The Boozy Ingredients You Need For Upscale Chicken à La King

Chicken à la King is a classy and comforting meal with pieces of chicken and vegetables in a creamy white sauce served on a bed of rice or over pasta. The standard ingredient for the savory sauce is chicken broth, but we have our own recipe for upscale chicken à la King that elevates the flavors by using dry white wine and sherry, thanks to Tasting Table recipe developer Jessica Morone. The boozy ingredients join chicken stock and heavy cream for layers of flavor in the creamy sauce.

"Using wine and sherry rather than just all chicken broth also gives the dish a more upscale flavor," explains Morone. It might sound fancy, but Monroe says you can "easily cook this on a weekday night."

When it comes to picking the white wine, go with a dry variety to avoid making your dish sweet. Try to find dry sherry as well, but you can also use whatever is in your kitchen. When you use wine and liquors in this recipe, some of the alcohol cooks out. But if you don't want any booze in your chicken, Morone says go with all chicken broth. Triple the amount of broth in this recipe to make up for the lack of wine and sherry.

Let's focus on how and when to add the booze to the savory white sauce. It's worth noting that there are other steps, like marinating the chicken for 30 minutes, before it's time to cook the sauce. For the sauce, you'll need a quarter cup each of dry white wine and sherry along with heavy cream, butter, lemon juice, chicken broth, pepper, salt, and flour.

Before the booze, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot and ready to go, add the carrots and mushrooms and cook until tender. Next comes butter to cook the chopped shallots. Morone considers the shallots to be one of the key ingredients to this recipe because they have "a milder sweeter flavor." You'll add flour to thicken the sauce, then it's time to deglaze the pan with the sherry, dry white wine, chicken broth, and heavy cream. All that's left is to cook the sauce until it thickens then add chicken and peas. When it's ready, Monroe says to serve it with rice, pasta, or biscuits and garnish with freshly chopped parsley.