. Despite such superficial simplicity, the dressing is unique, made from anchovies, garlic, eggs, mustard, lemon juice, oil, parmesan, and pepper.
