Chicken Marsala is an Italian-inspired cuisine because it’s flavored with Marsala wine. Specifically, the sweet, dry wine is used to make a rich, savory sauce poured over the sauteed chicken. For a deeper flavor, you can also braise the chicken in Marsala.
The Marsala sauce is the essential element in the dish – it provides bold flavors, creamy textures, and juicy moisture. Thus, you need to know what to serve with chicken marsala and choose the side dishes that soak them up excellently so you get all that flavor in your meal. All these recipes are great for that job, so try them!
1. Brown Butter Garlic Angel Hair Pasta
Chicken Marsala is fantastic when served on top of pasta, as the noodles take in the luxurious, flavorful sauce. Among the many pasta types, the most recommended is angel hair, which is thin and long. Its peculiar shape makes it perfect for dishes like Marsala sauce, as it efficiently absorbs delicate flavors. Moreover, this recipe’s buttery and garlicky flavors suit the chicken marsala well.
2. Perfect Polenta
Polenta is an Italian dish – like chicken marsala – that’s perfectly golden, creamy, buttery, and smooth. It’s made primarily from cornmeal, and this recipe cooks it in chicken broth. Doing so not only makes the polenta more flavorful, but it also matches better with the chicken marsala flavors. Serve it while warm with butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano on top; once it becomes cold, it hardens, so be careful.
3. Steamed Rice
Hardly any other dish absorbs sauces and flavors better than simple steamed white rice. With rice, the flavors are plain, almost unnoticeable; thus, the focus is on the textures. Perfect steamed white rice is fluffy, tender, and perfectly cooked, and while that seems hard to achieve at first, it gets easier over time. The key is getting down that perfect water-to-rice ratio.
4. Cauliflower Rice
If you can’t tolerate carbs, that’s alright – there are still low-carb dishes that make perfect sauce absorbers, like this cauliflower rice! As the name implies, it’s a healthy alternative to traditional rice, although the flavors and textures are naturally different. Cauliflower is pretty bland, so the entree’s flavors shine when you combine it with flavorful dishes like chicken marsala.
5. Italian Four Cheese Risotto
Risotto, an Italian recipe, is another way of serving rice, but it is much creamier than simply steaming or boiling it. This recipe combines it with several Italian kinds of cheese, like fontal, gorgonzola, parmesan, and gruyere, which all have varying and distinct tastes. Thus, the resulting flavor profile is complex, and the texture is much creamier than in other risotto recipes.
6. Herbed Couscous
Couscous is a pearl-shaped pasta-like food made from wheat flour and semolina. Its origins are in Israel, but it has become famous worldwide as it’s a unique alternative to pasta. This herbed couscous recipe keeps the flavors simple; thus, it blends well as a side dish to more flavorful dishes, like chicken marsala. It takes only 25 minutes to prepare and cook, too!
7. Dinner Rolls
Bread is a classic and excellent tandem to chicken marsala because it efficiently absorbs the sauce and its flavors. It also feels light but makes the meal much more filling. A type of bread you can serve with chicken marsala is simple dinner rolls. They’re perfectly fluffy, soft, buttery, quintessential pairing to delicious dinner dishes that melt on your tongue.
8. Crusty Italian Bread
Crusty Italian bread makes a classic combination with chicken marsala. It provides a fantastic aroma and unique textures, with a crisp exterior and tender, fluffy interior. Also, it calls for four essential ingredients only: flour, yeast, salt, and water. The catch, though, is it takes time to make – four hours alone for leavening – so while it isn’t a quick side dish recipe, it’s perfect for special occasions.
9. Parmesan Smashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are fantastic with chicken marsala. You can have the meat served on the bed of potatoes, with gravy pouring over it – perfection! But if you don’t have the time to make the creamiest and smoothest mashed potatoes, try making smashed potatoes instead! They’re more rustic and effortless, as you only have to smash them with a fork; however, the flavors are similar – buttery, creamy, and cheesy.
10. Roasted Asparagus with Lemon, Butter, and Parmesan
Crisp-tender asparagus is an impeccable side dish for chicken marsala, especially along with mashed potatoes. It provides vibrant yet simple colors and flavors, enough to bring out some freshness in the meal without being overwhelming. The delicate taste profile is also satisfying, as this recipe perfectly blends the flavors of lemon, butter, and parmesan.
11. Tuscan White Beans
Tuscan white beans are an underrated Italian side dish you should try with chicken marsala. They’re amazingly tender and smooth, and the taste profile is fantastic, with prominent olive oil and bean flavors. You’ll also get a hint of nuttiness when you use cannellini or great northern beans. The recipe author further improved this classic dish by adding fried sage and capers.
12. Zucchini Noodles
Healthy side dishes are growing in abundance and popularity, and one of them is these zucchini noodles. You can use them in place of pasta, and while the textures and flavors are noticeably different, it isn’t in a bad way. Instead, you’re getting a load of freshness and nutrients without the excessive amount of carbs you’d get from usual pasta.
13. Italian Green Salad
Another excellent option for the health-conscious is a simple Italian green salad. It’s fresh, light, and, more importantly, packed with nutrients from the veggies and other ingredients. Many elements go into this dish, like lettuce, pepperoni, croutons, cheese, and homemade dressing. However, you can customize it by replacing the greens, replacing the croutons, or even removing the pepperoni from the list.
